How good is your #1 starter - 2015 edition

[StanMarsh51]

Been doing this for a few years now out of curiousity, 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 (where it wasn't an easy choice picking one guy over 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 goal of this.

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 120 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.
2) If a guy was traded midseason, I tried to put him on the team he pitched the most innings for (ie - Price is listed as the Tigers' #1 and Cueto as the Reds' #1).

For 2015, the average #1 starter went 14-10 with a 3.26 ERA (129 ERA+), 204 innings, and 1.14 WHIP. Individual players listed below and league averages at the bottom of the table.

 

[DragonfromTO]

Been doing this for a few years now out of curiousity, 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 (where it wasn't an easy choice picking one guy over 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 goal of this.

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 120 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.
2) If a guy was traded midseason, I tried to put him on the team he pitched the most innings for (ie - Price is listed as the Tigers' #1 and Cueto as the Reds' #1).

For 2015, the average #1 starter went 14-10 with a 3.26 ERA (129 ERA+), 204 innings, and 1.14 WHIP. Individual players listed below and league averages at the bottom of the table.

View attachment 78101

Even if you're not using Price, Dickey over Estrada seems like an odd choice. He threw 33 more innings, but he gave up 30 more ERs in those innings.

 

[romeo212000]

Colby Lewis is not Texas best starter.

 

[StanMarsh51]

Colby Lewis is not Texas best starter.

If you're arguing for Gallardo, it was tricky....Lewis was better in literally everything outside of ERA (although was a lot worse in ERA), and looking at their FIPs, they were quite close to where it can be argued that Gallardo was pretty lucky and Lewis wasn't.

Looking at Gallardo's game log, he went 5 innings or less in a third of his starts and under 6 innings in 20 of his 33 starts, so his ERA was probably shielded in that he wasn't pitching much during the parts of the games where starters really really tend to struggle.

In reality it would've been Hamels, but I kept him on the Phillies for purposes of this.

 

[Bolts]

Can't wait for the Padres to trade their #1 starter.

 

[molsaniceman]

Can't wait for the Padres to trade their #1 starter.

Glad the red sox already did

 

[poprocksncoke]

Dont think we have an #1 starter

 

[Johnnydollaz89]

Jacob DeGrom is a beast

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Jacob DeGrom is a beast

He is, but do you think he will ever be seen to be the Mets #1??

 

[Johnnydollaz89]

He is, but do you think he will ever be seen to be the Mets #1??

he will be, in a few seasons when Harvey walks.