Sunday Rockpile: Allocating Rockies IP for 2009

by Rox Girl on Dec 28, 2008 10:24 AM MST in Rockpile Comment 7 comments

You guys already know I'm not really a mathematician, but thanks to some people who are, people like me who aren't can just plug some numbers into a spreadsheet and seem a lot smarter than we really are. Well, at least that's what the advertisements promised when I ordered it on TV, even though it doesn't seem to work as often as I'd like. At any rate, one important part of projecting a team's performance is knowing who will be playing and how much. As GoRoxGo mentions in the comments to tpaine2009's diary on the right, one usually has to figure on 1440 IP for the pitchers, and 6300 PA's for the hitters. So before I can plug these numbers in and look smart, I need a realistic approximation of how many innings we're going to get from each of our pitchers in 2009. Figuring out the starter contributions in particular will give us an idea of what the bullpen's IP will be, so I'm going to start with that today and see where the discussion goes from there. Here are the questions I have about each of our starters:

Aaron Cook projects to 182 IP from just about everybody despite throwing over 200 in two of the past three seasons, can we count on 30 more innings from Cookie than what's projected, or will injury concerns spring up and keep him near that 180 mark?
Ubaldo Jimenez projects for 166-ish innings from CHONE and Marcel, but 195 from Bill James, the latter seems a lot closer to me after he threw 198 plus last season, am I right to think that or will he take a step back next season?
Jeff Francis ranges from 153 IP with Marcel to 176 IP with James. He too has been capable of 200 plus in the past, but had some injury issues in 2008 that may not be completely resolved, what's in store for him in 2009?
Jorge De La Rosa seems to me the most likely to dramatically exceed his projected innings, particularly the 108 that CHONE sees him throwing which makes almost zero sense to me logically since they have him starting 22 games at 4.50 ish ERA. This means that he'd be an average NL starter in quality that can't get through the fifth inning. Something's amiss there. I see 70 more IP than that in 2009, or thirty starts averaging just under six innings.
I worry a bit about a carryover effect from a dramatic increase in Greg Smith's workload in 2008, so I think Bill James' 190 IP projection might be incorrect on the high side and see Marcel's 155 as closer to the truth. If I was a little more sure of Francis, I'd gladly sacrifice quantity for quality here.
Glendon Rusch will pick up some of the workload, how many starts does he figure to get this season?
The Rockies have a trio of other young pitchers in Greg Reynolds, Jason Hirsh and Franklin Morales, all of whom could probably be pencilled in for at least some work, but how much?

Right now, I wonder if this is me being my typical optimistic self, but I've pencilled in 143 starts from Cook/U-ball/Francis/JDLR and Smith. I've got Rusch picking up nine of the leftovers, and the other ten will be divided by Reynolds/Hirsh and Morales. I've given the 6/7/8/9 starters an average of exactly 5 IP for those starts or 95 innings added to the 885 I had being thrown by our current projected 1-5 (180 Cook, 200 Baldo, 175 Francis, 175 JDLR, 155 Smith). This would leave 460 innings for the pen, which would be the lowest Rockies total since 1998, which is why I wonder if I am being too optimistic in my assessment of starter contributions for 2009. I think maybe my Francis innings projection needs to come down, but I'm pretty confident in the others, what does everybody else see?

0 recs | Comment 7 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

It's a bit optimistic

of you to give 162+ IP (the number to qualify for the ERA title) to four starting pitchers with a fifth pitcher falling just 7 IP short of that total. This is due to the fact that only once in the 7 years of the Hurdle era has the team had as many as four “qualified” starting pitchers (2007). In the other six years, we had either two or three starters reach that IP level.

Cook is clearly the most likely to reach 200 IP, given his relative pitching efficiency (low pitch count per IP). The caveat with him is that he has suffered two significant injuries in the past that have curtailed his seasons. If healthy, he reaches 200 IP easily. But, there’s a 30% chance he won’t be healthy all year, IMO. Depending on when such injury happens, he could have well fewer than 162 IP.

Jimenez is primed for a breakout season. He has settled in at this level, and could be our best pitcher in 2009 by a wide margin. I’m more optimistic than you regarding Ulbaldo.

Francis showed some effects of wear and tear from 2006/07 last year (he had a combined 431 IP during this period, including the postseason), though he’s young enough to come back. strong. If his shoulder is OK, 210 IP is a safe bet.

JDLR and Smith are the suspects. As encouraging as JDLR was in the 2nd half of last season, it came without the pressure of competing for anything. He has had a fragile psyche in the past, and maddening inconsistency. So, I think he’s probably the one who doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain, and fails to reach 162 IP. Same with Smith. A one-year IP wonder does not make into a reliable projection. Just look at 2007 Hirsh compared to what we got from him in 2008, though I realize that Hirsh’s collapse was health-related.

So, I’d project three starters with a combined 600 IP, and the next two will probably pitch from 250 to 300 innings. Another wild card is whether or not we sign or trade for another starting pitcher who would figure into the mix. As I wrote in the above-mentioned diary, all rosters are still works-in-progress given the number of unsigned free agents still out there. It’s about a month too early to be making these projections.

by GoRoxGo on Dec 28, 2008 12:18 PM MST reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, that's why I usually wait to project pitching staffs

But I thought I’d get a little head start on the Rockies and try and figure out where I might already be getting too optimistic. It makes sense that JDLR would figure prominently in that discussion because I am pretty high on his chances next season. I disagree that he wasn’t competing for anything. The team wasn’t maybe, but his job and future were definitely on the line with Rusch and Hernandez and Hirsh and Morales all ready to take innings if he faltered.

I am a little pessimistic about Francis rebounding because I just don’t know enough about what was bothering him in the first place in 2007. So given that this is my frame of mind, I’ll knock Smith down to about 135 innings, or roughly his 30th percentile CHONE projection, and Francis to 155. Cook and Jimenez each at 200, JDLR I’m going to keep at 170

by Rox Girl on Dec 28, 2008 2:23 PM MST up reply actions 0 recs

Whoops, didn't finish...

I think that will balance out some of my optimism on JDLR with a jolt of pessimism elsewhere to maybe help make my overall projection a little more realistic. That knocks off 30 IP from our starters, and gives us only three qualifiers, which I think is more in line with a typical Rockies season.

by Rox Girl on Dec 28, 2008 2:27 PM MST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, that makes more sense.....

even though you are more pessimistic on Francis and more optimistic on JDLR than I am, it could turn out either way.

Adding up your innings from the Top 5, it now comes out to 860 innings. My estimate from those five was 850 to 900 IP. If we assume that’s the most plausible range, and also that this fivesome averages 6 IP/GS, then they will start a total of 142 to 150 games. That leaves 12 to 20 games to be started by the “taxi squad”, among them Reynolds, Hirsh, Morales, and even a surprise or two (Chacin?).

My gut tells me that in reality we will see more than 20 games started by someone other than who’s in our projected 5-man rotation. Surprises tend to happen, especially with pitchers.

by GoRoxGo on Dec 28, 2008 2:44 PM MST up reply actions 0 recs

As long as the surprise isn't named "Tim Harikkala"

or “Livan Hernandez” hopefully we’ll be alright.

by Rox Girl on Dec 28, 2008 2:52 PM MST up reply actions 0 recs

2006 Was lucky

In 2006 we had
SP Aaron Cook 212.7
SP *Jeff Francis 199.0
SP Jason Jennings 212.0
SP Josh Fogg 172.0
SP Byung-Hyun Kim 155.0

This totalled to 950.7. I remember thinking at the time about how lucky the Rockies were in that there pitchers were very dependable. They could have made it the entire year with just these 5 pitchers, but Hurdle gave other guys a look see.

I would think that that year was very much an anomaly.

Nice post Roxgirl, and nice reply GoRoxGo

by brian8065 on Dec 28, 2008 12:54 PM MST reply actions 0 recs