MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Starting Pitchers, Part 3
November 5, 2010 at 3:21 pm | Posted in Carlos Monasterios, Charlie Haeger, Ramon Ortiz | 22 Comments
Carlos Monasterios (A)
4.38 ERA, 5.37 FIP, 3.3 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, -0.2 WAR
You thought John Ely came out of nowhere? How about Carlos Monasterios, who’d pitched just two games above A-ball before being plucked from Philadelphia (via, briefly, the Mets) in last winter’s Rule 5 draft? I admitted I’d never even heard the name before at the time, which still comes in second to Monasterios admitting he barely even knew what the Rule 5 draft was.
He impressed enough in camp that I gave him a 15% chance of winning the wide-open #5 starter’s job that eventually went to Charlie Haeger, though he ended up making the club as a long reliever out of the bullpen, which is where he stayed for 11 of his first 12 appearances, save for a short (4 IP) emergency start on May 1 in Pittsburgh. For a guy with little experience and even less velocity (his fastball rarely topped 90 MPH), Monasterios was surprisingly effective in the early going, as he never allowed more than one earned run in those 12 appearances – all but three of which lasted more than one inning. When he was allowed to pitch, that is; I’m not going to link them all now, but in going back through the archives looking for bits about him, I found a surprising amount of times where I complained that Torre was wasting his better relievers in the lowest of low-leverage situations (think seven-run leads in the 9th) rather than using Monasterios, sitting him for up to a week at a time.
As the Dodgers suffered through injuries to Chad Billingsley and Vicente Padilla, Monasterios was forced into the rotation for five starts in May and June, where the results were a little less bright, allowing 35 baserunners with just 8 strikeouts in 22.2 innings, averaging barely over four IP/start. He then went on the DL himself with a blister, though he made the rookie mistake of admitting that the problem wasn’t really that serious.
When he returned in July, he split the remainder of his season equally between the pen and the rotation, starting seven games while relieving in eight. I didn’t always understand why:
Dylan Hernandez lets us know that James McDonald is being sent to the bullpen after just one start, with Carlos Monasterios getting the nod on Saturday, which is a good idea because… hell, I have absolutely no idea. I said the other day that I prefer McDonald in the bullpen anyway, but McDonald wasn’t exactly terrible in his one start, and his five strikeouts were two more than Monasterios has been able to get in any appearance, start or relief, the entire season. Even if you don’t want McDonald, John Ely allowed three runs in seven innings in his first start for ABQ, and starting him on Saturday would have only put him at one extra day of rest off his usual schedule. The idea that Monasterios is a better choice to start than either McDonald or Ely… well, I just can’t get behind it.
Indeed, Monasterios was much more effective as a reliever (2.06 ERA, .620 OPS against in 19 games) than as a starter (5.91 ERA, .899 OPS in 13 starts). Still, he made it through the entire season as an out-of-nowhere Rule 5 pick, and didn’t embarrass himself despite being relied upon far more than anyone would have expected. For that alone, he gets an A, but he probably also gets a ticket back to AAA next year now that he’s officially Dodger property. If he can develop a reliable offspeed pitch, he may yet have a future as a back-end starter, but even if he’s only a long reliever out of the pen that’s still a pretty good return on the $50,000 it cost to acquire him.
Charlie Haeger (F)
8.40 ERA, 5.51 FIP, 9.0 K/9, 7.8 BB/9, -1.7 WAR
And now we come to what is probably my biggest disappointment of the season, because I badly wanted the Haeger experiment to work out. A rubber-armed knuckleballer can be a huge asset at the back of a rotation, and Haeger appeared to have mastered his craft in becoming a 2009 PCL All-Star and pitching in some nice work for the big club at the end of the year. Now, we’ll all remember him for failing about as badly as he possibly could have, but the funny thing is, it started out so well. Remember his first start of the season?
But if you think I’m going to say a single bad word about a 5th starter who struck out 12 in 6 innings, you’re absolutely wrong. In just the fifth start of his career, Haeger tied Tim Wakefield’s career high for strikeouts – and Wakefield’s had 422 starts to get that many.
Haeger’s knuckler was dancing so much that two of those strikeouts actually ended up with a man on first, as A.J. Ellis couldn’t hold onto the ball. This guy’s been a big favorite around here for quite a while now, and with Joe Torre’s propensity for yanking 5th starters at the first sign of trouble, Haeger probably needed a good first start more than any other member of the rotation.
Unfortunately, that was the high point of Haeger’s year, if not his career. He was pressed into late-game relief three days after that start, and made his second start on two days rest. He didn’t make it out of the 4th inning, allowing seven runs to the Giants, and followed that up with equally disappointing starts against the Nationals and Mets before pitching four relief innings of one-run ball against the Brewers on May 4.
Then, on May 8, he faced the Rockies at Dodger Stadium, and…
last night Charlie Haeger got as many Rockies out as I did – zero.
Haeger faced only five Colorado batters, walking three while allowing two hits, and that was the last we’d see of him for nearly a month. With the Dodgers wanting to recall Ely before his ten-day demotion window was up, they needed to perform some roster gymnastics, which I found entertaining:
So while you can speculate on who that’s going to be… we all know it’ll be Charlie Haeger, who miraculously came down with a “bruised heel” after getting precisely zero outs against the Rockies on Saturday. What fortuitous timing!
A few weeks later, he managed to hurt his foot again, leading me to wonder if maybe he had really been hurt all along. He made one more lousy start in June (4.2 IP, 4 ER against the Angels) and that was that. He was DFA’d the next day, cleared waivers, and headed back to ABQ, where he was unable to find the success which he’d had there in 2009 – a 41/42 K/BB isn’t going to get you that far, even for a knuckleballer.
It’s clear that Haeger shouldn’t be – and won’t be – in the running for a rotation spot in 2011. Still, I think it’s premature to write him off completely. He only just turned 27 in September, and when Tim Wakefield was 27, he was going 5-15 with a 5.84 ERA and a 83/98 K/BB ratio for Pittsburgh’s AAA club. The point is, knuckleballers are notorious for taking a long time to develop. It may not be with the Dodgers, but we’ll be seeing Haeger in the big leagues again.
Ramon Ortiz (F)
6.30 ERA, 5.45 FIP, 6.3 K/9, 4.8 BB/9, -0.7 WAR
Ah yes, the first of our two disastrous Ortiz signings. Yes, he only made two starts and was more of a reliever, but I need to make these divide equally somehow. Shockingly, a 37-year-old who hadn’t been in the bigs in either of the previous two seasons and hadn’t been even league-average since 2004 didn’t work out. Who’d have thunk? Remember, I’d actually had an “Ortiz DFA-O-Meter” set up to see which of them would hit the chopping block first.
The funny thing is, Ramon Ortiz was only with the team until May 27 – less than two months – yet there was no shortage of complaints about him. Fooled by a nice shiny spring training performance, the team let him break camp in the bullpen, and disaster struck almost immediately.
I know the traditional move says to save your closer until you have a lead on the road, but I can’t express how much I hate, hate, hate that idea. You can’t get to a lead if you’ve lost the game beforehand, and watching undead Ramon Ortiz blow the game while Broxton watches is infuriating. I can’t restate this enough: your best reliever never entered the game, while three non-roster invites (two of whom, granted, performed well) did. I will never understand this.
April 13, the home opener:
When Ethier homered in the bottom of the 6th, we were looking at a 9-2 laugher. Yet Ramon Ortiz came in and was predictably horrible, allowing three runs on three hits (including a Mark Reynolds blast) and a walk. As you can see, this has spawned the birth of the “Ortiz DFA-O-Meter” to the top right, as they battle to see which one gets dumped first. So what was once a blowout became a situation in which the top two relievers (Ramon Troncoso and Jonathan Broxton) had to contribute 2.1 innings. That may not seem like a big deal today, but we saw this exact thing happen last week. Just wait until one of the next two games when it’s a tight situation, and now one might not be available, simply because Ramon Ortiz can’t hold a 7-run lead.
Of course, being awful out of the bullpen wasn’t quite enough, because the Dodgers had to let Ortiz get two starts in May. How’d that go?
Hey, I’m not going to complain too much about (what appears to be, since it’s still the 4th inning as I write this) the end of a 9-game winning streak. They were going to have to lose sometime, so that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to basically punt a game by letting Ramon Ortiz start, which was never a good idea in any way whatsoever. Should we really be shocked that Ortiz got lit up, allowing five earned runs and nine baserunners in 3.1? Of course not. His ERA is now 6.30. It’s just not working. I know there’s no obvious answer as to who fills the last spot in the rotation until Vicente Padilla returns, but we all agree it just cannot be Ortiz again, right?
Fortunately, that was it for him. After sitting unused for a week, he was DFA’d to bring up Justin Miller, and spent the rest of the year bouncing around the AAA clubs of the Mets and Rays, not meeting with much success for either.
But hey, no one could have seen his failure coming, right?
******
Next! Jonathan Broxton turns into a pumpkin at midnight! Hong-Chih Kuo defies the laws of medicine! And George Sherrill‘s deal with the devil expires, and then some! It’s relievers, part one!
Jay Gibbons Returns to Los Angeles
November 4, 2010 at 3:42 pm | Posted in Jay Gibbons, Scott Podsednik | 22 Comments
No surprise at all here, other than how quickly it happened: Jay Gibbons has signed a one-year contract for 2011, according to Dylan Hernandez. No terms have been released, but if it’s for more than a $1m base salary, I’d be shocked. (Update: Hernandez says it’s only $400k plus incentives. Wow! Lower than I’d thought. Love it.) The deal is a major-league contract, which represents a nice step forward for Gibbons, who signed with the club last year to a minor-league deal that didn’t even include an invite to spring training. Gibbons shouldn’t be looked upon as a starter in left field or more than a platoon piece at most, though he brings some power to the bench that the team hasn’t seen in years. His ability to play both 1B and OF will add some nice flexibility as well.
Speaking of lefty-hitting outfielders who shouldn’t be starters, Scott Podsednik declined his half of the mutual option that the Dodgers picked up earlier this week. However, Ken Rosenthal reports that Podsednik and the Dodgers have mutual interest in his return, and are exploring a deal regardless. That means that Podsednik feels he can get more than the 1 year, $2m payday he’d have received if he’d picked up his option. As little as I was interested in having Podsednik on the roster for even $2m, you can imagine how I’ll feel when he ends up getting 2 years, $5m from Ned Colletti instead.
Really, I never understood how both Gibbons and Podsednik would fit on the team, as both are lefty hitting outfielders who aren’t plus defenders and fit best coming off the bench. At least Gibbons has some pop, while Podsednik’s only skill – speed – is overrated by the fact that that he gets caught one of every three times he runs, which is poor, and that his season ended with a foot injury. At 35, he’s not a great bet to bounce back, and he’s not a good fit on this team.
******
If you didn’t see it, earlier today I posted reviews for starting pitchers John Ely, Vicente Padilla, and Ted Lilly.
MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Starting Pitchers, Part 2
November 4, 2010 at 12:32 pm | Posted in John Ely, Ted Lilly, Vicente Padilla | 20 CommentsNote: I don’t want to make a new post and shove this review down the page for the sake of lousy Scott Podsednik, so I’ll share it here: Dylan Hernandez reports that Podsednik has declined his option and will be a free agent. Hooray!
John Ely (A)
5.49 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 6.8 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, -1.0 WAR
I bet you’re dying to know how a pitcher with a 4-10 record, 5.49 ERA and a -1.0 WAR pulls an A, right? Well, before the season started, who the hell was John Ely, as far as Dodger fans were concerned? Even Andre Ethier didn’t know who he was. He was just one of the unknowns who came back in return for Juan Pierre, and that was about the extent most people bothered to even think about him. (Or as Chad from MOKM said about the return at the time, “Whatever, they could be dead for all I care.”)
He didn’t do much to change that impression with a lousy debut on a cold, wet April day in New York, allowing five earned runs in six innings, particularly damaging at a time when Vicente Padilla was injured, Charlie Haeger was imploding, and Chad Billingsley was off to a slow start. With James McDonald battling a broken fingernail in AAA, if Ely couldn’t hang in there, there no were other good options. Josh Towers? Seth Etherton? Yeeesh.
In Ely’s second start, he allowed Milwaukee just one earned run over 6.2 IP, striking out 7 without walking any. Then he allowed just two earned runs against Arizona, again not walking a man, and repeated the feat against Houston. From April 28 – May 22, he faced 89 batters without issuing a single walk, helping him go six straight games (the first six after his debut) without once allowing more than two earned runs.
Coming out of nowhere as he did at the most critical time in the season, you might say we’d found a new hero:
John Ely put up yet another quality start against Houston, going seven innings while allowing just two runs, striking out eight – a new career high – and walking zero. However, he achieved even more than you think he did tonight.
John Ely can sing God Bless America in three seconds. #ElyMania (@chadmoriyama)
Cy Young never won a John Ely award #ElyMania (@truebluela)
Even more impressively, John Ely can change Juan Pierre into a useful starting pitcher. (@jay_jaffe)
It’s been just four starts, but Ely is quickly becoming somewhat of a folk hero among Dodger fans. Of course, that’ll happen when you’re a guy who 98% of Dodger fans hadn’t heard of (including your own right fielder, and let’s face it, the left fielder didn’t know who you were either), and you come up with the rotation falling apart and immediately contribute, all the while doing it completely opposite from how the other young starters are doing it.
Of course, it didn’t last forever. His next three starts were rough, and though he rebounded with back-to-back 7 IP, 1 ER outings in late June, he failed to get out of the 3rd inning in either of his next two starts and was sent back to the minors until September. I’d worried that this was coming even back in May:
Let’s be clear here; Ely is not going to keep this up. He’s not a 0.94 WHIP pitcher over a full season, especially not when he wasn’t close to that in the minors. There’s going to come a day, probably soon, where he doesn’t have his pinpoint control, or batters don’t flail at his looping curveball, and sit on his mid-80s fastball.
And that’s exactly what happened, both after his great start and in four mediocre September/October outings. Look at it this way; in Ely’s first nine starts, he had a 41/13 K/BB ratio, helping him to hold batters to a .640 OPS and a 3.38 ERA. But in his last nine starts, that ratio skyrocketed to 35/27, and it’s no surprise that he got rocked in that time – .999 OPS and 8.18 ERA. Or this: he gave up 12 homers on the year, and after going eight starts in a row without one, every last one came in his last ten starts.
Ely’s never going to be more than a #4/5 starter, and in his second half he wasn’t even good enough to be a major league pitcher. If the Dodgers start off 2011 with him in the rotation, that’s probably not a good sign; you can do much worse than having him as the 6th or 7th best guy, ready to step in when injuries hit, but if you start off the year with him then that means you’re almost certainly going to have to suffer starts from pitchers worse than him. But he keeps the A, if only because the Dodger rotation was teetering on the brink, and he stepped in from nowhere with a run of outstanding starts.
ElyMania, indeed.
Vicente Padilla (C+)
4.07 ERA, 4.20 FIP, 8.0 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 0.7 WAR
I’m not even sure where to start here. How about the completely unexpected Opening Day start?
Thanks to the magic of Twitter, let’s see the immediate reaction from several people I have a lot of respect for:
jay_jaffe Why, did he shoot Kershaw and Billingsley?
craigcalcaterra This has to be a joke, right?
injuryexpert RT @jay_jaffe: Why, did he shoot Kershaw and Billingsley?
truebluela What the hell?
DodgerDivorce You’ve got to be kidding me.
Padilla repaid that trust by being awful on Opening Day (7 ER in 4.1 IP) and pitching just 4.1 IP in his second start as well. He was better in his next two starts before landing on the disabled list with a forearm injury, a malady which knocked him out for two months until late June, returning with an unremarkable start in Boston.
On the morning of June 25, Padilla had made just five starts, allowing 40 baserunners in 27 innings, helping him post a 6.67 ERA – not exactly the kind of performance you’d expect to see from your Opening Day starter. But on June 25, the Yankees came to town, and were held to two runs over seven innings. On June 30, he held the Giants to one run over seven innings, and Padilla and his “soap bubble” were off and running.
From June 25 – August 9, Padilla was simply sublime:
Padilla took a no-hitter into the 7th in throwing his fourth career shutout (and first as a Dodger), baffling the Padres with painfully slow “soap bubbles” scattered among 90+ mph heaters, with James Loney just inches away from snaring a liner that may have kept the no-no going.
That, amazingly, is Padilla’s eighth straight start without having allowed more than two earned runs. No, really: look at his game log since his return from the DL:
As I mentioned on Twitter earlier, I can’t wait to see what the free agent market does for him. He missed two months with arm trouble, accidentally shot himself in the offseason, has a long reputatation as a jerk… and is pitching like an absolute ace.
But that’s where the magic ended. Padilla had a mediocre start in Philly on August 10 (4 ER over 5 IP) and a disaster start in Atlanta on August 15 (8 ER in 4.1 IP) before heading back to the DL with a neck injury. He came back for one forgettable start in September (3 ER over 4 IP) in San Diego, and was back on the shelf due to the neck.
At the end of the day, Padilla threw just 95 innings, though he did end up with career bests as far as K/9 and WHIP. He seems to have finally found a comfort zone in Los Angeles – no small feat given his well-known personal history – and the run of injuries this year should keep his price down. Yet he’s also proven that he’s effective when he’s healthy, so if he’s willing to come back for one year, ~$4m? I’d have no problem trusting one of the two spots at the back end of the rotation to him.
Ted Lilly (B)
3.52 ERA, 3.98 FIP, 9.0 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 1.4 WAR
I feel like we’ve been talking about Ted Lilly quite a lot lately, so I’m going to get through this one quickly.
When he arrived, I was incredibly unhappy at the deal, though this was far more because the deal was unnecessary than because I didn’t like Lilly:
Even if it is an improvement, is it one worth making? Lilly’s the 5th starter. You’ll never convince me he’s better than Kershaw, Billingsley, Kuroda, or Padilla right now, and the problems we’ve seen lately have been caused by non-existent offense and unreliable bullpen work, not poor starting pitching. Other than Ely’s poor last two starts, the most recent outings by #5 guys (Monasterios/James McDonald/Ely before those starts) have been overall a soup of mediocrity, no different than any other team. So if you’re using some of your trade chips, you really ought to be doing it on an area that’s a big problem, not to mildly improve an area that’s not desperately in need of it.
Again, I don’t mind seeing Lilly as a Dodger, but trading anything more than a non-prospect for him makes it completely not worth it. Ted Lilly is not the piece that propels you into October. And since he’s making $12m this year, you know he won’t be offered arbitration, so you can’t even look forward to any draft picks. If you were going to trade for a middling lefty who won’t really help that much this year, it might as well have been for Paul Maholm, who’s at least signed for 2011.
He started his Dodger career by being amazing for a month, but as the team fell further out of contention, I thought there was a better way he could contribute, by swapping him to a contender:
He’s been about a thousand times more effective than even the most optimistic among us would have ever hoped for, and for that he’s to be commended. Now if you remember, when he was acquired, I didn’t like the trade. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Lilly, who I acknowledged was an upgrade to the rotation, but that the the rotation wasn’t the problem as much as the offense was, and that the Dodgers weren’t good enough this year to be trading the future for 2010 anyway.
Think about it – Lilly’s good, and has been for a long time, but he’s not this good. His BABIP as a Dodger is just .138, and that’s not going to last forever. If he keeps this up for the rest of the season, that’s great, but it’s not going to put the Dodgers in the playoffs and it’s only going to price him out of their league should they wish to retain him in the offseason. Much more likely, he is at the absolute peak of his value right now, because with the performance he’s shown, there’s really nowhere to go but down.
The point is, Ted Lilly‘s been awesome for the Dodgers, and there’s two ways to extract value from him for the remainder of the season; let him make 6-7 more starts for LA and help you finish 7 games out, or let him go to the playoffs with another team and possibly bring back prospects, while finishing 10 games out.
I know which route I’d take.
Lilly then went out and gave up 7 runs in 4 innings in Colorado to kick off a streak where he lost four of his last five starts, with the sinking Dodgers declining to trade him to the Yankees after they had claimed him on waivers.
After the season, I hoped that the Dodgers would offer him arbitration, arguing that his declining velocity, advancing age, and increasing homer rate might make a longer deal an untenable risk, as I outlined here:
To be sure, I’m happy to see him back in 2011, but we can’t be short-sighted about this. Remember, Lilly just finished a 4-year, $40m contract, which is an average annual value of $10m/year. Somehow, despite being 4 years older, less than a year past shoulder surgery, and on the decline, the Dodgers saw fit to give him a deal which increases that value?
I’m not arguing that he wouldn’t have found a contract like that on the market, because he would have. I would have just preferred it be some other team to make a foolish investment. Spending money does not equal spending wisely, because while Lilly’s a good pitcher, he’s hardly a difference-maker, yet he’s being paid like one. Though I’m glad he’s back for 2011, I really think we’re going to regret this deal in 2012 and 2013 – which is basically exactly what I said about Blake’s deal after 2008.
I’ve softened on this somewhat since, as a large part of my concern was the idea that the Dodgers would be able to make only one big signing this offseason, and if Ted Lilly‘s the best they can do, that’s not going to be enough. As signs point to both the payroll being larger than anticipated and the free agent market being more expensive than in recent years, the deal doesn’t look quite as bad. I’m still not looking forward to paying him $13m (it’s backloaded) in 2013, of course.
******
Next! Carlos Monasterios lives the dream! Charlie Haeger fails miserably! Ramon Ortiz gives up another homer! And MSTI regrets sorting pitchers into threes, because a post with those three is miserable! (Trust me, though, the picture on Ortiz’ card will make it worth it.) It’s starting pitchers, part three!
Xavier Paul’s Fielding Just Cost John Moses a Job
November 2, 2010 at 9:21 pm | Posted in John Moses, Scott Podsednik, Xavier Paul | 9 Comments
Normally, a minor-league hitting coach losing his job isn’t something I’d spend much time on. However, I was taken aback by what former Isotope hitting coach John Moses told Tony Jackson about why he was let go:
“They said it was because [Dodgers prospect] Xavier Paul didn’t improve in the outfield,” said Moses, who also had the responsibility of working with outfielders at the Dodgers’ Triple-A Albuquerque affiliate. “I was shocked, let’s put it that way. A lot of people were. I think the job I did spoke for itself, if you look at the things that happened offensively over the last three years. … But the way I look at it is, it’s their loss.”
Now, I have no idea if Moses did a good job, and neither do you – though Paul did have some outfield adventures in his short time with the Dodgers. It’s kind of shocking to a specific player’s skill called out like that, though, isn’t it? That’s probably a conversation the Dodgers would have preferred to remain private, though perhaps the public nature will motivate Paul to improve.
******
As you’ve probably seen, the Dodgers elected to pick up their half of Scott Podsednik‘s mutual 2011 option today. He has until midnight Thursday to decide to stay in Los Angeles for a $2m salary or test free agency. You don’t need me to remind you how lousy he was for the Dodgers, or how much I don’t want to see him back. Fortunately, most observers seem to think he’ll turn down the option and look elsewhere. If he remains, well, Ken Gurnick has some ideas about his role:
With Matt Kemp in center field and Andre Ethier in right, Podsednik could be the starter in left field, work in a platoon with Casey Blake if the Dodgers acquire a power-hitting third baseman or be a fourth outfielder if the Dodgers acquire a power bat to play left.
Obviously, Podsednik as an everyday starter would be a disaster, and moving Blake to left field seems unlikely. As a 4th outfielder, though? I suppose you could do worse as a guy with a bit of speed off the bench, though he’s a poor defensive outfielder. For $2m, it’s not the end of the world, but what I do find most interesting is what that’d mean for the makeup of the roster. Like Ethier, Podsednik’s a lefty batter. Most think that Jay Gibbons will have a spot, and Paul’s out of options, so something will need to be done with him as well. Certainly, not all of these guys are going to make the roster, but they’re all lefties, so if Podsednik does return, that may be the end of Paul as a Dodger right there.
MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Starting Pitchers, Part 1
November 2, 2010 at 11:46 am | Posted in Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw, Hiroki Kuroda | 24 CommentsThe Dodgers used 24 pitchers this year, so I’m going to need to break this down a bit. There were six starters who were more prominent than the others, so that’ll be our first group, split among today and tomorrow.
Clayton Kershaw (A)
2.91 ERA, 3.12 FIP, 9.3 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 4.4 WAR
Well, let’s see. Kershaw pitched nearly 30 more innings than he did in 2009, yet walked 10 fewer batters. The improved control not only helped him set a career low 1.179 WHIP, but it helped him overcome the only thing really stopping him from taking that next step – working deep into games. In 2009, he averaged about 5.7 innings per start, but in 2010 that improved to almost 6.4. He also finished 10th in MLB in K (212), 7th in K/9 (9.3), 5th in batting average against (.217), and had – by one measure – the 2nd most valuable slider in baseball.
Oh, and he doesn’t turn 23 until next March. So yeah, even though we had high expectations for Kershaw before the season, he still deserves that A and even that might not be enough. Since 1900, there’s only been 24 seasons in which a Dodger pitched threw enough innings to qualify for ERA title despite being 22 or younger; Kershaw’s 2009 and 2010 campaigns rank 3rd and 6th in terms of ERA+.
The funny thing is, there was actually panic in some corners about Kershaw earlier in the season. Though it wasn’t always smooth (eleven walks in his first two starts), he didn’t allow more than three earned runs in any of his first five starts. Then he had an outright disaster on May 4 against the Brewers, getting just four outs while allowing seven earned runs. This led to perhaps the most hilarious tweet of all time, by Sports Illustrated‘s Jon Heyman:
kershaw may be regressing faster than billingsley. not sure. close competition. #howcanbradpennybebetterthanboth?
That’s the same Brad Penny who’s been on four teams in the last three years, and managed to get into only nine games for St. Louis this season, by the way. Heyman wasn’t the only one who raised concern, but the hand-wringing was patently ridiculous:
It’s one start, people. Yes, it was one unbelievably horrific start, but I defy you to find a pitcher, no matter how great, who hasn’t tossed out a stinker like that from time to time.
Kershaw made 26 starts after that Milwaukee game, and he allowed more than three earned runs all of four times. His line in those 26 games? 2.54 ERA, 176/57 K/BB, .580 OPS. So yeah, I think he was just fine.
In fact, since so many of these reviews have been so negative, let’s bask in some of Kershaw’s greatest hits….
After 30 pitches in the first inning, Kershaw then needed just 77 pitches to breeze through the next 7 innings. And breeze he did; Kershaw’s Game Score of 84 is tied for the 9th highest of any game this season. In fact, he was so dominant that no Rockie even hit the ball out of the infield until Clint Barmes flew out to Matt Kemp to lead off the 8th. On the day, he struck out 9, and after allowing the 2 walks and a hit in the first inning, he allowed just one more of each for the rest of the day – even getting one back when he picked Young off first base.
The number most people are going to see next to Clayton Kershaw‘s name tonight is “12″, the number of strikeouts he had. Me? I’m far more interested in seeing that nice round “0″ next to walks, because we’ve always known he was going to strike people out. The only thing that was going to hold him back from becoming a superduperstar was the wildness, because not only would the troublesome walks allow more men to reach base (obviously), they’d inflate his pitch count to the point where he struggled to get out of the 6th inning.
Tonight? No such worries, since we saw one of the best outings of his young career – 8 innings, 12 K, 0 BB, and while he did give up a two-run solo homer to Alfonso Soriano, that ball was hit so hard that it was almost enjoyable to watch.
Going back to his last start, Kershaw has now struck out seventeen batters since last walking anyone, and this makes two of his last three starts where he didn’t allow a single free pass. In fact, only twice in his last thirteen outings has he allowed more than three walks.
The best start of Clayton Kershaw‘s career was also the 4th-most-valuable game any starting pitcher has had this year, based on WPA (Win Percentage Added):
Rk Player Date Opp Rslt IP H R ER BB SO Pit WPA RE24 aLI 1 Edwin Jackson 2010-06-25 TBR W 1-0 9.0 0 0 0 8 6 149 0.880 4.934 1.758 2 Roy Halladay 2010-05-29 FLA W 1-0 9.0 0 0 0 0 11 115 0.842 4.570 1.226 3 Mat Latos 2010-05-13 SFG W 1-0 9.0 1 0 0 0 6 106 0.841 4.661 1.348 4 Clayton Kershaw 2010-09-14 SFG W 1-0 9.0 4 0 0 0 4 111 0.832 4.661 1.338 5 Jake Peavy 2010-06-19 WSN W 1-0 9.0 3 0 0 2 7 107 0.825 4.440 1.809 In case you’re wondering why Kershaw ranks above “better” games like Dallas Braden‘s perfecto, it’s because WPA takes into account the game situation, so Kershaw’s performance with a razor-thin 1-0 lead was worth more than Braden holding down a 4-0 lead.
Last night’s outing tops his previous WPA score of 0.628, which he got by tossing 8 shutout innings against the Cardinals in July of 2009. Since allowing six runs in six innings against Washington on August 6, Kershaw’s torn off seven solid games in which he’s allowed 10 ER in 48.2 IP, striking out 48 against just 15 BB. The Dodger record in those games? Just 3-4, thanks to lousy offense, though last night’s one hit was certainly the worst.
And people say the Dodgers “don’t have an ace”…
I can’t imagine that there’s any question now that they do, and one who still has room to improve thanks to his youth. It’s why I’ve put signing him to a long-term deal while the price is still reasonable high on my offseason to-do list.
Chad Billingsley (A+)
3.57 ERA, 3.07 FIP, 8.0 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 2.5 WAR
Billingsley gets a higher grade than Kershaw not because he was better (though his FIP was slightly lower), but because there was so much uncertainty about him headed into the season. You haven’t forgotten the way his 2009 ended, right? In much the same way Jonathan Broxton heard an endless stream of irrational crap about his mental fortitude after melting down this year, Billingsley was the recipient of all of that garbage last year. As far back as my 2010 plan last October, I was imploring people to knock it off:
8) Leave Chad Billingsley alone. I can’t believe this is even an issue, but the people who are on the “dump Billingsley” train are absolute fools. Yes, he was terrible in the second half of the season, I can’t deny that. But just remember the facts, here. We’re talking about a 25-year-old guy who’s shown all the signs of being a stud, who had a 2 month slump. In addition, he was fighting leg injuries for much of the time, and came back from a September trip to the bullpen to take a no-hitter into the 6th inning against Washington and then allowed just one hit into the 6th against San Diego, before getting hit in both cases.
So sure, he’s got issues to work out. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe his off-season broken leg put a cramp in his conditioning, maybe it’s mental – who knows. It’s just that the idea that a bad slump should kick him from “future ace” to “not worthy of employment” is insane.
Also, don’t forget, the two “aces” that everyone wanted to go get this summer? Cliff Lee was so bad in his age-28 season that he got sent to the minors. Roy Halladay was so bad in his 4th major league season that he got shipped back out to the minors, too. How do you think Blue Jay fans would feel if they’d given up on Doc in 2001? Exactly how we’d feel if Billingsley was moved now. Just leave the kid alone, and let him pitch. Jesus.
Billingsley repaid that trust by allowing six earned runs in his second start and getting just nine outs in his third, leading me to jokingly play to the masses by asking what should be done with him. He quickly regained his form, of course, and for a while the only worry was whether he’d be able to overcome his supposed “curse” of not going further than six innings – though it soon became apparent this was more of a Joe Torre problem than a Chad Billingsley problem:
I love that Chad Billingsley was able to pull it together and get the win after his rough first inning the last time out. But he was clearly upset when leaving the mound, and I don’t blame him. He’d thrown only 90 pitches, and while he certainly wasn’t Kershaw-level dominant, he was also up 4-1 when he left. Yes, he had put two men on base. But when you hear nonstop that Billingsley never works into the 7th inning… well, it’s pretty hard to do that when Torre apparently requires a no-hitter to be active before letting Billingsley get that far.
Still, he was sailing along just fine despite hitting the DL with a minor groin strain in June, enough so that I gave him a B+ in our mid-season reviews:
Oh no! Run! Chad Billingsley doesn’t have “it”, the undefinable existential quality that all great pitchers have! Trade him! Cut him! Kill him! Oh, what’s that? By many standards, he’s having one of the best seasons of his career, because 3.2/9 is his lowest walk rate ever, and his 3.40 FIP is comparable to his 3.35 2008 mark when he won 16 games? Nah, facts bore me. I’d rather indiscriminately say that he’s got mental problems.
Billingsley had a bad first start after the break – 7 ER, 10 H, 0 K – in St. Louis, but followed that by not allowing a run over any of his next three starts. In fact, he got better as the season progressed; in 14 starts after that poor outing against the Cardinals, he had a 2.45 ERA with a .201/.280/.276 line. If his 12-11 record doesn’t seem that impressive, well, you know where the blame goes for that (this was from 9/15):
Lest anyone still argue the value of wins and losses for pitchers, note that his ridiculous 11-10 record includes losses or no-decisions in games in which he allowed earned run totals of one (4/25 @ WSH), two (6/28 @ SFG), one (7/4 @ ARI), zero (7/30 @ SFG), two (8/11 @ PHI), one (8/16 @ ATL), zero (9/3 @ SFG), and one (tonight).
That was followed by a game in Arizona on 9/26 where he struck out 13, allowed one run, and got a no-decision. Billingsley’s record could have easily been somewhere in the neighborhood of 17-5 this year with even the slightest bit of help, and I’m betting people would be looking at him a little bit differently were that the case.
If he’s not quite Kershaw, he’s also not as far behind as you’d think. Billingsley’s only just 26 himself, yet he was 11th in FIP, ahead of some names you might recognize – names like Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Jon Lester, Ubaldo Jimenez, Zack Greinke, C.C. Sabathia, and David Price. It’s a credit to him that he was able to overcome all the trash tossed his way in the media last offseason, and he’s only slightly behind Kershaw on my list of “guys who need to be signed long-term right now-ish.”
Hiroki Kuroda (B+)
3.39 ERA, 3.26 FIP, 7.3 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 2.4 WAR
Kuroda came into the season with nearly as many questions as Billingsley, though his were less about performance and more about his physical condition after an injury-riddled 2009. Kuroda finally stayed healthy and responded with a career year, setting new marks in innings pitched and K/9. He even finished 16th in FIP, giving the Dodgers three starters in the top 16; no other team had even two.
He started off his season by pitching 8 shutout innings in Florida, and had allowed more than three earned runs just once in nine starts (3.03 ERA) before going into Colorado and allowing seven runs (five earned) and ten hits in four innings on May 29, which led some to wonder if it was time to start worrying about him. It wasn’t; Kuroda kept on chugging along, despite Torre’s terrifying decision to send him back out after a rain delay in Cincinnati in June:
What you absolutely do not do, under any circumstances, is run your 35-year-old starter with a history of injuries back to the mound after he’d been down for well over 2.5 hours (the delay was 2:24, but the Dodgers were batting before and after).
So Kuroda went back out for the fifth, and predictably loaded the bases on two hits and a walk. He managed to get out of it without allowing a run, but not before needing 27 pitches to do so and nearly letting the Reds back into the game.
Letting Kuroda go back out, at an enormous risk, bought the Dodgers… well, what, exactly? He pitched just one inning after the delay, so the argument that Torre wanted to save the bullpen for this week’s gauntlet doesn’t fly. No, the most likely scenario is also the most terrifying one: Torre wanted Kuroda to qualify for the win. You know, a “win”, an utterly meaningless statistic, but even less meaningful to a manager whose only responsibility here should be to get his team out of this game without any major injuries.
It’s almost unspeakably reckless.
Though Kuroda was fine his next time out – two ER, nine K in Boston – he got hit hard in each of the following three outings, giving up four, six, and four earned runs, allowing 26 baserunners in 14 innings. It’s hard to know if the outing in Cincinnati had anything to do with it, but it certainly wasn’t a worthwhile risk on Torre’s part.
Fortunately, it didn’t have any long-term effects, as he had a 2.87 ERA and a .550 OPS in his last 14 starts, even taking a no-hitter into the 8th inning in August, and rounding out what was generally a very effective top three with Kershaw and Billingsley.
Kuroda’s a free agent (I mistakenly said he was arbitration-eligible; he’s not, though I wouldn’t have offered anyway) and he’ll be 36 by the time next season starts. There’s still been no word on whether he plans to return to Japan, or if he’d like to continue pitching in the bigs. Despite his age, there’s a big payday out there if he wants it, which would likely price the Dodgers out of the market. Unless he’s willing to come back on a one- or two-year deal at a sizable pay cut from his previous deal, it’s unlikely he’ll be back, and Ted Lilly‘s deal makes it even less likely.
And if that’s true, it’s too bad. It hasn’t always been smooth for Kuroda, who’s had his share of aches, pains, and scares. But when he’s healthy, he’s one of the best, and it’s been a pleasure to watch him.
******
Next! John Ely starts a mania! Vicente Padilla is never boring! And Ted Lilly comes to town! It’s starting pitching, part 2!
Well, That Happened
November 1, 2010 at 10:36 pm | Posted in ugh | 27 Comments
Congratulations to the Giants, I suppose, who rode a fantastic pitching staff, a excellent young rookie catcher, and a collection of hitters who are all going to be out of the game within three years to a championship.
If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that there should be extra motivation for 2011 now, not that anyone needed any after the way 2010 went up in flames for the Dodgers. These same Giants will be in Dodger Stadium for Opening Day in April, in case you’ve forgotten.
Let’s get to it.
MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Right Field
November 1, 2010 at 11:10 am | Posted in Andre Ethier, Reed Johnson, Xavier Paul | 9 Comments
Andre Ethier (B+)
.292/.364/.493 .857 23hr 1.9 WAR
Looking back, one thing strikes me about Ethier’s season, and that’s that I barely talked about him at all in the second half. I pointed out that he got on base six times in an August game, but otherwise, the focus was always in other areas. That’s partly because the team’s overall collapse and the series of terrible trades overwhelmed our attention, but also because Ethier could never re-capture the magic of his amazing start after returning from injury. That’s probably unfair to him, because he was fine over the last two months. But look at what we had been saying about him in the first week of May…
Ethier’s line is an unreal .371/.440/.722. A .722 slugging percentage! Not that I expect him to keep that up all year, but if he did, that would tie him for the 23rd highest mark in major league history. (And that moves up to 15th highest, if you don’t respect the work of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire.)
Seriously, look at the NL leaderboard right now for the Triple Crown categories, and remember that this is a league with guys like Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, and Hanley Ramirez:
And that really could be his face on all three of those, because he’s tied with Kelly Johnson for the home run lead, and “Arizona” just comes before “Los Angeles” in alphabetical order.
And just a few days later…
I’m running out of adjectives to describe Andre Ethier. After three more hits and two RBI, he’s now up to .393/.452/.732. He’s leading all of baseball in batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS, and by quite a bit. We’re getting far enough into the season to almost consider this less of a “hot streak” and more of a “damned good player having a career year.” Of course, every hit increases the chance that the Dodgers won’t be able to afford him when he hits free agency after next year 2012. Hooray? Still, that’s a worry for another time, because what Ethier’s doing right now is historic, at least in Dodger terms.
That was after the game of May 10. The Dodgers won the next three games, with Ethier getting on base nine times, including three doubles and a homer, putting his line up to an absurd .392/.457/.744. But while taking BP before May 15th’s game, he fractured the pinky in his right hand, which ended up sending him to the disabled list.
Ethier rushed back to return on May 31, missing only the minimum 15 days, but he’d clearly come back too soon. He was horrendous in June (.229/.280/.333), and from May 31 to the All-Star break in mid-July, he hit just .267/.313/.393, a far cry from his earlier line.
Now, it wasn’t all that bad. After his awful June and mediocre July, he was much better in August (.872) and good in September (.812, but with a .388 OBP). So it’s true that I didn’t pay all that much attention to Ethier as the year went on, and that’s unfair. While he was nowhere as good as he was early in the season, it’s unreasonable to think that he would have been able to keep that pace up all season long. Really, the only thing that Ethier did wrong this year was to get injured and come back far too soon, and even then it’s hard to blame a guy for wanting to get back on the field to help his team as soon as possible.
Despite the injury, Ethier had his third straight excellent season (OPS+ of 132, 131, 134 in 2008-10), making his first All-Star team and proving himself to be one of the top hitters in the game, despite seeing his defensive marks decline once again. However, he still has much to prove in 2011, because he was unable to make any progress towards his greatest weakness this year, and that’s hitting left-handed pitching. I mentioned this problem in 2009′s season in review:
This year, Ethier destroyed right-handed pitching to the tune of a .960 OPS and 25 of his homers. Against lefties, he had just a .194 BA and a .629 OPS and only 6 homers. It’s actually been a pretty clear downward trend for him as far as a lefty/righty split goes:
2006: .842 vs RH, .846 vs LH
2007: .830 vs RH, .816 vs LH
2008: .953 vs RH, .692 vs LH
2009: .960 vs RH, .629 vs LHAs he continues to improve against righties, he’s quickly becoming unplayable against lefties, and the four years of stats clearly show there’s not any improvement happening here.
In 2010, he had a .960 OPS vs RHP, and a .625 mark against lefties. He’s not getting better at hitting southpaws; he’s in fact getting worse. Since he’s turning 29 in the spring, he’s in his prime and there’s not a whole lot of hope to think he’s going to improve this flaw. Can you consider a guy a superstar when he’s not a great outfielder and you absolutely can not (or at least, should not) play him against lefties? That’s why I was hoping the Dodgers would sign a Jeff Francoeur type (good fielder, hits lefties) and that’s a question the Dodgers are going to have to answer as he moves towards free agency after 2012.
Reed Johnson (C-)
.262/.291/.366 .657 2hr 0.2 WAR
This was far more the fault of Larry Bowa than it was of Johnson, but I absolutely have to start with this, from mid-August:
Finally, we have the game-ending play where Reed Johnson tried to score from first on a bloop single. Yes, read that again, because it actually happened. What in the world Larry Bowa was thinking was beyond me, but for someone who’s not shy about talking about Kemp in the paper, we need to realize that he played a pretty large role in this loss as well. I can’t even accurately express to you in words how much Johnson was out by, so I’ll let Chad from MOKM‘s animated .gif do it for me:
I mean, that’s not even close to being close. I realize with a punchless offense you try to take chances where you can, but good lord, give the runner a chance there, Larry.
God, that kills me every single time. Back to Johnson, I was a bit surprised when he was signed, because every indication at the time was that the Dodgers were looking for a left-handed backup outfielder. Still, for what he was, I was okay with it:
I’m somewhat unimpressed with Johnson on the whole, especially coming off a broken foot which ruined his 2009. That said, the Dodger outfield has two big needs. First, they need someone who can be a plus defender in left to spot for Manny, which Johnson clearly can. Second, though few people want to admit it, they need someone who can replace Andre Ethier against lefties, because Ethier is useless against fellow southpaws. Johnson fits that role perfectly – for this career, he’s lousy against righties (.707 OPS), but is just fine against lefties (.841 OPS). That split was even more pronounced in 2009. If you’ve got lefty-killers Manny and Kemp, and replace Ethier with Johnson, that’s an outfield lefties should be terrified of.
So assuming that the money isn’t big and the term is just one year, I’m okay with this idea.
That’s more or less what happened, though Johnson was slightly less than advertised. Sure, he was good against LHP (.301/.324/.466 .790), but a sub-.800 OPS isn’t quite good enough to make up for an absurdly bad .520 mark against RHP. Then there was the lack of hustle that helped to blow a game against the Angels…
Reed Johnson ran for Belliard, and was pushed to second when Martin walked. Now Jamey Carroll comes up to hit for Blake DeWitt against the lefty, and it’s all on the line: two on, two out, Carroll vs. Fuentes. Carroll – who I hate to admit, has grown on me like a weed – gets the job done by blooping a single to left, scoring Johnson to tie the game.
…except, no. Now bear with me because there’s so much stupid going on in this one play that it burns the soul (and I hope you still have “Yakety Sax” running). Johnson, instead of running home like his house was on fire, jogs home. Jogs. With the tying run with two outs in the 9th, on a ball that was in no way a home run. That’s stupid #1. Stupid #2 is Martin, running from first, overruning second base (assuming that Juan Rivera would be throwing home, I suppose) and gets caught before he can get back to the bag… before Johnson, slacking it down the line, crosses home. I mean, this play was so loaded with stupid that FanGraphs did a breakdown on just this sequence alone.
…plus the fact that he’ll be 34 next year and missed a month this year with a back injury means I’m not all that invested in seeing him return. Which, of course, means that he’ll absolutely be back.
Xavier Paul (D)
.231/.277/.314 .591 0hr -0.6 WAR
I’ve been on the Xavier Paul train for years, arguing that a strong-armed outfielder who’s managed to raise his yearly OPS every year from 2005-10 and who has crushed AAA pitching (.320/.380/.502 in parts of three seasons) deserves a shot to make his mark in the majors. I still believe that, but at some point he’s going to have to make it happen, and the .591 OPS in three 2010 stints plus the inability to stay healthy is seriously imperiling that.
Paul originally made it up in 2009 when Many got suspended, but barely played before getting a staph infection while scraping his knee in Florida and then breaking his ankle in the minors. Still, I thought he’d be a great fit as the lefty-swinging 5th outfielder after the Dodgers signed Johnson. Unfortunately, the Dodgers signed Garret Anderson for that role, a decision which bothered me in the spring…
Of course, the correct option is right under our noses. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a lefty bat who’s likely to be as productive as any of these three, and not only won’t kill you in the outfield but has a strong arm and would be a great defensive caddy for Manny? Sounds like Xavier Paul to me, and as Jon astutely notes, the Dodgers have not had a good history with 35+ reserves. Let’s hope we don’t have to add another name to that list.
and in June…
By the way, Garret Anderson went 0-3 today and is down to an almost unfathomable .146/.170/.225. Meanwhile, AAA outfielders Xavier Paul (2) and Jamie Hoffmann (1) combined for three home runs today. Just sayin’. Hey, George Sherrill‘s coming off the DL on Tuesday, with no obvious candidate to go down. How bout a nice DFA’ing for our friend Garret?
and later in June…
Finally, Anderson went hitless in five at-bats today, striking out four times and popping out to first. I’m just completely out of things to add to this situation. I hate to bag on a guy on his birthday (he’s 38 now), but to say that he’s a waste of a roster spot is about the kindest way I can think of to describe it. He’s now hitting .180/.197/.287. What do we have to do to finally end this already?
Xavier Paul’s hitting .345/.402/.633 with 12 HR in AAA, by the way, and three of those homers have come in his last ten games. But no, I’m sure he’s not a better fit for this defensively-challenged, injury-prone outfield, right?
and again in July.
Meanwhile, Xavier Paul is hitting .348/.404/.635 for the Isotopes, and lest you think that’s a stat line which is entirely due to the ABQ atmosphere, note that he’s still got a pretty tasty line of .320/.381/.534 on the road. This is the fifth year in a row in which he’s increased his OPS in the minors, and he has a 103 OPS+ in his limited time in the majors. 90% of the rest of baseball would be falling over themselves to give a prospect like that a chance at a full-time job. Granted, most of those teams don’t have an outfield like Manny/Kemp/Ethier, but to say that you’re going to play a husk of a corpse of a cadaver like the 38-year-old Anderson, who has proven that his value is zero, is obscene. It’s hard to say that the Dodgers are doing everything they can to win when you see situations like these, isn’t it?
As for what happened when Paul actually was up, we saw him three separate times. He came up in late April when Manny made his first DL trip, getting on base ten times in six starts until being sent back down in early May while being told by Ned Colletti to “work on being a big leaguer”. He returned for the last two weeks of May when Ethier was on the DL, getting on base ten more times in eight starts, returning again in early July when Manny went back on the DL. At the time, I wasn’t the only one ringing the “Paul over Anderson” bell, as Jon Weisman devoted an entire post to it at over at Dodger Thoughts.
Unfortunately for Paul, he struggled greatly in his third and final trip to the bigs, hitting just .188/.232/.234 in 24 games (15 starts) in July and early August. He would have been all but assured of another call-up in September, but was instead shut down with what sounded like a relatively minor neck injury.
So it was clearly a disappointing season for Paul, one that puts his Dodger future in doubt. He’s now out of options, meaning he can’t be sent to the minors without first being placed on waivers. It’s hard to say that he forced his way into a roster spot with his play this year, but his performance in the minors has been so good that you can’t just let him be lost for nothing, either. He’ll be 26 in the spring – he’s only five months younger than Matt Kemp – and he’s already proven himself in AAA, so all he needs now is to stay healthy and get a chance in the bigs. Maybe that’s with the Dodgers, and maybe it’s not, but he’s at least earned the opportunity to not be passed over for another washed-up veteran again.
******
Next! Clayton Kershaw is awesome! Chad Billingsley proves his doubters wrong! Hiroki Kuroda will be missed! It’s starting pitchers, part 1!
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