The Division's Best Rotation

by Rox Girl on Oct 17, 2006 1:06 PM MDT in Rockpile

People who read this blog regularly know I'm a pretty big homer when it comes to all things Rockies related and I'd argue vociferously on their behalf. I love our chances for next season and I'm an eternal optimist. However, I think I need to address a misperception among my fellow Rockies fans in regards to the starting rotation. Often I've heard it mentioned that our rotation has the best first three starters. This is not true. At least it hasn't yet been true -not in 2006, not ever- but I guess that there's always next year. Anyway, back to this past season: I'm going to just do a simple tabulation of each NL West team's front three using The Hardball Times pitching runs created metric:

San Diego (Peavy, Young, Hensley) 281
San Francisco (Schmidt, Cain, Morris) 257
Los Angeles (Penny, Lowe, Maddux) 255
Colorado (Jennings, Cook, Francis) 253
Arizona (Webb, Batista, Vargas) 253

So, there you see it, we wound up the season actually tied with Arizona for the least effective top of the rotation (albeit Los Angeles only had Maddux for 12 starts and the hodgepodge they had before he arrived probably would have sunk them lower) in the division. Does this mean we need to panic and go out dumping tons of money Mike Mussina or Barry Zito's way? Well, if we have the cash... no, just kidding, obviously we don't and I doubt this approach would be a wise move anyway. Let's hope Francis continues his progression next year and that Cook regains some of his lost swagger which should make us alright here, but in the interest of frugality look to elevating the performance from the last two slots:

Arizona (Cruz, Gonzalez, dos Hernandez's) 120
San Diego (Williams, Park) 106
San Francisco (Lowry, Wright) 104
Los Angeles (Billingsley, Seo, Hendrickson) 100
Colorado (Kim, Fogg) 98

Whoever in the preseason pegged San Diego's rotation as the most solid front to back deserves a Nobel Prize, I think. The one they give out for predicting NL West stuff. Anyway, both Kim and Fogg wound up the season with 49 PRC, and their ranking goes right along with where other stats that try and measure total contribution seem to place them. The aggregate effect seems to have our rotation a good eight games behind the Padres, a few back of Arizona, and only one to two behind Los Angeles or San Francisco, but the bottom line is that we had the worst rotation in the division in 2006, and without changes to our personnel I don't see us making up all the ground we need to, particularly in regards to the Padres.

I'm hoping Ubaldo Jimenez steps up and proves himself ready next season, because that would be the best, easiest and cheapest option. It doesn't even have to be at the start of the season, as long as we can stay close until he's ready. I'm not getting a lot of confidence from the second tier free agent class, which makes a trade the second best option in my book.

Oops, almost forgot, in order to support Purple Row and keep it running, I'm going to ask for a favor and ask all my readers to fill in a survey so the people who are selling the ads that will appear on the site can know how to manipulate my readership (that would be you guys, I know, but at least I'm warning you) a little better.

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If anyone is interested in

reading the press release from Federated Media, you can find that here.

by Russ Oates on Oct 17, 2006 2:34 PM MDT reply actions

The first list

gives too much credit to D'Backs starters. Webb (124 PRC) accounted for just under 50% of that combined total. Other than the Reds, the D'Backs had the biggest difference from one starter to the next (Batista had 71 PRC).

Which makes me wonder: could the Reds have done better if they had even twenty points better on their third starter? Eric Milton's 49 PRC (Fogg and Kim territory) is a far cry from Arroyo's (122) and Harang (110).

Jennings (98 PRC) accounted for 38% and Cook and Francis each had 31% of the total.

by Russ Oates on Oct 17, 2006 8:00 PM MDT reply actions

I don't know if that matters that much

At least for the purpose of this list. Webb's total accounted for much of the D-backs' production from the rotation, it's true, but you have to take that production into account in combining the sum of the parts.

Speaking of which, here's a different take that the Rockies could take some heart in, that turns this post completely around. It's the NL West list according to Win Shares, with each individual's contribution to the team total, and you can see that Webb by himself contributed just over seven wins (Each Win Share is supposed to represent one third of a team's victory) to the D-backs' record this year, compare that to Jennings and Francis who each contributed just over four wins to the Rockies:

Arizona 38

Brandon Webb 22
Miguel Batista 9
Claudio Vargas 7

Colorado 38

Jason Jennings 14
Jeff Francis 13
Aaron Cook 11

This stat is actually very kind to Francis compared to some other compiled metrics like the one I showed in my main post, as well as Baseball Prospectus's VORP, but it more properly reflects what I saw in Jeff's season.

San Francisco 36

Jason Schmidt 16
Matt Cain 12
Matt Morris 8

San Diego 34

Peavy 12
Young 12
Hensley 10

Los Angeles 33

Lowe 15
Penny 12
Billingsley or Maddux 6

I gave the other list prime treatment in the main post because it seemed to reflect the reality on the ground a bit better. After all, we know what the final standings said, and they definitely did not have Arizona or Colorado on top. I actually think four out of the five teams in the division heading into 2007 have pretty equal, decent but overall unspectacular tops to their rotations, with more or less shaky bottoms. San Francisco's the exception because Schmidt and Morris might be on their way elsewhere and I'm just not sure what direction the Giants are going to take next season.

by Rox Girl on Oct 18, 2006 6:22 AM MDT up reply actions

I probably should have

added this little statement at the end of my post: I would prefer a more balanced top 3, compared to the D'Backs where they are basically relying on one guy.

But it probably doesn't matter as fourth just isn't good enough to get into the playoffs.

by Russ Oates on Oct 18, 2006 12:16 PM MDT up reply actions