Why doesn't the pitching get more blame?

[Nexii]

We all knew the Jays roster was slanted to offence, with pitching questionable. I was curious whether poor pitching teams can still win their division. The answer is that it's not that likely. Forgive the ugly formatting below, there isn't a good table function.

 

2014

Record ERA Rank

WSN 71-53 3.06 1

MIL 71-55 3.57 8

LAD 71-56 3.36 3

STL 68-57 3.62 9

ATL 66-60 3.38 4

SFG 65-59 3.41 5

 

BAL 72-52 3.62 6

KCR 70-55 3.58 4

LAA 74-50 3.62 5

OAK 74-51 3.21 2

DET 67-56 3.97 10

SEA 68-57 2.94 1

TOR 64-62 4.17 11

 

2013

Record ERA Rank

STL 97-65 3.42 5

ATL 96-66 3.18 1

LAD 92-70 3.25 2

PIT 94-68 3.26 3

 

BOS 97-65 3.79 6

OAK 96-66 3.56 2

DET 93-69 3.61 3

CLE 92-70 3.82 7

TBR 92-71 3.74 5

 

2012

Record ERA Rank

WSH 98-64 3.33 1

CIN 97-55 3.34 2

SFG 94-68 3.68 5

ATL 94-68 3.42 4

 

NYY 95-67 3.84 5

DET 88-74 3.75 3

OAK 94-68 3.48 2

BAL 93-69 3.90 6

 

What we can see over the last three years is:

- No AL team has won their division with an ERA over 3.84 (Jays at 4.17)

- No team ranked below 6th in ERA has won their division (Jays at 11th)

- MIL this year seems to be an outlier (8th and leading)

- Even WC ranked teams are usually 6th or better in ERA, and rarely have below average pitching

 

So the question is why is so much of the blame on our lineup? They've done pretty well I think when considering injuries. 2nd in AL OPS only to DET..

[CHRIS]

May the ERA police have mercy on your soul.

[RealAccountant]

Baltimore is 20 games over .500 with the starters they have

[dineke]

3 years is kinda a small sample size.

 

But the answer is something something xFIP or something...

[TheHurl]

We all knew the Jays roster was slanted to offence, with pitching questionable.

 

I think you answered your own question.

[Nexii]

No, my question was why the position players get blamed more than the pitching. It's the pitching that hasn't done well.

 

You could do this for more seasons or xFIP, but I think it'd be similar. Not one of the 27 teams over the last 3 years did well with bad pitching (in the bottom third or so).

[TheHurl]

No, my question was why the position players get blamed more than the pitching. It's the pitching that hasn't done well.

 

You could do this for more seasons or xFIP, but I think it'd be similar. Not one of the 27 teams over the last 3 years did well with bad pitching (in the bottom third or so).

 

again it's probably to do with expectations...also because you are cherry picking teams. The Tigers are in 10th out of 15 teams and in a playoff spot this year. Milwaukee and St. Louis are 8th and 9th and in a playoff spot. The Indians won 91 games with a 3.82 ERA last year, and 4.02 and 3.90 ERA earned the Rangers and O's 93 wins each in 2012.

 

Your whole post could have been summed up by saying "it'll be really tough to win games giving up more than 4 runs per game".

[Dylan]

No, my question was why the position players get blamed more than the pitching. It's the pitching that hasn't done well.

 

You could do this for more seasons or xFIP, but I think it'd be similar. Not one of the 27 teams over the last 3 years did well with bad pitching (in the bottom third or so).

 

I've done nothing but bitch about our rotation/depth for years. I don't blame position players, unless they are named JP

[Nexii]

Cherrypicking? No team wants to just win a WC spot now. It's all about winning the division. DET'14 would not be in a playoff spot in previous years. There's a big difference between 3.82-4.02 ERA (somewhat below average) and 4.17 ERA (mediocre). TEX/BAL '12 were tied WC winners and had to do a one game playoff which is never preferable. Looking at MIL this year they are in a weak division and also exceeding their xW/L by 3 games. Maybe that was the Jays hope, that all 4 other teams would finish at or around .500?

 

It's not so much about giving up more than 4 runs a game as requiring at least average pitching to get into the playoffs. You can't have below average pitching and expect to make the playoffs.

 

I'd rank pitching generally as 1-5 = good, 6-10 average, 11-15 bad. How would the Jays look if they were even average (3.87 ERA) at pitching? 0.30 less ERA over a season is about 48.6 runs, or 5 wins. At the least they would still be in the running. Maybe even that wouldn't be enough, but it does go with generally having to have good pitching to make it.

 

1992 Jays had 3.91 ERA good for only 9th. Pythag was only 91-71, they actually got very lucky. (MIL '92 had xW/L of 96-66)

1993 Jays had 4.21 ERA good for 5th. Pythag again was only 91-71, but they were the strongest team in their division.

[TheHurl]

Cherrypicking? No team wants to just win a WC spot now. It's all about winning the division. DET'14 would not be in a playoff spot in previous years. There's a big difference between 3.82-4.02 ERA (somewhat below average) and 4.17 ERA (mediocre). TEX/BAL '12 were tied WC winners and had to do a one game playoff which is never preferable. Looking at MIL this year they are in a weak division and also exceeding their xW/L by 3 games. Maybe that was the Jays hope, that all 4 other teams would finish at or around .500?

 

It's not so much about giving up more than 4 runs a game as requiring at least average pitching to get into the playoffs. You can't have below average pitching and expect to make the playoffs.

 

I'd rank pitching generally as 1-5 = good, 6-10 average, 11-15 bad. How would the Jays look if they were even average (3.87 ERA) at pitching? 0.30 less ERA over a season is about 48.6 runs, or 5 wins. At the least they would still be in the running. Maybe even that wouldn't be enough, but it does go with generally having to have good pitching to make it.

 

1992 Jays had 3.91 ERA good for only 9th. Pythag was only 91-71, they actually got very lucky. (MIL '92 had xW/L of 96-66)

1993 Jays had 4.21 ERA good for 5th. Pythag again was only 91-71, but they were the strongest team in their division.

 

We all know this, you're preaching to the guy that has called this no better than a .500 team all year even when they were 14 games over .500. I'm just saying that it's possible to make the playoffs with a higher ERA (not to mention the Jays fans would be ecstatic with a wildcard spot). Good pitching is much more difficult to acquire. The holes on offense were much easier to plug and improve the team. Moving forward the team might have opportunity to improve the staff internally (the optimal way) lets see how they handle that. But right now the pitching has been about what's expected of them, thus the reason they get a free pass (kind of)

[CJ-Freeway]

I agree, our rotation is horrible and should take a big part of the blame for the team's woes.

[Nexii]

We all know this, you're preaching to the guy that has called this no better than a .500 team all year even when they were 14 games over .500. I'm just saying that it's possible to make the playoffs with a higher ERA (not to mention the Jays fans would be ecstatic with a wildcard spot). Good pitching is much more difficult to acquire. The holes on offense were much easier to plug and improve the team. Moving forward the team might have opportunity to improve the staff internally (the optimal way) lets see how they handle that. But right now the pitching has been about what's expected of them, thus the reason they get a free pass (kind of)

 

Good points. I wonder where the Jays would be at if they'd spent all their money on pitching rather than offence. I suppose there was a chance their pitching could have been average or a bit above, but it didn't turn out that way.

[Dick_Pole]

Rogers Centre

 

Did the Jays play somewhere else in 2008? Blaming the Rogers Centre is such a cop out. Over the past 20 years this team has had a massive variance in run scored/given up season-to-season and go above and below averages for total runs scored for MLB all the time.

 

I'm not an expert in park factors or where to find such reliable stats but Baseball Reference has the park factor wavering between 95 and 105 every year. And they are always lower in years that the team is stacked towards pitching and with weak offense.

 

It's not like the Blue Jays were throwing out 9 Ozzie Smiths and 5 Bob Gibsons out there in 2008. Litsch, McGowan and Marcum, ie very average pitchers were overcoming the Rogers bandbox pretty easily while perfectly capable hitters like Wells, Rios, Lind, Stairs and Rolen along with the rest blasted only 126 home runs.

 

There's nothing so extreme or inexcusable about the Rogers Centre's so-called hitter friendly atmosphere.

[S33n]

Because this team is built highly on its offence, nobody expected the pitching to do a damn thing. I'm not sure why this org. doesn't realize we're moving back into a pitching era of baseball, expecting to hit home runs every game and relying on them to win is ludicrous.

[kgm1]

The rotation other than Stroman has been about what was expected . Well a few including me had hoped Dickey would rebound. The bull Pen has been s*** and that was something no one expected. The bull pen losses in April were brutal but most including AA said we would go as far as the Rotation takes us which is a 500 record . About right for the starters we have

[ElNik2013]

Good points. I wonder where the Jays would be at if they'd spent all their money on pitching rather than offence. I suppose there was a chance their pitching could have been average or a bit above, but it didn't turn out that way.

 

 

I haven't done the research so I may end up being wrong, again, but my sense is that they've spent more than enough on pitching...it's just that they've spent on the wrong guys. Romero and Morrow haven't helped this franchise for 3 and 2 years respectively. Buehrle is making like 16M/year and will make 19 next season. Dickey is paid pretty fairly, but the expectation was that he was an Ace so once you include the young assets given up to acquire him, he's overpaid, IMO.

[Slider]

It doesn't help when a lot of your pitchers are atleast 30 years of age or older. Then you have two of your starters who are 35yrs old or older. They are getting old and the pitching rotation needs to get younger.