Tuesday, July 24, 2007
FIVE SPOT
As you know, and this comes to no surprise to anyone, there is a good chance that Bartolo Colon is injured and that the Angels will have to figure out what to do with the fifth spot in the rotation. And even if it turns out Bart's injury is minor, the fact remains that he's pitching as though he's hurt; I consider this so self-evident that I won't bother to explain myself further.
Now, what kind of options do the Angels have here?
1. Declare Ervin Santana "cured" by his one good start at AAA and recall him.
2. Move Dustin Moseley or Chris Bootcheck into the rotation, pending Ervin proving he's ready to come back.
3. Bring up some AAA veteran like Kasey Olenberger.
4. Bring up some prospect whether he's ready or not, like Steve Shell or Nick Adenhart.
5. Trade for a starter.
These are, to put it mildly, unexciting options. I think the least unexciting, or, rather, the most manageable, may be the second one. Moseley and Bootcheck aren't inspiring -- hell, Moseley's strikeout rate is downright pathetic -- but we could even tandem them up in a way: Moseley starts, for instance, and we just tell him to make it through the order twice, then Bootcheck comes in and gets us to the real relievers. Something like that.
Such a move may chip at our bullpen depth, but at the moment we have only 37 men on the 40-man roster (plus two on the 60-day DL), giving us plenty of room to purchase the contracts of Jason Bulger and/or Marcus Gwyn, both of whom are doing well for Salt Lake. Room on the 25-man roster is also available, what with the practically unused gallery of Brandon Wood, Kendry Morales, and Nathan Haynes (yeah, Haynes would have to pass through waivers to get sent down).
With any luck at all, Ervin will get it together quickly, and earn a prompt recall from AAA. With the off-day Thursday, the Angels can delay decision on this a bit, even if news on Bartolo comes out today.
Now, what kind of options do the Angels have here?
1. Declare Ervin Santana "cured" by his one good start at AAA and recall him.
2. Move Dustin Moseley or Chris Bootcheck into the rotation, pending Ervin proving he's ready to come back.
3. Bring up some AAA veteran like Kasey Olenberger.
4. Bring up some prospect whether he's ready or not, like Steve Shell or Nick Adenhart.
5. Trade for a starter.
These are, to put it mildly, unexciting options. I think the least unexciting, or, rather, the most manageable, may be the second one. Moseley and Bootcheck aren't inspiring -- hell, Moseley's strikeout rate is downright pathetic -- but we could even tandem them up in a way: Moseley starts, for instance, and we just tell him to make it through the order twice, then Bootcheck comes in and gets us to the real relievers. Something like that.
Such a move may chip at our bullpen depth, but at the moment we have only 37 men on the 40-man roster (plus two on the 60-day DL), giving us plenty of room to purchase the contracts of Jason Bulger and/or Marcus Gwyn, both of whom are doing well for Salt Lake. Room on the 25-man roster is also available, what with the practically unused gallery of Brandon Wood, Kendry Morales, and Nathan Haynes (yeah, Haynes would have to pass through waivers to get sent down).
With any luck at all, Ervin will get it together quickly, and earn a prompt recall from AAA. With the off-day Thursday, the Angels can delay decision on this a bit, even if news on Bartolo comes out today.
Labels: Bartolo Colon, Chris Bootcheck, Dustin Moseley, Ervin Santana, Jason Bulger, Macus Gwyn, Nick Adenhart, Steven Shell
Friday, July 13, 2007
SEASON RESUMES, WILL THE MAGIC?
Well, finally, baseball's back. I think this whole de facto four-day All-Star Break that so many teams have enjoyed is a lot of nonsense, frankly, but what'chu gonna do?
I was silent over the break, but this time it wasn't laziness or busy-ness or anything of that sort; I simply failed. I started working on a piece to try to diagnose the problems of Ervin Santana. I took a gander at batted-ball types, at the types of counts he was getting in ... nothing jumped out, in the record of his performance, as explanatory of the problems he's had lately.
Compared to last season, Ervin is allowing more hits on balls in play and allowing many more home runs. He was exceptionally good/lucky/well-supported in connection with the former last year, so some bounce-back should have been expected and, honestly, is not at alarming levels. What's more disturbing is the latter: Santana is allowing home runs at a vastly higher rate than last season -- nearly twice as frequently.
His struggles don't seem to have anything to do with whether he's from the stretch or not, either -- oddly, he's been better with men on (an OPS allowed of 802) than with the bases empty (944) -- this is the opposite of what you normally see. He does struggle with men in scoring position the most (1000), but is actually doing pretty well with a guy on first only (618).
Does he struggle to close out innings? He's worst with zero outs. Does he struggle after guys have already seen him a couple of times in a game? He's worst the second time through the order, not the third.
The simple solution just seems to be: he's making bad pitches. How someone with his talent, and his level of success, falls apart so, I don't know. There were 84 pitchers in the AL last year who qualified for the ERA title; Santana's 102 ERA+ ranks tied for 51st out of that group, which isn't bad (qualifiers tend to be at least okay pitchers, otherwise they wouldn't get that many innings). And yet, he's starting to look nothing like a pitcher.
The temptation to bring up Joe Saunders remains -- especially that he's starting to perform fairly well at AAA -- but I honestly don't know that putting Ervin in the PCL's gonna do anything for him. (Also, it's not like Ervin is the biggest rotation problem we have now.)
What this really is is the first big challenge Mike Butcher has faced as our pitching coach. Can he figure out what's ailing The Magic? Can Ervin respond? Or is this just a bunch of bad luck, where every single bad pitch is getting punished, instead of a few being fouled off or hit right at someone?
I don't know.
I was silent over the break, but this time it wasn't laziness or busy-ness or anything of that sort; I simply failed. I started working on a piece to try to diagnose the problems of Ervin Santana. I took a gander at batted-ball types, at the types of counts he was getting in ... nothing jumped out, in the record of his performance, as explanatory of the problems he's had lately.
Compared to last season, Ervin is allowing more hits on balls in play and allowing many more home runs. He was exceptionally good/lucky/well-supported in connection with the former last year, so some bounce-back should have been expected and, honestly, is not at alarming levels. What's more disturbing is the latter: Santana is allowing home runs at a vastly higher rate than last season -- nearly twice as frequently.
His struggles don't seem to have anything to do with whether he's from the stretch or not, either -- oddly, he's been better with men on (an OPS allowed of 802) than with the bases empty (944) -- this is the opposite of what you normally see. He does struggle with men in scoring position the most (1000), but is actually doing pretty well with a guy on first only (618).
Does he struggle to close out innings? He's worst with zero outs. Does he struggle after guys have already seen him a couple of times in a game? He's worst the second time through the order, not the third.
The simple solution just seems to be: he's making bad pitches. How someone with his talent, and his level of success, falls apart so, I don't know. There were 84 pitchers in the AL last year who qualified for the ERA title; Santana's 102 ERA+ ranks tied for 51st out of that group, which isn't bad (qualifiers tend to be at least okay pitchers, otherwise they wouldn't get that many innings). And yet, he's starting to look nothing like a pitcher.
The temptation to bring up Joe Saunders remains -- especially that he's starting to perform fairly well at AAA -- but I honestly don't know that putting Ervin in the PCL's gonna do anything for him. (Also, it's not like Ervin is the biggest rotation problem we have now.)
What this really is is the first big challenge Mike Butcher has faced as our pitching coach. Can he figure out what's ailing The Magic? Can Ervin respond? Or is this just a bunch of bad luck, where every single bad pitch is getting punished, instead of a few being fouled off or hit right at someone?
I don't know.
Labels: Bartolo Colon, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, Mike Butcher
Friday, April 27, 2007
ROLLING FAT
Quite the game delivered by Bartolo Colon yesterday. Good control, good velocity, a minimum of mistakes. As we are so used to seeing, the threw his hardest pitch of the day in his last inning of work. He was consistently in the mid-90s with his fastball, so I feel confident in saying he's fine, and that's good.
The other big news in Haloville is the arrival of Brandon Wood. I'm sure I mentioned this last week, but I do not believe Brandon is ready for the big time quite yet, but the Angels are not averse to bringing up top prospects for short periods before they get a permanent call. I just hope that the kid does get some consistent playing time for the duration of this stay, both so we can get a look at him against top competition and that he can get his feet wet against same.
Anyway, not much else to see here. We're going back on the road, where there have been problems, but with the lineup occasionally resembling a real offense and the pieces falling together in the rotation, I would expect our Lads to put up a much better showing than on our last pathetic road trip.
Quite the game delivered by Bartolo Colon yesterday. Good control, good velocity, a minimum of mistakes. As we are so used to seeing, the threw his hardest pitch of the day in his last inning of work. He was consistently in the mid-90s with his fastball, so I feel confident in saying he's fine, and that's good.
The other big news in Haloville is the arrival of Brandon Wood. I'm sure I mentioned this last week, but I do not believe Brandon is ready for the big time quite yet, but the Angels are not averse to bringing up top prospects for short periods before they get a permanent call. I just hope that the kid does get some consistent playing time for the duration of this stay, both so we can get a look at him against top competition and that he can get his feet wet against same.
Anyway, not much else to see here. We're going back on the road, where there have been problems, but with the lineup occasionally resembling a real offense and the pieces falling together in the rotation, I would expect our Lads to put up a much better showing than on our last pathetic road trip.
Labels: Bartolo Colon, Brandon Wood
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
FOUR STARTS
I was unable to post yesterday; if I had, my post would have been titled MORE LIKE IT and would have celebrated our sweep of the Mariners. Alas, last night's game put a damper on that, but I'll cover it nonetheless.
Joe Saunders didn't have a great game on Friday, and got some help from some atom balls, but he kept his composure through a few jams, and you can't complain about going six innings without allowing a run. It was nice to see Saunders succeed in his Virginia Tech hat; the game was obviously significant to him and likely of some significance to some of his fellow Hokies, so that was a nice story all-around.
Saturday brought us the return of Bartolo Colon. Though he only notched one strikeout, he had good velocity early in the game and demonstrated good command of his pitches. When Bartolo is on, he'll often gain velocity as the game progresses; that did not happen here -- perhaps partially due to his tweaked ankle. At any rate, it was good to see the Fat Man back in action and productive, a large boon to the team.
Sunday saw Ervin Santana return to form. The Kid was locating his fastball on the corners and getting his slider over for strikes. With everything working, Ervin was able to wiggle out of a couple of jams (a good sign after his jamtastic previous starts) and put up a strong start.
Much has been made of the disparity in Santana's performance on the home and road, and I do intend to take a look at it some time, but my null hypothesis is that it's all a crazy fluke. There's no real reason he should struggle on the road and dominate at home; there's no unique characteristic of Angels Stadium that would seem to benefit him. Remember, John Lackey also had a stark home-road difference in 2003 and 2004, a trend that eventually corrected itself (and even reversed itself, slightly) in the following two seasons. Was there a reason for that? Sometimes these things just take awhile to shake out.
Anyway, while Ervin excelled by getting his slider in the zone on Sunday, Jered Weaver got rocked by failing to do so Monday night. His location was off; it seemed that the culprit was an elusive release point, as Jered would miss consistently high and then, perhaps overcompensating, consistently low, or vice versa. His slider was missing well outside to right-handed hitters, and missing the zone healthily against southbats; recognizing this, Tiger hitters were able to sit on Jered's fastball, a pitch that is missing a few miles per hour from last year. Given that Weaver the Younger couldn't locate his fastball, either, this was a source of much trouble.
(When he did get the slider over, everything was shiny. He threw two good sliders to Gary Sheffield in the first, the only two he threw for strikes in the whole inning [technically Ivan Rodriguez got a hit off of a slider, but it was comfortably out of the strike zone, but elevated so that I-Rod could get it to the right-center gap]. He also got a strike two on Brandon Inge by getting his slider over the outside corner, and while the next one was outside, Inge had to respect his ability to locate the breaking ball, and wasn't able to stop his swing once he realized the pitch was too far away. Once you establish that breaking pitch in the zone, batters have to respect, and then you can get away with throwing it out of the zone. Curtis Granderson followed, Jered lost the touch on his slider, Granderson singled off a fastball, and the rally was on.)
That lack of velocity is the only warning sign that Weaver may still be injured, or at the very least not fully recovered or prepped for the season. We don't know, of course. The location problems don't really bother me, as though he wasn't quite sharp against Oakland, he only threw one egregious pitch in that game. But as long as he's healthy, I'm unworried.
I was unable to post yesterday; if I had, my post would have been titled MORE LIKE IT and would have celebrated our sweep of the Mariners. Alas, last night's game put a damper on that, but I'll cover it nonetheless.
Joe Saunders didn't have a great game on Friday, and got some help from some atom balls, but he kept his composure through a few jams, and you can't complain about going six innings without allowing a run. It was nice to see Saunders succeed in his Virginia Tech hat; the game was obviously significant to him and likely of some significance to some of his fellow Hokies, so that was a nice story all-around.
Saturday brought us the return of Bartolo Colon. Though he only notched one strikeout, he had good velocity early in the game and demonstrated good command of his pitches. When Bartolo is on, he'll often gain velocity as the game progresses; that did not happen here -- perhaps partially due to his tweaked ankle. At any rate, it was good to see the Fat Man back in action and productive, a large boon to the team.
Sunday saw Ervin Santana return to form. The Kid was locating his fastball on the corners and getting his slider over for strikes. With everything working, Ervin was able to wiggle out of a couple of jams (a good sign after his jamtastic previous starts) and put up a strong start.
Much has been made of the disparity in Santana's performance on the home and road, and I do intend to take a look at it some time, but my null hypothesis is that it's all a crazy fluke. There's no real reason he should struggle on the road and dominate at home; there's no unique characteristic of Angels Stadium that would seem to benefit him. Remember, John Lackey also had a stark home-road difference in 2003 and 2004, a trend that eventually corrected itself (and even reversed itself, slightly) in the following two seasons. Was there a reason for that? Sometimes these things just take awhile to shake out.
Anyway, while Ervin excelled by getting his slider in the zone on Sunday, Jered Weaver got rocked by failing to do so Monday night. His location was off; it seemed that the culprit was an elusive release point, as Jered would miss consistently high and then, perhaps overcompensating, consistently low, or vice versa. His slider was missing well outside to right-handed hitters, and missing the zone healthily against southbats; recognizing this, Tiger hitters were able to sit on Jered's fastball, a pitch that is missing a few miles per hour from last year. Given that Weaver the Younger couldn't locate his fastball, either, this was a source of much trouble.
(When he did get the slider over, everything was shiny. He threw two good sliders to Gary Sheffield in the first, the only two he threw for strikes in the whole inning [technically Ivan Rodriguez got a hit off of a slider, but it was comfortably out of the strike zone, but elevated so that I-Rod could get it to the right-center gap]. He also got a strike two on Brandon Inge by getting his slider over the outside corner, and while the next one was outside, Inge had to respect his ability to locate the breaking ball, and wasn't able to stop his swing once he realized the pitch was too far away. Once you establish that breaking pitch in the zone, batters have to respect, and then you can get away with throwing it out of the zone. Curtis Granderson followed, Jered lost the touch on his slider, Granderson singled off a fastball, and the rally was on.)
That lack of velocity is the only warning sign that Weaver may still be injured, or at the very least not fully recovered or prepped for the season. We don't know, of course. The location problems don't really bother me, as though he wasn't quite sharp against Oakland, he only threw one egregious pitch in that game. But as long as he's healthy, I'm unworried.
Labels: Bartolo Colon, Ervin Santana, Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
HALOPALOOZA
As I mentioned a post or two ago, the last half of last week saw me traveling, so I didn't have any opportunity to post here. Not only that, but as I was DVRing the games, I avoided all news of them to the best of my ability, and watched them all upon my return Sunday night.
Fast-forwarding between pitches and innings cuts down your watching time considerably, and though I'm used to it (I haven't seen a game live all season, and won't until this weekend at the earliest), four games in one day tend to run together. Suffice to say that I'm happy with the split and a 5-2 start.
I'm particularly happy with our starting rotation. Our weakest start thus far came from Joe Saunders, but even he was a mere one out away from a quality start and kept us in the game. He got let down by the bullpen (What! Frankie isn't perfect?!), but the other loss was dealt to Kelvim Escobar, who received the run support he has typically been given in Angel red.
Kelvim's run support, and whether or not his mediocre win-loss record coupled with his superb ERA and other stats means Kelvim just "doesn't know how to win", has been kind of a theme of the Halosphere for awhile now. Let's take another look at it.
You know about Game Scores, right? They're just this toy Bill James came up with for rating starts by pitchers. You start at 50, and get points for doing good things and lose points for doing bad things. It's not the most scientific process, but it's a good way to generalize the quality of different starts.
Here is every win Kelvim has as a starter with the Angels. He has pitched very well in those starts, averaging a game score of 60.4 and an ERA of 2.55.
What's kind of shocking is how he has done in his losses. Yeah, he's pitched poorly overall, with an ERA of 5.84 in losses, but his average game score is 47.0, just a bit below average. In his losses, by contrast, Bartolo Colon has an average game score of 33.4 ... and an ERA of 9.00.
Kelvim has gotten the shaft on non-decisions as well. Hell, let's just put it in a chart:
Let's take a look at the starts where each pitcher scored in that 40-59 range. You can view Kelvim's starts at these links.
Here are the opponents Kelvim faced in those games, their ERA+ for the season, and how many innings they threw that game (the "GS" for Game Score and "result" refers to Kelvim's GS and decision):
This hints that Kelvim has not pitched as well when facing other good starting pitchers, and is the first indication I've come across that Kelvim may be at all responsible for his mediocre win-loss record with the Angels. However, remember that I'm looking at only a particular subset of Kelvim's starts here, not all of them. Some of his more outstanding starts, as measured by game scores, may have come against other good pitchers; I don't know.
On the whole, Kelvim in these games was average, and faced average opponents.
Let's look at Bartolo's starts that fit the same profile:
14 of the 27 starts came against below average pitchers; Bartolo was 9-3-3 in those games with an average game score of 50. Remember, Kelvim had a score of 52 in games against such opponents, but only managed to go 9-7-3. (The quality of the opposing below-average pitchers was essentially the same, an 85 ERA+ for Bartolo's and an 87 for Kelvim's.)
This is another indicator, to me, of Kelvim's bad luck with offense. Kelvim faced opponents just as bad as Bartolo in these games, pitched just as well if not better, and had a much worse winning percentage.
Against good pitchers, Bartolo averaged a score of 53 while going 7-3-2; his average opponent in this category had an ERA+ of 123. Remember, Kelvim scored 49 while going 1-9-6; his opponents here had an ERA+ of 112. Interestingly, however, Kelvim's above-average opponents, despite being less good overall, average 6.5 innings per start while Bartolo's averaged 6.0. That suggests to me that the Angel offense did do well against these opponents, so while Kelvim's performance in these starts explains part of his record, the performance of the Angel offense is also a factor.
Anyway, this whole thing has gotten way out of hand. How long is this damn post? I don't know. But I will take notice this year of how Kelvim (and the Angel offense) does against other good starting pitchers, to see if he can be blamed if his mediocre fortune in garnering decisions continues.
By the way, if you've clicked on any of the links here, you can see how awesome Baseball Reference's Play Index is.
As I mentioned a post or two ago, the last half of last week saw me traveling, so I didn't have any opportunity to post here. Not only that, but as I was DVRing the games, I avoided all news of them to the best of my ability, and watched them all upon my return Sunday night.
Fast-forwarding between pitches and innings cuts down your watching time considerably, and though I'm used to it (I haven't seen a game live all season, and won't until this weekend at the earliest), four games in one day tend to run together. Suffice to say that I'm happy with the split and a 5-2 start.
I'm particularly happy with our starting rotation. Our weakest start thus far came from Joe Saunders, but even he was a mere one out away from a quality start and kept us in the game. He got let down by the bullpen (What! Frankie isn't perfect?!), but the other loss was dealt to Kelvim Escobar, who received the run support he has typically been given in Angel red.
Kelvim's run support, and whether or not his mediocre win-loss record coupled with his superb ERA and other stats means Kelvim just "doesn't know how to win", has been kind of a theme of the Halosphere for awhile now. Let's take another look at it.
You know about Game Scores, right? They're just this toy Bill James came up with for rating starts by pitchers. You start at 50, and get points for doing good things and lose points for doing bad things. It's not the most scientific process, but it's a good way to generalize the quality of different starts.
Here is every win Kelvim has as a starter with the Angels. He has pitched very well in those starts, averaging a game score of 60.4 and an ERA of 2.55.
What's kind of shocking is how he has done in his losses. Yeah, he's pitched poorly overall, with an ERA of 5.84 in losses, but his average game score is 47.0, just a bit below average. In his losses, by contrast, Bartolo Colon has an average game score of 33.4 ... and an ERA of 9.00.
Kelvim has gotten the shaft on non-decisions as well. Hell, let's just put it in a chart:
PitcherThough Bartolo Colon has pitched just a bit better than Escobar during wins (and that's a very slight difference, and you could make the argument it's a virtual tie), Escobar has pitched about just as well during his losses as during Colon's no-decisions, which is pretty crazy. Look at it this way:
Avg Game Score in: Goggles Gordo
Wins: 60.4 62.6
Losses: 47.0 33.4
No-Decisions: 54.6 47.0
PitcherHere we see that Colon has both more outstanding and more horrible starts than Escobar, but what's really interesting is that middle section that I bolded. In game scores registered between 40 and 59, Kelvim is 10-16-9 while Colon is 16-6-5. That's a pretty incredible difference, and I have no reason to believe that it's something Kelvim has done to deserve this.
W-L-ND with GS : Goggles Gordo
80+: 1-0-1 3-0-0
70-79: 3-1-3 10-0-2
60-69: 10-2-3 11-2-0
50-59: 9-8-3 11-4-2
40-49: 1-8-6 5-2-3
30-39: 1-6-2 0-3-5
-29: 0-3-0 0-14-0
Let's take a look at the starts where each pitcher scored in that 40-59 range. You can view Kelvim's starts at these links.
Here are the opponents Kelvim faced in those games, their ERA+ for the season, and how many innings they threw that game (the "GS" for Game Score and "result" refers to Kelvim's GS and decision):
Opponent Year ERA+ Inn GS ResultBreaking that down a bit, Kelvim faced 19 pitchers with ERA+ marks below the league average (which is always 100), and averaged a game score of 52 in those games, going 9-7-3 against those opponents. Against pitchers with an ERA+ of 100 or better, Kelvim had an average game score of 49 and went 1-9-6.
J. Contreras 2006 109 8.3 59 L
M. Buehrle 2006 93 6.7 58 W
J. Lester 2006 97 6.3 58 W
S. Chacon 2006 70 4.7 58 W
J. Washburn 2006 93 6.0 57 L
E. Loaiza 2006 91 3.7 57 W
W. Ledezma 2005 60 5.3 57 W
R. Drese 2004 120 7.0 57 L
T. Lilly 2004 120 6.7 56 W
F. Garcia 2004 121 7.0 56 ND
G. Chacin 2006 93 7.0 55 L
J. Lester 2006 93 5.0 55 L
M. Redman 2004 99 5.3 55 W
E. Volquez 2006 64 5.0 53 ND
J. Blanton 2007 103 5.3 52 L
J. Garland 2004 100 7.0 52 ND
V. Padilla 2007 63 4.7 51 W
M. Redman 2004 99 7.3 51 L
K. Loe 2006 80 7.0 50 L
J. Johnson 2004 88 5.0 50 W
L. Hudson 2006 95 6.3 48 ND
P. Martinez 2004 125 6.0 47 L
M. Mulder 2004 106 7.0 47 ND
C. Lee 2005 108 6.0 46 L
B. Radke 2005 109 7.3 46 L
S. Ponson 2004 90 9.0 46 L
K. Brown 2004 110 6.0 45 ND
B. Zito 2004 105 6.0 45 L
C. Janssen 2006 93 8.0 44 L
E. Loaiza 2006 91 5.3 43 ND
B. Zito 2004 105 7.0 43 ND
R. Drese 2004 120 6.7 43 L
J. Weaver 2004 103 6.3 42 L
T. Hudson 2005 125 4.0 40 ND
S. Elarton 2004 79 6.0 40 W
TOTALS/AVERAGES 99 6.2 50 10-16-9
This hints that Kelvim has not pitched as well when facing other good starting pitchers, and is the first indication I've come across that Kelvim may be at all responsible for his mediocre win-loss record with the Angels. However, remember that I'm looking at only a particular subset of Kelvim's starts here, not all of them. Some of his more outstanding starts, as measured by game scores, may have come against other good pitchers; I don't know.
On the whole, Kelvim in these games was average, and faced average opponents.
Let's look at Bartolo's starts that fit the same profile:
Opponent Year ERA+ Inn GS ResultInterestingly, Bartolo managed a better record in these games despite facing a higher quality of opponent than Kelvim, on average. However, those pitchers did not seem to have as good of days as they normally did, as they only average 5.8 innings per start as opposed to the 6.2 racked up by Kelvim's mound opponents.
C. Wilson 2005 65 4.7 59 W
R. Drese 2005 74 7.0 59 W
J. Towers 2005 120 6.7 58 ND
T. Wakefield 2004 100 4.0 58 W
J. Garland 2005 127 6.0 57 W
R. Halladay 2004 116 6.0 57 W
E. Bedard 2006 120 8.0 56 L
T. Hudson 2004 133 7.3 56 L
B. Zito 2005 116 7.0 54 W
J. Harris 2005 103 3.0 54 W
T. Wakefield 2005 106 4.3 54 W
C. Park 2005 75 1.0 53 W
K. Ishii 2005 81 5.7 53 W
C. Park 2006 88 6.7 51 L
R. Franklin 2004 88 7.0 51 W
K. Benson 2004 97 8.0 51 L
C. Fossum 2006 87 5.7 50 ND
R. Hernandez 2006 75 7.3 49 L
P. Hentgen 2004 70 5.0 48 ND
J. Serrano 2004 95 4.7 47 W
C. Park 2004 93 5.3 46 W
R. Hernandez 2005 78 5.0 45 W
R. Johnson 2005 117 6.0 44 W
J. Bonderman 2005 93 6.0 43 ND
J. Moyer 2006 102 6.7 42 ND
B. Arroyo 2005 98 6.0 42 W
J. Santana 2004 182 7.0 41 L
102 5.8 51 16-6-5
14 of the 27 starts came against below average pitchers; Bartolo was 9-3-3 in those games with an average game score of 50. Remember, Kelvim had a score of 52 in games against such opponents, but only managed to go 9-7-3. (The quality of the opposing below-average pitchers was essentially the same, an 85 ERA+ for Bartolo's and an 87 for Kelvim's.)
This is another indicator, to me, of Kelvim's bad luck with offense. Kelvim faced opponents just as bad as Bartolo in these games, pitched just as well if not better, and had a much worse winning percentage.
Against good pitchers, Bartolo averaged a score of 53 while going 7-3-2; his average opponent in this category had an ERA+ of 123. Remember, Kelvim scored 49 while going 1-9-6; his opponents here had an ERA+ of 112. Interestingly, however, Kelvim's above-average opponents, despite being less good overall, average 6.5 innings per start while Bartolo's averaged 6.0. That suggests to me that the Angel offense did do well against these opponents, so while Kelvim's performance in these starts explains part of his record, the performance of the Angel offense is also a factor.
Anyway, this whole thing has gotten way out of hand. How long is this damn post? I don't know. But I will take notice this year of how Kelvim (and the Angel offense) does against other good starting pitchers, to see if he can be blamed if his mediocre fortune in garnering decisions continues.
By the way, if you've clicked on any of the links here, you can see how awesome Baseball Reference's Play Index is.
Labels: Bartolo Colon, Kelvim Escobar, quality of opponent, run support
