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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 |
Grumpy Old Pitchers
The 2004 offseason has been a banner year for older pitchers. With more senior marquee pitchers moved than in any previous hot stove I can think of, the question has to be, qui bono? Who benefits? Let us first state a few ground rules:
- The pitcher must have changed teams from 2003 to 2004.
- The pitcher must be 37 or older. This is something of an arbitrary cutoff, but there's a convenient break in the numbers of 36-year-olds and below.
- The pitcher must have thrown 100 or more innings in 2003.
- The pitcher's age is taken from Baseball Prospectus' 2004 PECOTA projections data.
- I use Baseball Prospectus' VORP as the means for assessing player performance. You can find a definition of VORP here. Essentially, it tells you the theoretical number of runs a player will contribute over a league average replacement player (hence, "Value Over Replacement Player"). Its unit, therefore, is the run.
| 2004 Projected | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher | Age | Team | VORP | ERA |
| Kevin Brown | 39 | Yankees | 38.9 | 3.58 |
| Roger Clemens | 39 | Astros | 32.8 | 3.58 |
| Greg Maddux | 38 | Cubs | 33.8 | 3.56 |
| Kenny Rogers | 39 | Rangers | 16.3 | 5.32 |
| Curt Schilling | 37 | Red Sox | 55.8 | 3.35 |
| David Wells | 41 | Padres | 29.5 | 4.05 |
So, the question is, which of these guys is most likely to help his team the most? Based on VORP alone, the answer is Schilling, who towers over the rest. But that doesn't consider the replacement guys. Let's look at whose innings these guys will be eating:
Brown
Brown replaces, depending on how you look at it, either David Wells or Andy Pettite. Javier Vazquez and his 61.7 projected 2004 VORP will replace Clemens, essentially functioning as the staff ace. Looking at both pitchers' 2003 actual and 2004 VORP brings an interesting picture to bear:
| 2003 actual | 2004 Proj. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher | ERA | VORP | ERA | VORP |
| Andy Pettitte | 4.02 | 24.7 | 3.79 | 34.6 |
| David Wells | 4.14 | 36.1 | 3.68 | 29.5 |
Brown clearly marks a step up from the 2003 version of either of these guys, Wells especially so. But it's not a huge step up, and it has to come with the caveat that Brown has substantial injury risk at this point, as the Dodgers well know. Brown 2004 represents, essentially, David Wells 2003. If you're the Yankees, though, you're kicking yourself for not re-signing Pettitte, as Brown is done after 2005, but Pettitte still has a lot of gas left in the tank. I'm going to say Brown replaces Pettitte, as they are the most similar.
Clemens
Clemens' unretirement was something of a surprise to me, though Bosox fans might have a different opinion given his rancorous exit from that club. He replaces Ron Villone, for whom PECOTA projects a 7.9 VORP, one of the lowest in these ratings. Clemens should upgrade the rotation by nearly 25 runs, provided he actually pitches similar numbers of innings.Maddux
The Cubs situation with Maddux bears startling resemblance to the Astros, except that Maddux is a year younger than Clemens, and he replaces Shawn Estes as the ERA-challenged pitcher getting the boot. As Estes projects to a VORP of only 1.8, though, the 2004 improvement is even bigger, 32 runs.Rogers
Which awful pitcher does Kenny Rogers replace? Judging by the roster, I'll say it was John Thomson, he of the 22.1 2003 VORP. Thomson's projected 2004 VORP is 24.0; of everyone on this list, he actually represents a step down from what he replaced, leading me to question whether anyone in the Rangers organization can recognize quality pitching (or whether PECOTA has lost its mind on this one). This is a -7.7 run "improvement", or a drop of 7.7 runs.Schilling
Curt replaces John Burkett, whose 13.7 2003 VORP got frighteningly close to zero. With the hitter-happy AL East, that just won't cut it, and the Sox wisely let him go. Burkett's 17.8 2004 projected VORP represents a bounceback, but with Schilling so much higher at 55.8, the run gap of 38 is insurmountable.Wells
Of all the pitchers on this list, Wells' standalone effect on the team is most difficult to gauge, because he's actually going to replace not one but one and a quarter other pitchers, specifically, innings eaten in 2003 by Kevin Jarvis, and possibly, one of their 1-3 rotation guys, Lawrence, Peavy, and Eaton, the latter three returning in 2004. The Padres suffered mightily from injury last year, and it shows in their rotation's innings pitched. There's a steep cutoff after Eaton, whose 183 IP ranked third. Wells went the distance last year with 213 IP, but given his injury history, whether he gets that far in 2004 is a big question mark. His projected 29.5 VORP still towers over Jarvis' 10.4 2004 projection, for a 19.1 run improvement. But that has to be watered down with the knowledge that the gain won't, in practice be so large because Wells isn't going to replace just one player.Conclusion
In short, the Sox accomplished the most by their offseason acquisition, followed by the Cubs, Astros, Padres, Yankees, and Rangers, the latter actually managing to make their pitching worse. That the Yanks pitching turns into a wash (at least, so far as Brown is concerned) shows how far down their player development has gone, and how foolish it was to let Pettitte go.
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