6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

The Ghost of Postseasons Past

• one scoreless inning in relief in game 2 of the 1997 NLDS against the Braves, and
• a 6.2-inning start for Houston in game 2 of the 1999 NLDS, again against Atlanta. Lima lost the game on four earned runs, none of them homers.

A Tour Through Lima's Less-Than-Fabulous Career

                                                             Team
Year  Team  GS   W-L     IP   ERA   K/9   K/BB   G/F   P/IP   DER   VORP
=========================================================================
1994   DET   1   0-1    6.2  13.50  9.45  2.33  1.29   20.7  .6938  -5.1
1995   DET  15	 3-9   73.2   6.11  4.52  2.06  1.03   16.2  .6770   0.0
1996   DET   4   5-6   72.2   5.70  7.31  2.68  1.46   16.3  .6717   7.6
1997   HOU   1   1-6   75.0   5.28  7.56  3.94  0.77   14.9  .6945   1.7
1998   HOU  33  16-8  233.1   3.70  6.52  5.28  1.09   14.5  .6933  47.2
1999   HOU  35 21-10  246.1   3.58  6.83  4.25  1.33   14.7  .6742  61.2
2000   HOU  33  7-16  196.1   6.65  5.68  1.82  0.92   16.3  .6795 -14.8
2001   HOU   9   1-2   53.0   7.30  6.96  2.56  1.12   17.2  .6925 -13.6
2001   DET  18	5-10  112.2   4.71  3.44  1.96  1.01   14.4  .6765   9.8
2002   DET  12   4-6   68.1   7.77  4.35  1.57  0.74   16.0  .6818 -14.6
2003   KC   14   8-3   73.1   4.91  3.93  1.23  0.89   16.6  .6914   9.7
2004   LA   24  13-5  170.1   4.07  4.91  2.74  1.24   14.2  .7147  28.0

In the 1996/1997 offseason, he found himself traded to Houston, which in those days still played in the Astrodome -- a slight pitcher's park. The park he left, Tigers Stadium was more-or-less balanced, but slightly favoring hitters. Also, the quality of the defense behind him took a huge leap forward (two percentage points); the Astros at the time were in the middle of the National League defensively. When the team moved him into the rotation in 1998, Lima responded with the best year of his career, and an even better one in 1999, despite a precipitous decline in the team's defense (Houston ended the year last in the league in DER).

Then in 2000, the team moved to Enron Field Minute Maid Park, a notorious hitter's park. The defense hadn't recovered from its collapse in 1999. Also, Lima chose an unusually bad time to suddenly lose his command, falling from a 4.25 K/BB in 1999 to a career low 1.82 K/BB in 2000. As well, his strikeout rate dropped over a full point, and he found himself losing twice as many games as he won. The whole team got clobbered by the longball in 2000, giving up 131 homers that year; in 1999, they only surrendered 53, an increase of 147%.

Lima exploded, giving up 27 home runs, more than four times his previous year's total.

In 2001, Lima had even worse numbers. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA card said of his 2001 season with Houston:

... it’s only too easy to blame his execrable season on a lack of focus. One thing is clear: it wasn’t the park. Lima had a 6.32 ERA and gave up 21 home runs in 88 innings on the road.

In 2002, his stock had fallen so far that he was relegated to the pen, used chiefly as a swingman with an occaisional spot start. His peripherals no better than the previous year, the last straw came when he gave up eleven runs of a 12-3 drubbing at the hands of the A's. He would pitch no more innings for the Tigers, who had seen enough, and released him on September 9th.

In 2003, the Royals picked him up. Despite pitching in Kauffman Stadium, one of the league's more extreme hitter's parks, and despite peripherals similar to his previous forgettable year in Detroit, the defensive improvement behind him -- and a point and a half decline in his H/9 rate -- made him almost look tolerable again.

Thence to Los Angeles. In front of the league's best defense, Lima sparkled. His K/9 went up a whole point, and his control dramatically increased, nearly doubling his K/BB rate from the previous year. Unlike the previous two years, he started getting grounders again -- and those the sterling Dodger defense could turn into outs for him. As well, his P/IP dropped over two pitcher per inning, a huge improvement that led the Dodgers to work him into the rotation. It would be his third best year measured by VORP and won-loss records, and his best ERA since the last year with Houston in the Astrodome.

Conclusion

The big problem for Paul DePodesta is identifying which combination of dollars and years would be appropriate here, while realizing he's actually a 3-4 starter who had a career game at Chavez Ravine on October 9th. Outside of the latter feat, he's exactly the kind of pitcher the team has too many of now -- and saying that means he's an impediment to improving. Without surveying the market, my off-the-cuff guesstimate is to offer him $6M for two years. He hasn't had two consistent good years since 1998-1999, and I wouldn't place any bets beyond that now.

// posted by Rob @ 5:14 PM link  //  1 comments