How good is your #1 starter - 2014 season

[StanMarsh51]

I've done this in prior years, where the goal was to get an aggregate listing of each team's best starter (#1), 2nd best starter (#2), 3rd best starter (#3) for a single season and finding what the average #1, #2, #3 starter looks like.

My goal isn't necessarily to argue whether pitcher X on a team was better than pitcher Y, because in numerous cases it was close (and I had a hard time picking one guy against another), and keep in mind that if two guys are close and one was listed as a #1 for his team and the other #2, switching them around probably changes very little on the league averages, which is the main thing I wanted to calculate (so keep that in mind before anyone points out that pitcher X may have been better than pitcher Y).

Two other notes before reading the list:
1) I tried to impose an innings limit where applicable. For instance, if a team had a pitcher with 200 innings and then a guy with 130 innings, I had a hard time justifying the 130 inning guy above the 200 inning guy, even if his rate stats were a lot better (Tanaka was an example of this).
2) If a guy was traded midseason, I tried to put him on the team he pitched the most innings for (ie - Price was listed for the Rays, and Lester for Boston).

For 2014, the average #1 starter went 14-9 with a 2.93 ERA, 205 innings, and 1.12 WHIP. Individual players listed below and league averages at the bottom of the table.

 

[calsnowskier]

Interesting concept, but it does introduce a LOT of problems.

Why Kershaw instead of Grienke? Why Zimm over Strasburg? Why is Samardjia listed for Oakland instead of Chicago?

I think a better system would be to put all SPs in a hopper and pick out the top 30. The prob with this is how do you determine the top 30? The next 30?

While not perfect, PQS is a pretty good system for this type of thing. The problem is that it is not tracked league wide (to my knowledge) so is VERY difficult to use for something like this. However, we could see exactly how many "1's" each team REALLY has using this system, using a few different measures (ranking, value based...)

 

[StanMarsh51]

Why Kershaw instead of Grienke? Why Zimm over Strasburg? Why is Samardjia listed for Oakland instead of Chicago?

Are you really questioning why I thought Kershaw was LA's best pitcher this season?

As for Samardzija, I addressed that in note #2 of my original post.

 

[broncosmitty]

Lester, Felix, Sale and Kluber really brought down the AL ERA.

I thought the gap would be larger between leagues.

Nice work Stan.

 

[antone112]

He'd look a lot better if we had any offense

 

[StanMarsh51]

Lester, Felix, Sale and Kluber really brought down the AL ERA.

I thought the gap would be larger between leagues.

Nice work Stan.

Thanks...in the 3 years I've done this the gaps between leagues have consistently been about a 0.2 difference in ERA (smaller than most would think).

Also interesting to note that in 2012 when I did this, the average #1 had a 3.46 ERA (half a run higher than what I calculated in 2014).

 

[navamind]

Interesting concept, but it does introduce a LOT of problems.

Why Kershaw instead of Grienke? Why Zimm over Strasburg? Why is Samardjia listed for Oakland instead of Chicago?

I think a better system would be to put all SPs in a hopper and pick out the top 30. The prob with this is how do you determine the top 30? The next 30?

While not perfect, PQS is a pretty good system for this type of thing. The problem is that it is not tracked league wide (to my knowledge) so is VERY difficult to use for something like this. However, we could see exactly how many "1's" each team REALLY has using this system, using a few different measures (ranking, value based...)

 

[broncosmitty]

Something interesting that caught my eye:

Jorge DeLaRosa had the worst ERA, both leagues, of any #1. You'd think it'd be a AL starter. But then it's a guy who plays in Coors, so it makes sense. But..... JDeLaR had a 3.08 ERA at home. And a 5.09 ERA on the road. Yikes!

(Hard to tell what took down run production so much. PED testing, shifts, replay, a bigger zone, better D, better young arms, more free swinging youngsters..... lots of factors piled together IMO.)

 

[navamind]

Something interesting that caught my eye:

Jorge DeLaRosa had the worst ERA, both leagues, of any #1. You'd think it'd be a AL starter. But then it's a guy who plays in Coors, so it makes sense. But..... JDeLaR had a 3.08 ERA at home. And a 5.09 ERA on the road. Yikes!

(Hard to tell what took down run production so much. PED testing, shifts, replay, a bigger zone, better D, better young arms, more free swinging youngsters..... lots of factors piled together IMO.)

I blame Obama.

 

[broncosmitty]

I blame Obama.

Well, the White Sox did only have the third worst team ERA. All extra outside influence might be involved.

 

[calsnowskier]

Are you really questioning why I thought Kershaw was LA's best pitcher this season?

As for Samardzija, I addressed that in note #2 of my original post.

Really?

Really?

I was listing a series of issues with the selection process. Grienke is a legit Ace, and would be the #1 on 75% of the teams in the majors. To not factor him in this discussion was my point.

But sure. Ignore the point of the post and focus on a detail that wasn't important to begin with.

 

[broncosmitty]

Kershaw is better'n e'rybody though.

 

[Mistaken4193]

I like Teheran. I don't think he has ace type stuff but he does have what it takes to be a dominant #2 kind of guy. Regardless, it don't matter how well he pitches if our fucking offense doesn't get fixed this offseason.

 

[navamind]

Really?

Really?

I was listing a series of issues with the selection process. Grienke is a legit Ace, and would be the #1 on 75% of the teams in the majors. To not factor him in this discussion was my point.

But sure. Ignore the point of the post and focus on a detail that wasn't important to begin with.

Greinke's a very good pitcher. And very smart. I love me some Greinke, but there is no legitimate argument for putting him over Kershaw.

 

[calsnowskier]

Greinke's a very good pitcher. And very smart. I love me some Greinke, but there is no legitimate argument for putting him over Kershaw.

 

[steveringo]

This is a list of every team's ace.

Not players that could be aces on other teams...

It is really that simple...