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Rotate, Rinse, Repeat

One of the common reactions to the Brandon McCarthy trade is to moan the fact that whereas a few days ago the Sox had five pitchers fairly solidified in their starting rotation, now there’s a question mark at the back end.

My reponse to the issue of fifth starters has usually been that the need to have a good one is overblown, a) because off-days allow teams to skip that slot, meaning that in a full season they typically make 10-15 starts, rather than the 25-32 made by slots #1-4, and b) because teams have limited resources, and using them (or, rather, a disproportionate amount) on a fifth starter usually takes away from other parts of the roster. For Sox fans, the shining example of the latter reason has been Kenny Williams’ near-obsession with having a reliable fifth starter. While the debacle that was 2002-04 made this mania at least understandable, I believe that he took things too far following the 2005 season by trading away top prospect Chris Young for Javier Vazquez, even though McCarthy had clearly shown down the stretch that he was more than capable of manning that fifth slot.

In short, I think (or thought) that overemphazising the fifth starting spot can cause a negative chain reaction of personnel moves. Amazingly, the fact that the McCarthy trade left the fifth spot open was not one of the things that bothered me about the trade.

But now, I’m starting to reconsider that stance. Jeff Sackmann of The Hardball Times posted an article today that studied the average production from each of the five rotation slots. Although I have a few issues with the methodology (for instance, he chose ERA as his metric for its simplicity, leaving me wanting a more in-depth follow-up, and, additionally, for some reason chose to estimate starter-reliever splits when they’re readily-available at ESPN), the article’s findings are striking, and bear some potential warning signs for the Sox.

Sackmann discovered that the general expectations of what to expect out of each rotation slot are blown greatly out of proportion. For instance, we might think of a pitcher with a 4.65 ERA as a fourth starter, when in reality the average ERA for that slot is considerably higher, and this pitcher is really more of a #3. And while we might consider a pitcher with an ERA of 5.00 an obvious choice for the fifth slot, more than half of the major league teams had a number four starter with an ERA above 5.00.

Here are the MLB average ERAs for each slot:

#1: 3.60
#2: 4.14
#3: 4.58
#4: 5.10
#5: 6.24

Kind of startling, huh? I know I certainly didn’t expect #4 to be above 5.00, nor for #5 to be above 6.00. Since we’re dealing with the Sox, let’s take a look at the AL averages:

#1: 3.70
#2: 4.24
#3: 4.58
#4: 5.09
#5: 6.22

It’s interesting that whereas AL averages for slots #1 and 2 are higher than the MLB averages (which is to expected, given the greater number of runs produced with the DH rule), the AL averages for slots #4 and 5 are actually slightly below the MLB averages. I believe this is because the AL simply has more of the deeper rotations in baseball. Only three teams had a fifth slot with an average ERA below 5.00, and two were in the AL (the Sox and Tigers). And of the nine teams with ERAs below 6.00 in that slot, five were in the AL.

Here are the Sox’ averages from 2006:

#1: 4.28
#2: 4.52
#3: 4.54
#4: 4.85
#5: 4.99

Although the Sox lacked a dominant #1 starter this past year, they had one of the deeper and more smoothed out rotations in the game. Although no one provided the routine easy wins of a Johan Santana or Roy Halladay, each of the five slots gave the Sox a legitimate chance to win on a daily basis.

How do Sackmann’s findings influence the way we look at the Sox? There are two main ways, and strangely, one involves Kenny Williams being wrong, while the other involves him being right.

First, it’s possible that teams really aren’t overpaying free agent starting pitchers this offseason by quite as much as first thought. For instance, $10 million a year might seem like a ton for the Cubs to have given Ted Lilly, but when you consider that his career ERA is 4.61, and that he sported a 4.31 ERA last year, maybe it’s not so bad of a contract after all. Lilly might not deserve $10 when thought of as a fourth starter, but what about when viewed as the #2 or #3 that he might actually be?

There’s no question that this off-season has included a great deal of inflation in the free agent pitching market. But Sackmann’s findings suggest that Kenny Williams’ knee-jerk reactions to the market (the trades of McCarthy and Freddy Garcia) might have been a bit hasty or strong.

Secondly, and on the other hand, Williams might have been absolutely right in his paranoia the past few years about making sure the Sox had an adequate fifth starter. When the average ERA for a fifth starter is 6.24, a team can gain a major advantage by putting a decent pitcher in that slot. Even someone who can manage an ERA of 5.25 would give a team an edge, whereas a pitcher who can produce anything near 4.50 would be a downright boon.

So, the evidence suggests that even if McCarthy didn’t blossom into an ace in 2007, he would almost certainly have given us an edge as our fifth starter. Now, instead, we’ll probably be looking at a revolving door approach from our last starting spot, and an ERA much closer to the AL average of 6.22.

Of course, you could conclude just the opposite from Sackmann’s findings if you wanted to. “If the average ERA from the fifth slot is so high,� you could argue, “then why not just send any old guy out there? Even if he tanks, we’ll be right in step with the rest of the league.� Well, yes, in step with the rest of the league, but not in step with the contenders. It’s no coincidence that the six teams with 90 wins or more last year had an average ERA of 5.69 from the fifth slot, or that the playoff teams averaged 5.80. If our many-headed fifth starter next year sports an ERA above 6.00, it might just keep us out of the playoffs, especially since we play in such a tough division.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 5:02 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.