Pitching turnarounds in 2011
Posted by Andy on May 19, 2011
Here's a neat little thing I've just played around with.
First I made a list of the 21 pitchers who pitched at least 150 innings in 2010 and had an ERA+ of 90 or worse.
And here, among those guys, are the ones who are qualified for the ERA title in 2011 with an ERA+ of at least 100:
| Rk | Player | Year | Age | Tm | Lg | G | GS | CG | SHO | GF | W | L | SV | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | BF | AB | 2B | 3B | IBB | HBP | SH | SF | GDP | SB | CS | PO | BK | WP | Pit | Str | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Shields | 162 | 2011 | 29 | TBR | AL | 9 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | .667 | 0 | 67.2 | 53 | 18 | 17 | 14 | 60 | 2.26 | 7 | 263 | 243 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | .218 | .265 | .358 | .623 | 77 | 931 | 616 |
| 2 | Justin Masterson | 143 | 2011 | 26 | CLE | AL | 9 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | .714 | 0 | 60.2 | 55 | 18 | 17 | 19 | 48 | 2.52 | 1 | 247 | 221 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .249 | .318 | .321 | .640 | 87 | 944 | 603 |
| 3 | Paul Maholm | 105 | 2011 | 29 | PIT | NL | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | .143 | 0 | 56.1 | 49 | 25 | 23 | 23 | 39 | 3.67 | 3 | 235 | 206 | 11 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | .238 | .313 | .335 | .648 | 85 | 841 | 531 |
| 4 | Nick Blackburn | 105 | 2011 | 29 | MIN | AL | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | .333 | 0 | 48.2 | 53 | 25 | 20 | 18 | 28 | 3.70 | 7 | 211 | 190 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | .279 | .343 | .453 | .795 | 122 | 786 | 497 |
| 5 | A.J. Burnett | 100 | 2011 | 34 | NYY | AL | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | .571 | 0 | 56.1 | 47 | 29 | 25 | 19 | 42 | 3.99 | 9 | 235 | 206 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 8 | .228 | .296 | .437 | .733 | 100 | 909 | 570 |
These are guys experiencing some degree of a turnaround so far in 2011.
Of course, this list doesn't catch Bartolo Colon or Kyle Lohse, neither of which who had enough innings in 2010 to qualify for my original list.
May 19th, 2011 at 11:08 am
Charlie Morton missed the list (just 80 IP last year in 17 GS), but I think he's the biggest turnaround of the year:
2010 -- 2-12 / 7.57 ERA / 54 ERA+ / 4.7 IP per start.
2011 -- 5-1 / 2.62 ERA / 147 ERA+ / 6.9 IP per start.
May 19th, 2011 at 11:21 am
These are strange days, indeed, when a $17 million man like A.J. Burnett can celebrate a "turnaround" with an ERA+ of 100 even....
BTW, a friend of mine refers to Burnett as "Hyman Roth," based on this exchange from The Godfather Part II:
Michael Corleone: Come on, Frankie, you know my father did business with Hyman Roth -- he respected him.
Frankie Pentangeli: Your father did business with Hyman Roth; your father respected Hyman Roth. But your father never trusted Hyman Roth.
May 19th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
@1
I'd have to think Josh Beckett is the biggest turnaround (thus far).
2010 - ERA+ of 75
2011 - ERA+ of 232
May 19th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Beckett also didn't have enough IP in 2010 to make my list.
May 19th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
What happened to the other 16 guys?
Still getting roughed up, or no longer in the majors?
May 19th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Most haven't pitched enough innings this year to qualify for the ERA title so far.
Here's the original list:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/share.cgi?id=Gqi1k
May 19th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
@3, Rob -- I can see your point of view.
My view is supported by WAR:
Morton: 2010, -2.5; 2011, 1.5; Net change, +4.0
Beckett: 2010, -1.0; 2011, 2.4; Net change, +3.4
May 19th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
1 thing about Morton, hes got 29 K and 26 BB right now, a 1.309 WHIP and a .259 BABIP against...all pointing to an implosion soon
May 19th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Kyle Lohse posted a 5.54 ERA, 72 ERA+ in a combined 209 innings in 2009 and 2010.
He currently has a 171 ERA+ and leads the league in WHIP.
May 19th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
I think Bud Norris was on the list prior to his 5ER in 5IP against St. Louis last night. His ERA went from 3.42 to 3.93 making his ERA+ 93. I don't know what his ERA+ was prior to the start, but I think it was over 100.
Also, this list reminds me that when I looked at Milton Bradley's contract the other week when Seattle DFA'd him I noticed that one of his contracts called for a bonus if he won the Comeback Player of the Year Award. Not exactly the type of bonus clause you want to have to put in a contract.
May 19th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Hector Noesi was the first pitcher to pitch 4 innings of relief in his major league debut AND receive the win since 1986, according to Mark Simon of ESPN Stats and Info
May 19th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Great turnarounds for these guys and they're still stuck with a combined 16-17 record. Someone get Paul Maholm some runs support!
May 20th, 2011 at 8:47 am
As a Red Sox fan, I'm enjoying Masterson's success. I loved the Victor Martinez trade, but I was still sad to see Justin go. I wanted to see him grow up in Boston. I'm glad he's having success in Cleveland this year, after a bumpy year-plus.
May 20th, 2011 at 9:15 am
Andy - it's been mentioned a few places but I'm not sure if it's been noted here yet: Can you or someone else here who is a whiz with the indexes run a list of the past 20 years ERA+ equaling 100? Meaning, what ERA+ equals the adjusted league average? It looks like this year it is running well under 4 (around 3.80) which seems awful low. More support for this being "Year of the Pitcher II - Electric Boogaloo"?
May 20th, 2011 at 9:24 am
DD, no such number exists. ERA+ is calculated as follows:
ERA+=
100*[lgERA/ERA]
Adjusted to the player’s ballpark(s).
So, it's a normalization of the player's ERA vs the league ERA, but then there is a ballpark adjustment. I'm not sure how the ballpark adjustment works--for example if it takes into consideration only the player's home ballpark, or all the parks he pitched in that year, or what. But the bottom line is that a pitcher in a hitter-friendly park could have a higher ERA than a pitcher in a pitcher-friendly park and yet both could have an ERA+ of exactly 100.
May 20th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Andy thanks for the explanation, that all makes sense. You do show the league average ERA on the below page.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/pitch.shtml
It does show the league average ERA dropping the last two years, which proves that to have an ERA+ over 100, pitchers must generally have a lower ERA than in the past (adjusted for their ballpark of course). This, along with a supposed decrease in velocity, is why no one has given Kevin Millwood a big league job yet (I know he signed with Boston as a minor leaguer recently). If you're gonna give a team a lot of innings, your ERA better be well under 5 to have a positive impact anymore. The days of an acceptable #5 starter having that high an ERA are over for now.
May 20th, 2011 at 11:27 am
@2 John A,
LOL, good one.
I was kind of surprised to find that Burnett is 34 years old. I didn't realize he was that old. I was also kind of shocked to find that Burnett only had one season above (3) WAR, '02 Marlins. And his career high was 3.8 WAR in 2002.
Burnett has averaged about 2.6 WAR from '05-09 which is good but definitely not worth something like $16 million a year. How much is 1 win of WAR worth these days, something like $4 million so you could say that Burnett's probably worth something like $10-12 million each year.
The Yankees can overpay a guy like Burnett which most teams can't do. The Yankees can overpay a #3 starter like Burnett something like $25-30 million dollars over 5 years and not have it impact their payroll one bit.
Another luxury the Yankees have is they can give a #3 starter a $75 million 5 year contract.
The Yankees of 2013 are going to be interesting with all that money and age on that team.
Maholm was a bit of victim of the Pirates terrible defense in 2010.
May 20th, 2011 at 11:48 am
[...] their pitching in 2011, so I thought I’d direct your attention to this little blurb over at Baseball-Reference. Not only is Andy giving praise to Nick Blackburn for turning in solid performances in 2011 [...]
May 20th, 2011 at 11:48 am
I'm not sure how the ballpark adjustment works--for example if it takes into consideration only the player's home ballpark, or all the parks he pitched in that year, or what.
It's based on the multi-season park factor, which is based on how many runs scored in all of a team's home game games compared to how many runs scored in all of its road games over (I believe) a 5-season span.
It should be noted that it is *not* adjusted for the specific parks a pitcher pitched in, and this could definitely have some impact on a SP. It's probably not unusual for a SP to have, say, 18 starts at home and 14 on the road, and/or 3 starts in one road park and none in several others, so his "personal" park factor could differ from the team's, but ERA+ just applies a team factor.