First Half Performance - Pitchers

By David Diamond

Can pitchers make the difference in your roto team’s performance?  Sure. Just look at Mike Mussina’s line from July 12 – 2 ip, 14 base runners, 8 earned runs.  Ouch.  The problem is that good performances don’t move you up in the standings nearly as quickly as bad performances can move you down.  After 700  innings pitched for a staff, throwing a shutout may only tweak up your team’s ERA by .05 or so.  But lay an egg and give up 10 or 11 earned runs over 2 or 3 innings, and your team ERA can balloon by twice that amount – more than a full tenth (0.1) of an earned run per game.  How significant is that?  Well, at this point in my league (16 owners), if my team’s ERA were one tenth of a run higher, I’d drop two places in the ERA standings – from second to fourth.  That’s two full points on the overall standings, and that’s BEFORE I factor in the effect on my team’s WHIP.

OK, so pitching is important.  How do you do anything about it at this stage of the season?  You can try to pick up as a Free Agent some AAA pitcher who is getting called up, and hope that his first few starts in the majors are successful, like Tim Redding of Houston, or Brian Lawrence of San Diego.  You might catch a Roy Oswalt or a Troy Mattes, or maybe even this year’s Barry Zito.  Of course, there is great risk associated with putting unknown kids into your starting lineup, since they are as likely to bomb as to shine in their big league debuts, or after (e.g., Mattes, who shined his first few starts, but then has fallen back to reality since).

Risk averse?  Well, there are a few other things you can try.

If your league doesn’t impose a requirement that you have a set number of starters and relievers, you can think about changing your mix.  If you are doing well in the ERA and WHIP categories, and can live with a slight reduction in strikeouts, you may consider replacing starters with relievers.  (Check your league’s rules about total innings pitched and make sure that you won’t put yourself at risk of falling short of the season requirement.)  Although relievers sometimes get bombed, in general a “set-up” man or a late inning “specialist” won’t be left in the game long enough to do terrible damage to your team ERA or WHIP, even if he’s pitching poorly.  In general, those same guys tend to have very good ERA and WHIP numbers.  They can also steal wins for you, get the occasional save, and some of them strike out almost as many batters as the average starter.

Now, acquiring the best of those guys may be tough, although owners tend to under-value them, and might be willing to part with a middle reliever in exchange for a starting offensive player, or even a middle-of-the-road starting pitcher.  In some leagues, these guys may even be Free Agents.  If you’re looking for relief pitchers, here’s my analysis of first half performance by relievers with a minimum of 30 IP and whose score on my scale was above –10.  (This is NOT intended to be a “dollar value” – merely a formula that I put together as a quick evaluator of performance.  If you want to know the secret formula, send me an email and I’ll tell you.)  Note two big caveats.  First, recently called up kids, or specialists who only come in to face one or two batters and therefore who don’t get enough innings to make this list aren’t here.  Second, be very careful with relievers who have already pitched 50 or more innings.  Historically, overwork of a reliever can show up in either decreased second half performance, or often in poor performance the next year.  Think about whether the team is going to give your potential acquisition enough time off in the second half to keep his performance up.

Here is my evaluation of first half performance for relief pitchers – stats assume a strikeout league:

Relievers

Innings

ERA

W-L

WHIP

K

S

Score

Percival, Troy

32.1

0.835

2

0.649

35

22

92

Rivera, Mariano

47.1

2.662

-2

0.845

50

29

62

Sasaki, Kazuhiro

40

2.925

-3

0.75

40

29

59

Rhodes, Arthur

37.2

1.912

6

0.982

47

2

59

Nen, Robb

45.2

3.153

0

0.985

54

26

54

Karsay, Steve

52.2

1.367

0

0.892

50

3

52

Rodriguez, Felix

44

1.841

3

0.977

59

0

51

Shaw, Jeff

41

3.073

1

1

36

24

51

Cabrera, Jose

32.2

1.102

3

1.041

27

2

51

Wickman, Bob

36

2.75

3

1.028

39

15

50

Lloyd, Graeme

42.1

2.339

6

0.969

22

1

49

Quantrill, Paul

51.2

2.09

5

1.065

37

1

47

File, Bob

42

1.714

2

0.929

24

0

45

Nelson, Jeff

37

2.189

2

1.081

58

4

43

Isringhausen, Jason

37.2

2.628

0

1.088

45

17

43

Fassero, Jeff

41.1

2.395

0

1.089

47

11

40

Witasick, Jay

46

2.152

4

1.261

66

1

39

Stanton, Mike

48.2

1.849

4

1.274

52

0

38

Mesa, Jose

39

3

0

1.231

36

24

37

Foulke, Keith

44.1

2.639

-2

1.083

37

18

36

Kim, Byung-Hyun

58.1

3.086

1

1.097

78

5

35

Wagner, Billy

33

3

-1

1.152

46

19

35

Weathers, David

48.1

1.862

0

1.097

35

4

35

Zimmerman, Jeff

43.2

3.298

-1

0.985

48

13

35

Remlinger, Mike

50

2.88

2

1.08

68

0

34

Lowe, Sean

53.2

2.516

3

1.099

24

2

33

Levine, Al

46

2.152

0

1

31

0

32

Rocker, John

39

3.231

0

1.282

47

21

31

Alfonseca, Antonio

36.2

2.455

1

1.364

27

17

30

Benitez, Armando

40.2

3.32

0

1.254

47

19

30

Fox, Chad

35

1.8

1

1.229

42

0

29

Beck, Rod

49

2.755

1

1.122

39

4