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Kevin Millwood to the Orioles

Posted by Andy on December 14, 2009

I see that the Orioles picked up Kevin Millwood in a trade for Chris Ray. In itself, that's quite an interesting deal. Ray is coming off a bad year, one season after missing an entire year due to injury. In theory, if he can learn to pitch after Tommy John surgery, he could be valuable. Millwood is an expensive veteran coming off one of his best years in 2009 but some so-so years before that.

Let's take a look at pitchers who did what Millwood did in his Age 34 season. These are the last 20 players to qualify for the ERA title with an ERA+ of 127 or better in their Age 34 year:

Rk Player Year ERA+ Tm G GS CG SHO W L W-L% IP H R ER BB SO ERA OPS+
1 Chris Carpenter 2009 183 STL 28 28 3 1 17 4 .810 192.2 156 49 48 38 144 2.24 58
2 Kevin Millwood 2009 127 TEX 31 31 3 0 13 10 .565 198.2 195 88 81 71 123 3.67 93
3 Hideo Nomo 2003 130 LAD 33 33 2 2 16 13 .552 218.1 175 82 75 98 177 3.09 82
4 Mike Mussina 2003 129 NYY 31 31 2 1 17 8 .680 214.2 192 86 81 40 195 3.40 71
5 Curt Schilling 2001 157 ARI 35 35 6 1 22 6 .786 256.2 237 86 85 39 293 2.98 71
6 Al Leiter 2000 139 NYM 31 31 2 1 16 8 .667 208.0 176 84 74 76 200 3.20 74
7 Tom Glavine 2000 135 ATL 35 35 4 2 21 9 .700 241.0 222 101 91 65 152 3.40 72
8 Greg Maddux 2000 153 ATL 35 35 6 3 19 9 .679 249.1 225 91 83 42 190 3.00 58
9 Kevin Brown 1999 143 LAD 35 35 5 1 18 9 .667 252.1 210 99 84 59 221 3.00 61
10 Randy Johnson 1998 135 TOT 34 34 10 6 19 11 .633 244.1 203 102 89 86 329 3.28 71
11 Roger Clemens 1997 221 TOR 34 34 9 3 21 7 .750 264.0 204 65 60 68 292 2.05 48
12 David Cone 1997 159 NYY 29 29 1 0 12 6 .667 195.0 155 67 61 86 222 2.82 67
13 Tim Belcher 1996 127 KCR 35 35 4 1 15 11 .577 238.2 262 117 104 68 113 3.92 93
14 Danny Darwin 1990 168 HOU 48 17 3 0 11 4 .733 162.2 136 42 40 31 109 2.21 71
15 Ed Whitson 1989 133 SDP 33 33 5 1 16 11 .593 227.0 198 77 67 48 117 2.66 86
16 John Tudor 1988 149 TOT 30 30 5 1 10 8 .556 197.2 189 60 51 41 87 2.32 93
17 Bert Blyleven 1985 134 TOT 37 37 24 5 17 16 .515 293.2 264 121 103 75 206 3.16 74
18 Nolan Ryan 1981 194 HOU 21 21 5 3 11 5 .688 149.0 99 34 28 68 140 1.69 49
19 Jim Rooker 1977 128 PIT 30 30 7 2 14 9 .609 204.1 196 87 70 64 89 3.08 92
20 Tommy John 1977 138 LAD 31 31 11 3 20 7 .741 220.1 225 82 68 50 123 2.78 84
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/14/2009.

So two guys did it this past season. Millwood had one of the worst W-L% of this group, although that's somewhat self-selecting since the minimum ERA+ was set to Millwood's value of 127. Most pitchers had a far better ERA+ than Millwood's, so it's likely that their W-L% would also be higher. (Who has the worst W-L% on here? Why it's that man, Bert Blyleven.)

One wonders where Millwood goes from here. This list is a mixed bag. The last guy to do it before 2009, Hideo Nomo, never had another good season in the majors. Mike Mussina had 5 more quality years including 2 really good ones.

But the guy who sticks out on this list as a good comp, perhaps, is Tim Belcher. In his Age 34 season, Belcher was on the Royals who were (like now) not very good. The Rangers are a better team now than the Royals were then, but not by all that much. In earlier seasons, like Millwood, Belcher played for some better teams. Don't get me wrong--Millwood is clearly a better pitcher than Belcher but I think their histories before their Age 34 seasons are more similar than, say, Millwood and Maddux.

Danny Darwin had his best year in his Age 34 season, posting a career-high (and league-best) ERA+ of 168. The next season his ERA+ halved to 83, although that included a move to Fenway Park and an injury-limited season of just 68 IP. Darwin posted another excellent season in his Age 37 year and was well below-average for most of the 5 years remaining in his career afterwards.

Nolan Ryan, too, had his best season at Age 34, at least in terms of ERA+. His 194 value that year led baseball and was more than 50 points better than any other year of his career. It also came in the whacky 1981 season and Ryan pitched only 149 innings, a paltry total for him. As is always the case with Ryan, he's an abberation from an age standpoint, having pitched a whopping 12 more seasons after this one. Most of them were quite good, with a couple of really good ones thrown in there. (A nice Ryan tidbit...after his Age 34 season, he would lead the league in K/9 five more times, coming in 5 consecutive seasons from Age 40 to Age 44. Simply amazing.)

Jim Rooker's season is quite odd. He had his career-best ERA+ value but also had a very low K/9 rate of 3.9 ( as compared to his career value of 4.9, itself pretty low) and the worst HR/9 rate of his career.

Anyway, what does all of this mean for Kevin Millwood? It's tough to say because the guy has always been an enigma. He's always seemed on the cusp of becoming a great pitcher and he's had some excellent seasons, most notably 1999 with the Braves when he went 18-7 with a 167 ERA+ over 228 innings. To date, though, he's had only 4 seasons with an ERA+ as high as 127, he's had 6 full seasons with an ERA+ within 8 points of 100, and his 2007 and 2008 were both below average. To his credit, he's been pretty durable, making the 7th-most starts of the decade 2000-2009.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the Orioles will get 200 innings and an average ERA next year out of Millwood. For that team right now, that might not be such a bad thing.

Related posts:

    Is Kevin Millwood really that bad?
    Kevin Foster
    Worst seasons by an Orioles pitcher
    Orioles to Highlanders: One Francise or Two?
    The Orioles’ great start

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 10:54 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “Kevin Millwood to the Orioles”

  1. Imsdal Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am

    A general note on lists like these: look at players where the reference person is in the middle of the pack, not in the bottom. In this case, have the criteria be ERA+ of 122 to 132 (or wider or smaller, depending on how many hits you get and how many you want to get). Comparing Millwood to guys with ERA+ of 180 is of course a lesson in futility. Comparing him to guys with an ERA+ of 126 may make some sense, but we don't even know who that may be.

  2. Andy Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 11:26 am

    Agreed on that, Imsdal. I should post both lists, really.

  3. Andy Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 11:30 am

    Here are the last 20 guys to qualify for the ERA title with an ERA+ between 122 and 132 in their Age 34 seasons:

    Rk Player Year ERA+ Age Tm GS CG SHO GF W L W-L%
    1 Kevin Millwood 2009 127 34 TEX 31 3 0 0 13 10 .565
    2 Hideo Nomo 2003 130 34 LAD 33 2 2 0 16 13 .552
    3 Mike Mussina 2003 129 34 NYY 31 2 1 0 17 8 .680
    4 Jeff Fassero 1997 124 34 SEA 35 2 1 0 16 9 .640
    5 Tim Belcher 1996 127 34 KCR 35 4 1 0 15 11 .577
    6 Doyle Alexander 1985 124 34 TOR 36 6 1 0 17 10 .630
    7 Ron Guidry 1985 123 34 NYY 33 11 2 0 22 6 .786
    8 Jerry Reuss 1983 122 34 LAD 31 7 0 0 12 11 .522
    9 Ken Forsch 1981 126 34 CAL 20 10 4 0 11 7 .611
    10 Fergie Jenkins 1977 124 34 BOS 28 11 1 0 10 10 .500
    11 Jim Rooker 1977 128 34 PIT 30 7 2 0 14 9 .609
    12 Sonny Siebert 1971 129 34 BOS 32 12 4 0 16 10 .615
    13 Jim Perry 1970 125 34 MIN 40 13 4 0 24 12 .667
    14 Bob Gibson 1970 132 34 STL 34 23 3 0 23 7 .767
    15 Ken Johnson 1967 122 34 ATL 29 6 0 0 13 9 .591
    16 Whitey Ford 1963 128 34 NYY 37 13 3 1 24 7 .774
    17 Joe Nuxhall 1963 129 34 CIN 29 14 2 5 15 8 .652
    18 Allie Reynolds 1951 125 34 NYY 26 16 7 11 17 8 .680
    19 Harry Brecheen 1949 124 34 STL 31 14 2 1 14 11 .560
    20 Ellis Kinder 1949 130 34 BOS 30 19 6 10 23 6 .793
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
    Generated 12/14/2009.
  4. JDV Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    As a life-long Oriole fan in the midst of a 12-year run of sub-.500 ball, I'll take him. Actually, I'm very enthused about it.

  5. Charles Saeger Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    Well, this Os fan wanted to see how well these guys performed at age 35. This is the average of the ten guys listed under Millwood in the second table (Nomo to Rooker), and their average age 34 season was 15-9 in 219.2 innings and a 3.36 ERA, ERA+ 126 (duh). Their average 35 season? They went 11-10 in 184.2 innings with a 4.24 ERA, ERA+ 98. Nine of those ten -- all but Fergie Jenkins -- were worse at age 35, though Forsch pitched more since 1981 was a strike year. So we're probably looking at about 170 innings of average next year.

  6. Andy Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    good way to look at it, Chuck.

  7. Raphy Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 8:28 pm

    ...Except that Millwood is probably not your typical 127+ ERA guy. His ERA+ over the last three years combined is only 99.

  8. JohnnyTwisto Says:
    December 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am

    I think Millwood was helped a lot by the Rangers defense last season. Looking at pitchers with similar numbers from ages 32-34 would probably serve as a better baseline for how Millwood might project going forward. Still, I think it was a good pickup for the Orioles, as they will have a rather young rotation and could use a reliable veteran. If he can give them over 180 IP and an ERA under 5.00, he's doing his job. Low expectations, I suppose, but it's a tough division.

    Charles, it's no surprise to see that group of pitchers regress so much in their age 35 seasons. Almost any group of players who performed above average in a particular season will be worse as a group the next year. Though I suppose the amount of decline there seems concerning.

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