march 9th B/P report on white sox...
march 9th B/P report on white sox...
Rub Some Dirt On It: At the beginning of Spring Training, Ozzie Guillen said that he expected his starting pitchers to be ready to throw complete games, as soon as Opening Day. No big deal, really. And if his pitchers aren't ready in one month's time to meet his challenge, "they better get another job."
It's an idle threat. The real concern is that he won't comprehend the difference between efficiency and machismo, and since the Sox don't have enough starters as it is, score for machismo. Four slots in the rotation are set. Mark Buehrle, Esteban Loaiza, Jon Garland, and Scott Schoeneweis are in place. The Sox should have at least four pitchers splitting time in the fifth slot, with Jon Rauch, Danny Wright, and Felix Diaz getting most of the calls. PECOTA doesn't like their chances, forecasting a 4.63 ERA for the group:
2004 PECOTA Mean Projection
IP ERA
Buehrle 202 4.42
Loaiza 201 3.93
Garland 149 4.76
Schoeneweis 72 4.55
Rauch 83 5.15
Wright 102 5.45
Diaz 62 4.84
That's 552 innings for their top three, with the other four accounting for only 319. The light load projected for them leaves Guillen about 130 innings short of the 1000 he'll need to get from his rotation. He's going to get those thousand innings come hell or high water, but to do it he's going to have to push both ends of his rotation, the front end so it doesn't burn his bullpen when the crummier pitchers take their turns, the back end past the point of diminishing returns.
Last year, White Sox starters had an ERA of 4.17 and a Support Neutral winning percentage of .543, 5th best in the American League. Together, Bartolo Colon and Loaiza were nearly 15 games over .500 in their Support-Neutral record, and because of them last year's rotation was by far the best Jerry Manuel had in his six years as Sox manager.
Year SNW SNL SNPct. AdjRA SNVA Ranking in AL
2003 62.4 52.5 .543 4.49 5th
2002 53.1 59.7 .471 5.24 10th
2001 53.5 58 .480 5.13 8th
2000 55.1 54.3 .504 5.33 6th
1999 51.3 61.7 .454 5.86 worst
1998 47.0 66.5 .414 5.89 worst
Even if we assume Loaiza repeats and Buehrle holds steady, Guillen will have to substitute Colon's 242 innings with 242 innings of Wright, Rauch, Diaz, and TBA.
If Guillen plans to work his bullpen less than Manuel did and, as he promises, still protect his starting pitchers, it'll be a feat. Manuel asked only 418 innings out of his bullpen last year, the third year in a row he used them for less than 500.
Year Staff Innings Thrown by Bullpen
2003 1431 29%
2002 1423 33%
2001 1433.3 35%
Only two teams had fewer bullpen innings in 2003, and only one used relievers for less than 400 (the Yankees got 396). In terms of Adjusted Runs Prevented, Manuel's bullpens ranked last, 5th, 6th, 7th, 6th, and, last year, 6th again. Guillen is looking at more of the same. As a group, Damaso Marte, Kelly Wunsch, Billy Koch, Jon Adkins, and Cliff Politte have a projected ERA of 4.21, which would make them a lot like Sox bullpens of recent vintage. But here, too, the innings are short. PECOTA projects these five relievers to account for 297 innings.
Where will Guillen get the rest of his innings? If those projections prove out, he'll have to get more than 100 innings - maybe a lot more - in the pen from Wright (5.45), Rauch (5.15), Diaz (4.84), and Gary Majewski(4.92). They'll all have to perform at the top quartile of their PECOTA to keep the bullpen at 4.21. And let's not forget Shingo Takatsu, the import from Japan whose PECOTA projection is so bad we almost have to disregard it:
IP H BB K HR ERA
25 40 11 19 12 10.44
Clay Davenport did a different projection, using Takatsu's weighted performance from 2000 to 2003, and this one came out more charitably:
IP H BB K HR ERA
38.7 42 19 20 5 5.06
It's an improvement, but for a best case scenario it's fugging scary, especially when you consider that Takatsu's strikeout rate has declined in each of the last four years, from 5.8 to 4.3.
With a rickety relief corps and a short rotation, Guillen faces a Hobson's choice: surrender the title in favor of the future, or push his pitchers to the breaking point on the hope that 85 wins will get them to playoffs. He wasn't brought in to restart the development cycle, so, to bring us back to the initial question, the smart money's on machismo. And someone else to win the Central.
march 9th B/P report on white sox...
Rub Some Dirt On It: At the beginning of Spring Training, Ozzie Guillen said that he expected his starting pitchers to be ready to throw complete games, as soon as Opening Day. No big deal, really. And if his pitchers aren't ready in one month's time to meet his challenge, "they better get another job."
It's an idle threat. The real concern is that he won't comprehend the difference between efficiency and machismo, and since the Sox don't have enough starters as it is, score for machismo. Four slots in the rotation are set. Mark Buehrle, Esteban Loaiza, Jon Garland, and Scott Schoeneweis are in place. The Sox should have at least four pitchers splitting time in the fifth slot, with Jon Rauch, Danny Wright, and Felix Diaz getting most of the calls. PECOTA doesn't like their chances, forecasting a 4.63 ERA for the group:
2004 PECOTA Mean Projection
IP ERA
Buehrle 202 4.42
Loaiza 201 3.93
Garland 149 4.76
Schoeneweis 72 4.55
Rauch 83 5.15
Wright 102 5.45
Diaz 62 4.84
That's 552 innings for their top three, with the other four accounting for only 319. The light load projected for them leaves Guillen about 130 innings short of the 1000 he'll need to get from his rotation. He's going to get those thousand innings come hell or high water, but to do it he's going to have to push both ends of his rotation, the front end so it doesn't burn his bullpen when the crummier pitchers take their turns, the back end past the point of diminishing returns.
Last year, White Sox starters had an ERA of 4.17 and a Support Neutral winning percentage of .543, 5th best in the American League. Together, Bartolo Colon and Loaiza were nearly 15 games over .500 in their Support-Neutral record, and because of them last year's rotation was by far the best Jerry Manuel had in his six years as Sox manager.
Year SNW SNL SNPct. AdjRA SNVA Ranking in AL
2003 62.4 52.5 .543 4.49 5th
2002 53.1 59.7 .471 5.24 10th
2001 53.5 58 .480 5.13 8th
2000 55.1 54.3 .504 5.33 6th
1999 51.3 61.7 .454 5.86 worst
1998 47.0 66.5 .414 5.89 worst
Even if we assume Loaiza repeats and Buehrle holds steady, Guillen will have to substitute Colon's 242 innings with 242 innings of Wright, Rauch, Diaz, and TBA.
If Guillen plans to work his bullpen less than Manuel did and, as he promises, still protect his starting pitchers, it'll be a feat. Manuel asked only 418 innings out of his bullpen last year, the third year in a row he used them for less than 500.
Year Staff Innings Thrown by Bullpen
2003 1431 29%
2002 1423 33%
2001 1433.3 35%
Only two teams had fewer bullpen innings in 2003, and only one used relievers for less than 400 (the Yankees got 396). In terms of Adjusted Runs Prevented, Manuel's bullpens ranked last, 5th, 6th, 7th, 6th, and, last year, 6th again. Guillen is looking at more of the same. As a group, Damaso Marte, Kelly Wunsch, Billy Koch, Jon Adkins, and Cliff Politte have a projected ERA of 4.21, which would make them a lot like Sox bullpens of recent vintage. But here, too, the innings are short. PECOTA projects these five relievers to account for 297 innings.
Where will Guillen get the rest of his innings? If those projections prove out, he'll have to get more than 100 innings - maybe a lot more - in the pen from Wright (5.45), Rauch (5.15), Diaz (4.84), and Gary Majewski(4.92). They'll all have to perform at the top quartile of their PECOTA to keep the bullpen at 4.21. And let's not forget Shingo Takatsu, the import from Japan whose PECOTA projection is so bad we almost have to disregard it:
IP H BB K HR ERA
25 40 11 19 12 10.44
Clay Davenport did a different projection, using Takatsu's weighted performance from 2000 to 2003, and this one came out more charitably:
IP H BB K HR ERA
38.7 42 19 20 5 5.06
It's an improvement, but for a best case scenario it's fugging scary, especially when you consider that Takatsu's strikeout rate has declined in each of the last four years, from 5.8 to 4.3.
With a rickety relief corps and a short rotation, Guillen faces a Hobson's choice: surrender the title in favor of the future, or push his pitchers to the breaking point on the hope that 85 wins will get them to playoffs. He wasn't brought in to restart the development cycle, so, to bring us back to the initial question, the smart money's on machismo. And someone else to win the Central.
