Teams with most pitchers to start 30+ games
Posted by Andy on January 23, 2008
Here is the list for 2007:
Year Lg Team Number Players Matching +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ 2007 NL Chicago Cubs 4 Carlos Zambrano / Ted Lilly / Jason Marquis / Rich Hill 2007 AL Chicago White Sox 4 Javier Vazquez / Jose Contreras / Jon Garland / Mark Buehrle 2007 NL Arizona Diamondbacks 3 Brandon Webb / Livan Hernandez / Doug Davis 2007 NL Atlanta Braves 3 Tim Hudson / John Smoltz / Chuck James 2007 AL Boston Red Sox 3 Daisuke Matsuzaka / Tim Wakefield / Josh Beckett 2007 NL Cincinnati Reds 3 Aaron Harang / Bronson Arroyo / Matt Belisle 2007 AL Cleveland Indians 3 C.C. Sabathia / Fausto Carmona / Paul Byrd 2007 NL Houston Astros 3 Woody Williams / Roy Oswalt / Wandy Rodriguez 2007 AL Minnesota Twins 3 Johan Santana / Carlos Silva / Boof Bonser 2007 AL Oakland Athletics 3 Danny Haren / Joe Blanton / Chad Gaudin 2007 NL San Diego Padres 3 Jake Peavy / Greg Maddux / Chris Young 2007 AL Seattle Mariners 3 Miguel Batista / Jarrod Washburn / Felix Hernandez 2007 AL Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3 Scott Kazmir / Edwin Jackson / James Shields 2007 AL Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 2 John Lackey / Kelvim Escobar 2007 AL Detroit Tigers 2 Justin Verlander / Nate Robertson 2007 NL Florida Marlins 2 Dontrelle Willis / Scott Olsen 2007 NL Los Angeles Dodgers 2 Brad Penny / Derek Lowe 2007 NL Milwaukee Brewers 2 Jeff Suppan / David Bush 2007 NL New York Mets 2 Tom Glavine / John Maine 2007 AL New York Yankees 2 Andy Pettitte / Chien-Ming Wang 2007 NL Philadelphia Phillies 2 Jamie Moyer / Adam Eaton 2007 NL Pittsburgh Pirates 2 Ian Snell / Tom Gorzelanny 2007 NL San Francisco Giants 2 Barry Zito / Matt Cain 2007 NL St. Louis Cardinals 2 Adam Wainwright / Braden Looper 2007 AL Baltimore Orioles 1 Daniel Cabrera +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ Year Lg Team Number Players Matching +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ 2007 NL Colorado Rockies 1 Jeff Francis 2007 AL Kansas City Royals 1 Gil Meche 2007 AL Texas Rangers 1 Kevin Millwood 2007 AL Toronto Blue Jays 1 Roy Halladay 2007 NL Washington Nationals 1 Matt Chico
All 30 teams had at least 1 pitcher to start 30 games, which surprised me. The other thing to surprise me is to note that there isn't much correlation between where a team falls on this list and what it's record was. I guess the fallacy in my thinking is that stable pitching rotations mean the pitchers must be pretty good, whereas in reality starting pitchers are most often replaced in the rotation due to injury, as opposed to performance. The bottom half of the list includes half of the playoff teams (LAA, NYY, PHI, and COL.) And of the two teams to finish with 4 such pitchers, one was a playoff team (CHN) and one was a stinker (CWS.)
After giving it some more thought, I guess what surprises me is that the replacement pitchers who come in for the injured guys could possibly be as good as the guys they replaced. In the case of the Yankees and the Phillies, both of whom had pretty significant injuries in the rotation, I think their winning percentage was determined largely by their offensive output, and they might have been able to churn out a rotation of triple-A players and do just the same. (Hey, that's effectively what the Yankees did this past year anyway.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
What do you thnik about your findings as compared to Tom Verducci's?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/tom_verducci/01/22/rotation.stability/
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
How odd that Tom Verducci and I wrote about the same thing on the same day. I didn't even see that column until you pointed it out, Raphy.
I like Verducci's points, except that I think he's making a mistake by looking at the team that won the World Series. He starts the article by talking about winning your division, i.e. best regular-season record, which I think is strongly linked to the "Schilling Theory", but then he switches to looking at WS winner, which as we know has a lot more to do with your top 2 pitchers, and how they perform (given all the off days, especially.) The 2006 Cardinals come to mind as a team that nobody should mold themselves after, as they were very lucky to even make the playoffs, and very lucky to win the World Series.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
The subject of 30 starts got me thinking of the 1977 Dodgers and 1980 A's. They both had 5 pitchers with 30+ starts.
The 1977 Dodgers only had 4 starts outside the 5 man rotation. The next year, Rhoden and Welch shared the 5th starter duties and there were NO starts outside the 6 starters that year.
The 1980 A's had only 3 starts outside their 5 man rotation.
The 1972 Orioles had 4 pitchers with 35+ starts, the #5 starter had 9 and then there were only 2 starts outside the '4+' man rotation.
I believe the 1977 Dodgers (33,32,31,31,31,+4) and 1980 A's (33,33,32,31,30,+3) had the 'tightest' pitching rotations since the 1920s, but I can't decide which rotation was really tighter.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
If I'm not mistaken, a few years ago the Mariners had all their starts made by just 5 guys.
Yeah, just checked, right here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SEA/2003.shtml