All Washed Up and No Place to Go
All Washed Up and No Place to Go
Recently, the Boston Red Sox had a star pitcher coming to the end of his contract. He had seen his innings pitched dip, and there were signs of shoulder damage that could spell the end of his years as a dominant pitcher. He was a couple of years on the wrong side of 30, and he was seeing signs of fewer strikeouts and more home runs allowed. Naturally the press felt it was time to let go. Sure, the man had led them to a Championship and been recognized as having some of the greatest pitching seasons ever. But baseball is a business. When he left, RSN said “Good Riddance.” The pitcher was often surly with fans and the team – he was often viewed as a prima donna.
So on to free agency he went. He signed a huge contract, for his age and recent performances. The contract was viewed with one eyebrow raised – the money and the length almost meant sure albatross down the road.
What happens? Sure, enough rumors of his demise were premature. He bounced back in innings pitched, home runs, and dropped his ERA by more than a run.
Suddenly he was still the tops. Some people still held their cards close to the vest because he still was “old.”
What? No, I’m not talking about Pedro – I’m talking about Clemens.
People always underestimate the greatest players. And that’s prudent – few players follow the career path of the hall of fame players, so betting against someone being an all-time great is usually a good bet.
The all-time greats are different. A while back I pontificated on who the all-time greats were and what the greatest season was. Through some of the discussion for measuring “greatness”, if you can sort through the “Context Matters” stuff, I stumbled across ERA+ multiplied by IP. It measures both quality and quantity and is contextualized.
Looking at some of the full career HOF pitchers (16 of them in the top 50 or so career ERA+ leaders), with a decline phase, and sorting by age, I drew a bit of information about how a HOF pitcher’s career goes.
Basically, the top ERA+ pitchers with 2500+ IP from the 20th century have similar career paths, with the notable exceptions of Tom Seaver and Pete Alexander. More on that in a bit. Using these pitchers and looking at their greatness score by age, these HOF pitchers make a nice bell curve of a career path of “Greatness vs Age”:
(in theory, there is a curve to go here that is a nice parabola - Dan and I will fix it)
Equation: y = -183.09x2 + 11294x - 137199
There is the equation for the curve as well. Backtracking allows us to calculate where pitchers peak and how much the improvement or decline over the career.
Age GRT Change
19 11292
20 15445 1.368
21 19232 1.245
22 22653 1.178
23 25708 1.135
24 28397 1.105
25 30720 1.082
26 32676 1.064
27 34266 1.049
28 35490 1.036
29 36348 1.024
30 36840 1.014
31 36966 1.003
32 36725 0.993
33 36118 0.983
34 35145 0.973
35 33806 0.962
36 32100 0.950
37 30029 0.935
38 27591 0.919
39 24787 0.898
40 21617 0.872
41 18081 0.836
42 14178 0.784
Every pitcher has a different equation to his career, but these guys are pretty tough, and usually get as many chances as they want.
So Pedro was 33 in 2005, threw 217 innings with a 148 ERA+, for a GRT of 32116. From 33 to 34, HOF pitchers show a decline of about 3%, so Pedro is moving towards a GRT of 31249. What that translates to is 220 IP at a 142 ERA+. Pedro is a decent bet to pitch that much. He got there in just 31 starts in 2005, so two more starts may get him to 230 IP. And as I expect, as his IP go up his ERA+ will go down.
It’s not the greatest projection system invented by mankind, but it’s got pizazz.
What was my comment about Seaver and Alexander? Their curves indicate they should have been in the pros years earlier. They have no bell curve, just a slope down. Seaver started in 1967 at age 22 and Pete started at age 24. They have no ML development curve – they were dominant out of the gate. Of the pitchers I looked at, and it wasn’t all of them, they were the only ones like that. Nearly all had a nice smooth curve, some more “early” weighted, some more shallow increase and decline, but only Tom Terrific and Pete had this “no early struggle” portion in their career. As best as I can read that, it means they were both really late to the majors. That probably isn’t a surprise, but the graphs really are remarkably different.
Chris Dial
Posted: April 27, 2006 at 08:09 PM |
30 comment(s)
Related News:
Boston,
NY Mets,
Projections,
Hall of Fame
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
The way that sentence is written, Chris, it implies a judgment that someone made a mistake holding them back. I assume you don't really mean that about Seaver, at least, who spent only one minor league season (the Mets started him in AAA), and was up at Shea the next year. Alexander, of course, was set back by the beaning and its aftermath.
What does this formula say about Glavine? Or does it just say, "Get out of here, Tom. This has nothing to do with ordinary mortals like you."
His curve is that exaggerated.
My point is when they first started pitching in MLB, they were "fully formed". They came in near the top of their game. That means wasted years (pitching wise), regardless of the reasons - there may be good reasons why, but the skill was there.
I included Glavine in the mix, and from above, Glavine is looking like not very good from his recent performance. He's looking like 200 IP at 105 ERA+ from a HOF perspective, and even worse by his personal chart. Looking at his chart, a GRT score in the 22000 range seems about right.
I suspect in a touch-feely way that the determination developed during Seaver's slow ascension, the need to "prove" himself over and over on the way up, really contributed to his success once he had all the physical tools ready.
That said, he prolly coulda been a decent Met starter in '66.
Position players sometimes go straight to the majors, without spending a day in the minors, but how often does that really happen for a pitcher? I can think of Jim Abbott, and David Clyde, although he got to the minors quickly enough. I suppose some of the bonus babies did, too. Did Koufax ever pitch in the minors?
Oh, that's fair. I wasn't trying to analyze his college performance, but rather comparing his development curve compared to his peers. He's about 2-3 years behind the curve. The others were just "unbloomed" in the majors.
It also doesn't matter if *others* thought he was ready - his development curve is such that most of his peers had experienced MLB with limited success prior to beginning their dominanace. That he dominated out of the gate indicates he *could* have pitched earlier - the exact number of years is guesswork.
Interestingly, their curves are even more different. They have *inverse* curves. I don't know exactly what that means.
Catfish Hunter
What exactly are the numbers in that table? The average GRT of the pitchers in your sample? Are you dealing with the fact that the better pitchers will last longer?
(I realize this is a nitpick, but a parabola is not a "bell curve". That name is reserved for the "normal" [sometimes called a "gaussian"] distribution.)
Except for the performance part.
Seaver
251 IP 122 ERA+
277 IP 137 ERA+
Clemens
133 IP 96 ERA+
98 IP 130 ERA+
Yes, I know it is about better pitchers. This metric probably isn't useful for non-great pitchers, but we're in the embryonic stages. Lots more palyers to look at.
The curve I present is specifically for players approaching hte HOF.
(I realize this is a nitpick, but a parabola is not a "bell curve". That name is reserved for the "normal" [sometimes called a "gaussian"] distribution.)
That's not a nit - I shouldn't be so sloppy - thanks.
The first unit in teh equation is heavily negative - teh average is -183. Pedro is -700. Most are between -166 and -400.
Pete and Seaver are -70 and -35 respectively.
Clemens is also just -76. However, Rocket has a nice consistent parabola over his career, but it is shallower than most and much higher.
I am pretty confident in saying these three pitchers are the greatest ever. Pete and Seaver have by far the highest "intercept" value. Clemens is fourth, just behind the Big Train.
Given the times when these players pitched, I'd have to say either Clemens or Seaver is the "greatest" pitcher ever - but I haven't done much with the other 7000 pitchers.
Huh.
Just before I moved away from Boston in 1984, I went to one of Clemens starts, it must have been his 3rd or 4th in the bigs. He didn't pitch all that well but I was wowed by his mechanics. I remember saying to myself that he reminds me a lot of Seaver.
Besides the championship thing, this is also misleading if you're talking about Clemens (rather than Pedro). Clemens' K-rate at the end of his time with the Red Sox was very much like it had been for most of his career. It even took a big jump in 96. His HR did go up, relative to league it was lower. It was the defense and his BB rate that had seemed to slow Clemens down at the end of his time in Boston.
The similarities between the Clemens and Pedro departures are quite interesting, but so are the differences. Pedro had a FIP of 2.87 in 05 after a 3.68 in 04--a difference that can largely be attributed to park and league. So far in 06 it's 4.02. Both his stats and his stuff made it obvious that he had lost a bit in 04, and both appear to have continued in 05 and 06. In contrast, Clemens was dominant in his last year with Boston in front of a brutal defense and then dominated even more with a great defense in Toronto.
The decision to let Clemens walk looked foolish at the time and looks even worse now. The Pedro decision looked, at worst, questionable at the time, and looks about the same now. (Who they chose to spend their leftover money on is another story.)
You're kidding. Did you see Pedro's 2005? Did you see who led the Red So starters in ERA+?
Pedro was about 3 or 4 wins over the best Red Sox starter, and twice that over the worst regular starter.
The Sox walk to the AL East pennant instead of finishing second, and have a real shot at the WS.
The same may well happen this season.
"About the same?" Sounds like sour grapes.
Did you see the part where I said "who they chose to spend their leftover money on is another story?" I'm talking about letting Pedro walk 'in isolation.' The Sox could have let Pedro walk, instead signed Millwood and Byrd, and still had enough left over to grab Tony Clark.
You're also only considering 2005 in this equation. The Sox would have had to guarantee Pedro a couple more years to get him to sign.
"About the same?" Sounds like sour grapes.
Bias perhaps, but not sour grapes. I didn't have much of a soft spot for Pedro and thought his best days were behind him. His 2005 was, admittedly, better than I thought it would be.
pedro's K/9 in 2004 was 9.4.
he gave up slightly more walks (still above a 3:1 K:BB ratio) and a few more homeruns.
saying he was "done" was ridiculous.
if the Red Sox had Pedro last year, they're a far better team. Same goes for this year.
saying he's on his downside, while technically true, still means he's competing for a cy young.
barring injury, it's a really good investment. and pitchers are not commodities that can be bought without risk,
Is that adjusted for park? Shea may be more well-suited to have control on batted balls... and if I could pick a guy who is able to make small adjustments in location to take advantage of certain park "quirks", it would be a guy like Pedro.
I don't think they could get both those guys - Besides, I think they signed Clement, Wells Miller. Independent of those guys, Pedro would have replaced *Arroyo* in the rotation, so my observation is correct. Even had they signed Millwood/Byrd, Pedro would have made them 3-4 wins better. And really, money for hte Sox is no object - the decision is completely about value (not total dollars).
You're also only considering 2005 in this equation. The Sox would have had to guarantee Pedro a couple more years to get him to sign.
I know it is about 4 years; and the Mets are going to get outstanding value. Pedro replaces the *bottom* of the rotation, and in the Mets (and Sox) case, that's 5-7 wins, and that *is worth* the extra cash. Particularly if you win teh pennant.
The Red Sox chose poorly - I think the outstanding 05 and the the way he looks thus far in 06. The next two years almost can't be bad enough to offeset the quality of these two (if he maintains his performance throughout the season).
It would be worth $50 mil for the Sox to win a WS title in 05-06, and Pedro could well have been the difference.
Signing Millwood with Pedro money would have been a really bad idea, IMO.
Sorry I've dragged this thread off the tracks a bit. I think your tracking of star pitchers' careers is really interesting and I should have let that be the focus of discussion here. I don't agree with you about Pedro/Clemens, but I wanted to send this thread back toward your excellent work--it's GR8T!
not to worry - threads and discussions should have many aspects. I hope my typing didn't present an unduly harsh tone.
I spent some of the weekend thinking about how to divide pitchers into these categories on a historical basis.
I think it will mostly let us look at the end of pitcher careers, and notso uch early. But maybe. I need to look at HUdson and Zito and Buerhle.
And I haven't heard your case, so I don't mind.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main