Hairyducked Idiot
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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot
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So it's all just a big, flukey coincidence that he's pitched so above-averagishly on the road and awesomely at home.
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His HR rate isn't the only peripheral that dips on the road. K/IP: .925 BB/IP: 0.363 K/BB: 2.54 ALL his peripherals take a big dip outside of San Diego. Do me a favor and tell me how those rank amongst mlb starters during that timeframe. That's a lot of datamining. Point is, you pointed some thresholds out that I'm pointing out he can't cross on the road. No...the point is that even his road peripherals are dominant and amongst the best in all of baseball. Using fangraphs league averages, his road periphals are excellent for strikeouts, almost exactly average for BBs, and slightly worse than average for HRs (way worse for 2008). That's not "among the best in all of baseball."
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the "respond to imaginary things no one said" thread is that way *points* Feel free to throw in some joke ratings while you are there. you said that Halladay/Litsch or Marcum is a better duo than anything we could toss up even WITH peavy in the rotation. i love doc, but unless he pulls a pedro, i doubt that will come true. for all the wailing about harden's IP, he threw as many innings as marcum did, more or less, and he was much, much, much, much better This one belongs over in that other thread, too. I said "comparable," I didn't say "better." And Harden's IPs were decent last year. I don't think it's reasonable to project him to match them in 2009, they look an awful lot like a positive outlier.
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Reasonable projection: Dempster reverts at least halfway back between 2008 and previous norms Harden pitches his career average for innings pitched Peavy pitches his career road average Zambrano and Lilly have years very similar to their last two.
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the "respond to imaginary things no one said" thread is that way *points* Feel free to throw in some joke ratings while you are there.
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I think it's very, very likely.
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His HR rate isn't the only peripheral that dips on the road. K/IP: .925 BB/IP: 0.363 K/BB: 2.54 ALL his peripherals take a big dip outside of San Diego. Do me a favor and tell me how those rank amongst mlb starters during that timeframe. That's a lot of datamining. Point is, you pointed some thresholds out that I'm pointing out he can't cross on the road. No...the point is that even his road peripherals are dominant and amongst the best in all of baseball. http://www.fangraphs.com/splits.aspx?playerid=1051&position=P&page=1&split=ha&type=full http://www.fangraphs.com/splits.aspx?playerid=1051&position=P&page=2&split=ha&type=full http://www.fangraphs.com/splits.aspx?playerid=1051&position=P&page=4&split=ha&type=full How does fangraph calculate it's "good" and "poor" labels?
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Those are not total production stats, those are rate stats. If you can promise me that Harden pitches 150+ innings for the Cubs next season, then my opinion of the rotation increases a bit. Add in Marshall's or Shark's or Gaudin's or whoever's starts in his stead if he gets hurt then. Then we're changing the terms a little bit, which gets back to my original point: It's a good rotation, among the best in baseball, with a lot of depth but a lack of dominance.
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I think you can count on a about a run to Dempster's ERA and shave 50 innings off Harden's 2008 total.
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The argument appears to be "if we get the worst case scenario for all 5 starters, then the rotation won't be as good as many think". What you call "worst case scenario," I call "reasonable projection."
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Those are not total production stats, those are rate stats. If you can promise me that Harden pitches 150+ innings for the Cubs next season, then my opinion of the rotation increases a bit.
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Because healthy is an ability, and an outlier in health for him is no different than an outlier in performance for Dempster, both must be heavily discounted when making 2009 projections. If we can have 2007 Peavy, great. And what was Zambrano's net last season? I've got him at +36 runs pitching for VORP, did his offense make up the rest?
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That's all I'm saying. It's a good rotation that I'd be glad to have if I weren't so ambivalent about the darned team, but I think it's a little more complex than "2008 rotation + Jake Peavy = ZOMG AWESOME ROTATION!" 2008 rotation+no one = awesome rotation Unfortunately for Mr.s Harden and Dempster, the calendar won't be reading 2008.
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Discounting Harden by the odds of injury (not saying he's not a great value at his salary and projected output), I'd say the following teams have duos that I'd say are comparable to Peavy/Harden: Kazmir/Shields Halladay/Litsch or Marcum Lee/Sabathia Lowe/Billingsly Webb/Haren If you had to pick one of those six duos for a single 2009 season, I don't think Peavy/Harden is a no-brainer choice. Lowe and Sabathia are free agents, and none of Kazmir, Shields, Litsch, Marcum, Billingsley, or Lowe are as good as either Peavy or Harden. So really the only 1/2 that compares is Arizona, and yet we lack dominance" in that situation? Wanna take a 2009 bet on production from Harden vs. Kazmir or Billingsley? Name your (non-monetary) terms and preferred total value stat.
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That's all I'm saying. It's a good rotation that I'd be glad to have if I weren't so ambivalent about the darned team, but I think it's a little more complex than "2008 rotation + Jake Peavy = ZOMG AWESOME ROTATION!"
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I think it's likely that Peavy isn't as good on the road, I think it's likely that Dempster gets significantly worse, and I think it's likely that Harden pitches noticeably less than 148 innings. If we add Peavy and he comes in at the 3.6ish I'm expecting, that should be enough to counteract the other two and leave us about where we were last year, as long as Zambrano doesn't regress.
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So you think the combined odds of Zambrano/Lilly repeating 2008, Peavy's road self being his true self, Harden missing 7-9 starts and Dempster reverting is "very, very small"? Yes, definitely. I marvel at your sustained optimism. We'll just have to wait and see and hope you are right.
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Discounting Harden by the odds of injury (not saying he's not a great value at his salary and projected output), I'd say the following teams have duos that I'd say are comparable to Peavy/Harden: Kazmir/Shields Halladay/Litsch or Marcum Lee/Sabathia Lowe/Billingsly Webb/Haren If you had to pick one of those six duos for a single 2009 season, I don't think Peavy/Harden is a no-brainer choice.
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So you think the combined odds of Zambrano/Lilly repeating 2008, Peavy's road self being his true self, Harden missing 7-9 starts and Dempster reverting is "very, very small"?
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Names, names, names. Yes, it's got pretty names. And it's definitely a good rotation if everything goes right. But with an injury problem, a guy with declining peripherals, a home-hero who is losing his favorable park and guy who went from mediocre to awesome quite suddenly at an advanced age, I think the odds of many things going wrong are at least as likely. But you said it "lacks dominance". We would have 5 pitchers who can dominate on any given night. 3 in particular who have some of the best "stuff" in baseball And the chances of none of them having an era under 3.6 and making 25 starts is very, very small. We're getting into semantics one "dominance." All pitchers have a chance to be dominant on any given night. I think there's a good chance this rotation lacks any pitchers with dominant 2009 seasons. The fact that you think the 3.6/25 start thing is "very, very small" is exactly the sort of overrating I'm arguing Cubs fans are doing. In terms of sum value, I expect that rotation to be the best in the NL, but it's not going to go down into the annals of history or anything.
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Don't know the reason, I just know I have a hard time projecting dominance from a guy being removed from the only environment he's been dominant in. I expect him to be a very good starter, but I think there's going to be a lot of disappointed Cubs fans when his ERA looks more like the 3.6 of his career road totals than the sub-3.00's he's been posting.
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His HR rate isn't the only peripheral that dips on the road. K/IP: .925 BB/IP: 0.363 K/BB: 2.54 ALL his peripherals take a big dip outside of San Diego. Do me a favor and tell me how those rank amongst mlb starters during that timeframe. That's a lot of datamining. Point is, you pointed some thresholds out that I'm pointing out he can't cross on the road.
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Names, names, names. Yes, it's got pretty names. And it's definitely a good rotation if everything goes right. But with an injury problem, a guy with declining peripherals, a home-hero who is losing his favorable park and guy who went from mediocre to awesome quite suddenly at an advanced age, I think the odds of many things going wrong are at least as likely.
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His HR rate isn't the only peripheral that dips on the road. K/IP: .925 BB/IP: 0.363 K/BB: 2.54 ALL his peripherals take a big dip outside of San Diego.
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Fun with arbitrary endpoints. 2003: 4.59 2002: 6.23 I'm much more inclined to say 04, 05, and 07 are the "flukes" (if we must cherrypick) than 02, 03, 06 and 08. The career totals tell a story that can't be brushed off as easily as rumors of arm problems.