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8+ Starts Since 2009 With Game Score <=25

Posted by Steve Lombardi on August 21, 2011

Since 2009, through last night, how many pitchers had 8+ starts where their Game Score was 25 or less?

Here is the list -

Rk Player #Matching   W L W-L% ERA GS CG SHO SV IP H ER HR BB SO WHIP
1 Nick Blackburn 17 Ind. Games 0 15 .000 15.56 17 0 0 0 59.0 149 102 24 28 16 3.00
2 Carl Pavano 15 Ind. Games 0 13 .000 14.62 15 0 0 0 64.0 143 104 22 19 30 2.53
3 A.J. Burnett 14 Ind. Games 0 11 .000 16.04 14 0 0 0 56.2 116 101 20 37 46 2.70
4 Fausto Carmona 13 Ind. Games 0 13 .000 15.69 13 0 0 0 49.1 110 86 14 23 24 2.70
5 Mike Pelfrey 12 Ind. Games 0 9 .000 14.52 12 0 0 0 48.1 104 78 13 31 26 2.79
6 Ricky Nolasco 12 Ind. Games 0 12 .000 20.20 12 0 0 0 41.0 112 92 15 19 34 3.20
7 Jason Marquis 12 Ind. Games 0 10 .000 17.31 12 0 0 0 39.0 97 75 8 23 18 3.08
8 Paul Maholm 12 Ind. Games 0 9 .000 15.93 12 0 0 0 46.1 109 82 8 26 30 2.91
9 Kyle Davies 12 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 15.43 12 0 0 0 46.2 103 80 15 26 24 2.76
10 Bronson Arroyo 12 Ind. Games 0 11 .000 15.86 12 0 0 0 47.2 110 84 22 29 22 2.92
11 Livan Hernandez 11 Ind. Games 0 10 .000 14.34 11 0 0 0 48.1 101 77 11 31 20 2.73
12 Trevor Cahill 11 Ind. Games 0 11 .000 17.77 11 0 0 0 39.0 96 77 15 23 19 3.05
13 Chris Volstad 10 Ind. Games 0 7 .000 13.50 10 0 0 0 41.1 84 62 15 19 18 2.49
14 Charlie Morton 10 Ind. Games 0 10 .000 19.42 10 0 0 0 29.2 84 64 6 22 25 3.57
15 Joe Saunders 9 Ind. Games 0 7 .000 16.20 9 0 0 0 28.1 64 51 12 29 11 3.28
16 Rick Porcello 9 Ind. Games 0 9 .000 16.09 9 0 0 0 33.0 77 59 12 13 11 2.73
17 Derek Lowe 9 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 15.55 9 0 0 0 33.0 83 57 7 23 18 3.21
18 John Lackey 9 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 15.69 9 0 0 0 39.0 84 68 11 22 19 2.72
19 Luke Hochevar 9 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 16.46 9 0 0 0 35.0 84 64 9 17 23 2.89
20 Jeremy Guthrie 9 Ind. Games 0 7 .000 12.25 9 0 0 0 39.2 83 54 10 18 21 2.55
21 Yovani Gallardo 9 Ind. Games 0 6 .000 14.35 9 0 0 0 37.0 85 59 12 18 35 2.78
22 Zach Duke 9 Ind. Games 0 7 .000 15.66 9 0 0 0 33.1 87 58 7 18 22 3.15
23 Aaron Cook 9 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 13.24 9 0 0 0 34.2 79 51 8 21 13 2.88
24 Brad Bergesen 9 Ind. Games 0 7 .000 13.91 9 0 0 0 33.0 71 51 12 18 12 2.70
25 Jason Vargas 8 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 14.54 8 0 0 0 30.1 61 49 6 19 15 2.64
26 James Shields 8 Ind. Games 0 7 .000 15.54 8 0 0 0 35.1 79 61 17 17 22 2.72
27 Brad Penny 8 Ind. Games 0 6 .000 16.80 8 0 0 0 30.0 64 56 10 22 20 2.87
28 John Lannan 8 Ind. Games 0 6 .000 14.29 8 0 0 0 28.1 67 45 7 16 8 2.93
29 Scott Kazmir 8 Ind. Games 0 6 .000 16.84 8 0 0 0 31.0 66 58 11 27 19 3.00
30 David Huff 8 Ind. Games 0 5 .000 14.73 8 0 0 0 29.1 61 48 8 19 14 2.73
31 Aaron Harang 8 Ind. Games 1 6 .143 12.41 8 0 0 0 37.0 79 51 13 16 22 2.57
32 Gavin Floyd 8 Ind. Games 0 8 .000 16.43 8 0 0 0 30.2 75 56 6 23 23 3.20
33 Brett Cecil 8 Ind. Games 1 3 .250 15.85 8 0 0 0 30.2 74 54 12 16 23 2.93
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/21/2011.

.
Betcha Burnett is the king of this list by season end.

Related posts:

    Most Career Post-Season Starts With Game Score >70
    Most game scores over 80 in 2009
    Most and fewest players getting a hit in a game in 2009
    Game score > 60 in the post-season
    Winning with a game score under 50

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2011 at 10:44 am and is filed under Game Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

15 Responses to “8+ Starts Since 2009 With Game Score <=25”

  1. Aryeh Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 11:03 am

    So what was it that Theo Epstein saw in Lackey to warrant that monstrous contract?

  2. zenny Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 11:24 am

    Many of those guys are feast or famine types - really good or really bad on different nights.

  3. Brendan Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 11:30 am

    Harang and Cecil actually won one of their games!

  4. Austyn Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    @Aryeh, he saw that Lackey pitched well against the Sox that one postseason and that he had one good season under his belt. I feel that perfectly warrants a huge contract.

  5. Jeff Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 1:07 pm

    So the Twins have the first two players on the list and they're 12 games under .500. coincidence?

  6. John Autin Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    Don't think that I'm cowed by Girardi's heated postgame defense of Burnett; I'm still one of his leading detractors (though the swelling mob is starting to drown me out).

    But the odds of Burnett winding up "the king of this list by season end" seem quite slim. First of all, as bad as he's been this year, Burnett has only 3 Game Scores of 25 or less out of 26 starts. He needs 3 more to tie for the lead, 4 to be "king." He's only due to get 7 more starts, and if he has a couple more really bad ones, he could get skipped a time or two or even dropped from the rotation.

  7. Thomas Court Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    @6

    I will preface this by saying that I am a Yankee fan.

    He should get dropped from the rotation right now. Since joining the Yankees his record is 32-34. Now I am a firm believer that "wins" are a completely misjudged category. King Felix totally deserved the Cy Young last year. In fact, I wish we could go back and retroactively fix some of the previous year's awards to reflect this more sound analysis. I understand that wins and losses are not the best way to judge a pitcher's overall effort.

    But as a pitcher, it takes a special effort to pitch for the Yankees the past 3 seasons and manage to have a losing record. You really have to work at it - and AJ has proven himself up for the task. Since arriving in New York, every single meaningful pitching statistic for him has gone south. if you compare them with his three years in Toronto. WHIP, HR/9, SO/9, and ERA+ are all worse on the Yankees than they were with the Blue Jays. He gets more (slightly) run support too! More run support and he manages still to be below .500.

    And how about this for a stat: The Yankees actually score more runs in the games Burnett pitches AFTER he has been removed from the game. That certainly may not be his fault - but it illustrates that there simply is not a lot of confidence when he is on the mound.

    Three seasons is not a limited sample size. How long do you leave a guy in the rotation when he pitches like this? This is not a Blyleven type - who manages a winning record despite pitching for losing teams. Burnett is the opposite. I think he should be removed from the rotation and traded.

    And when he turns his career around pitching for Atlanta, or Detroit, or Minnesota - that will be a nice story for him... But I will think to myself, "But you couldn't do it in New York."

    Note - Although I am a Yankee fan, I live in Massachusetts and enjoy not only watching the Red Sox, (when the Yanks are not on) I also enjoy the contributions from the Red Sox fans I have seen on this blog. See? Peace is possible!

  8. Doug Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    @2, Zenny.

    "Many of those guys are feast or famine types - really good or really bad on different nights."

    I've heard it suggested that this is a particular charcteristic of Livan Herandez. So, let's find out. Since 2009, by game score:
    - 25 or less: 11 starts
    - 26-50: 30 starts
    - 51-65: 40 starts (1 CG)
    - 66 or more: 10 starts (4 CGs)

    So, a bit of symmetry with slight skewing towards better results (51 or higher).

    I wonder if this isn't fairly typical of your "average" pitcher? Similar likelihood of a very good or very poor start, and performance in the in-between games distinguishing better pitchers from poorer ones.

    Anyone have ideas how to measure tendency towards (or against) consistent performance on a game-by-game basis?

  9. BSK Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    Doug-

    I'm forgetting most of the stats I learned, but I believe you are getting at something called variance. Basically, it is a way of measuring how far individual performances are from the mean/average/median/one-of-those. So, you could have two pitchers who have an average game score of 50. Player A might have a very low variance if all his games score between 40 and 60 while Player B's might be much higher if half his games are between 20-30 and the other half are between 70-80. They still have the same average but got there a very different way. i have no idea how it's calculated and I may not be using the proper term, but I'm pretty sure it is a pretty basic statistic that wouldn't be too hard to calculate, especially if a number like Game Score is used.

  10. Voomo Zanzibar Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    Burnett for Zambrano.
    Solves the problem for both teams.

    Cashman I know you are reading this.
    If I cant have your job at least utilize one of my ideas now and then.
    This one is crazy-fun, and saves you about 17 million.

  11. DoubleDiamond Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    As soon as I saw "Double Butler's" (Brett Cecil's) name on the list, even though it was at the very bottom, I just knew that one of the games had to be this one:

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201006270.shtml

    And it was, although his game score was 24.

  12. Liam Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    kill A.J

  13. Julian Says:
    August 21st, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    Interestingly, Cecil and Harang, the only two pitchers on the list to win any of their starts, each did so in only eight starts.

  14. Voomo Zanzibar Says:
    August 22nd, 2011 at 12:37 am

    Cashman just returned my call.
    He understands now.

    Put AJ, Feliciano, Marte, and Igawa on waivers.
    Big Z clears waivers.
    Trade those four for BIg Z. Cubs will gladly do it.

    Assign Z to AA Trenton.
    If he refuses the assignment, send him home and eat the 18 million.
    If he accepts the assignment, use him exclusively as a pinch hitter, send him to charity events four times a week, and tell him that if is behaves that maybe, just maybe he'll get called up in July of 2012.

    Either he retires and Yanx save their money, or he reforms and they have a great pitcher.

    AJ in the NL Central on a crappy team goes 18-6, 2.86, 241K.

  15. Fireworks Says:
    August 22nd, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    AJ is so bad that when I saw the post title I forgot to say, "AJ will do well on this list," because I don't associate AJ with doing well.

    @ Thomas Court. Agree with you 100%. I was pointing out AJ's poor record with the Yankees a couple days ago. After the Minnesota loss I calculated that not counting AJ's decisions (I didn't look at the Yanks record in games he started), the Yankees were 100 games over .500 in 3 years without his particular record. And even he were a little unlucky somehow in having the pen blow a few of his wins the last couple years while the offense never rescued him from a loss (both of which I sincerely doubt have occurred to give him a better impression for the purpose of this discussion), it takes real talent to be a losing pitcher in his favorable situation.

    An ERA of nearly 5 since the beginning of 2010. You can get one of these highly touted prospects from the farm to do that at minimum, and for 40 times less money.

    I've actually been rooting for him to get rocked the last couple starts. My willingness to have him look so terrible that there is absolutely no chance that the Yankees put him in a position to fail (his only option, apparently) in the future, and understand that he is a sunk cost and should be a mop up man these last two-plus years until he demonstrates, in low-pressure situations, that he can pitch well and be promoted to a slightly better role is paramount in rooting against him and thus against the Yankees.

    I don't care about not making the situation so ugly that his 'confidence' is shattered and he can't possibly be reinserted into the rotation in 2012 or 2013. Sunk cost. We have to pay him. That does not mean we have to continue to utilize him when he is detrimental to the success of the team.

    Go Yankees (except for Burnett. You're lucky this is a 'family' blog or I'd say what I really think about you)!

    P.S. If you're really observant when you watch Yankees games that Burnett starts you will notice that in his left hand he does not hold a glove, but instead holds a handgun, and that he does not have a baseball cap on his head, but a stocking cap.

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