What The Average 2013 #1, 2, 3 Starter Looks Like

[StanMarsh51]

I've done this in prior years on other boards, 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 3 pitchers with 160+ innings and then a guy with 90 innings, I had a hard time justifying the 90 inning guy above the other 3, even if his rate stats were a lot better (Clay Buccholz 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 or at least had the biggest impact for.

This is the #1 starter list below. #2 and #3 starter lists to follow. League and MLB averages are on the bottom of each table.

 

[SteelersPride]

did u make this

 

[HammerDown]

Pretty interesting. Where did you get the data to import?

 

[StanMarsh51]

Here's the list of #2 starters:

 

[StanMarsh51]

#3 starters list below:

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Intriguing, I would have gone by quintiles if we choose to separate them by #1 starters and so on, but this is interesting nonetheless as this depiction is also interesting. I noticed the ERA+ for AL #1's and 2's are virtually identical.

 

[StanMarsh51]

did u make this

Pretty interesting. Where did you get the data to import?

Yes, I made the lists sporadically over the past 2 weeks while recovering from ACL surgery (so plenty of free time lately).

I had to look up every team on baseballreference, and input the necessary fields (W-L, innings, K's, etc) for each pitcher in the excel worksheet I used to do this.

 

[broncosmitty]

Innings sure do take a nose dive when you get to #3's. Not surprising. (So does most everything else, but that's my main concern). If it weren't for a handful if very strong staffs(WSH, LAD, STL, DET, KC...) the differences would be much more drastic.

 

[da55bums]

wow, can't say you aren't prepared for this years fantasy baseball drafts...that took some time.

John Lackey, Bos #1? Lester as #2 is higher ERA+ than Kershaw

 

[navamind]

Yeah, Lester didn't have an ERA+ of 198 in 2013. I wish he had pitched that well this season. He probably had an ERA+ above that in the postseason though lol. Lester's ERA+ was 109 this year. Stan probably meant to put that and hit "9" instead of "0" and "8" instead of "9."

 

[navamind]

Innings sure do take a nose dive when you get to #3's. Not surprising. (So does most everything else, but that's my main concern). If it weren't for a handful if very strong staffs(WSH, LAD, STL, DET, KC...) the differences would be much more drastic.

There's a 15 inning difference between the #1 and #2 starters. 15 between #2's and #3's.

I'm kind of surprised the decrease is that dramatic.

 

[StanMarsh51]

Yeah, Lester didn't have an ERA+ of 198 in 2013. I wish he had pitched that well this season. He probably had an ERA+ above that in the postseason though lol. Lester's ERA+ was 109 this year. Stan probably meant to put that and hit "9" instead of "0" and "8" instead of "9."

Good catch...when I plug in 109 instead of 198, the AL #2 starter ERA+ drops from 121 to 114 (updated below...I had how you can't edit posts after 5 min on this board).

 

[navamind]

Lester's June absolutely killed his ERA.

Jon Lester 2013 Pitching Splits - Baseball-Reference.com

 

[Davis_Mike]

Interesting. It's funny how we can find things to do when our movement is restricted. I did many spread sheets with football stats for fantasy football when I was was bed/couch restricted due to a back injury over the summer a few years back.


-Jorge De La Rosa didn't really have 30 losses & Jhoulys Chacin didn't have 31 losses, did they?

 

[BigDDude]

What The Average 2013 #1, 2, 3 Starter Looks Like

Between 6'2 and 6'7, 200 to 250lbs, and a salary that nets him at least $ 10 mil per year.

Signed,

Larry Literal.

 

[Chef99]

Very cool. Ya might want to replace Matt Harvey as the Mets number 1, though...

 

[Johnnydollaz89]

Dillon Gee as our number 2? Interesting.

Harvey is a legit ace, but that TJ surgery hurts him. Niese is a solid 2 though, even possible 2.

But look for Wheeler to climb our pitching chart this year.

 

[StanMarsh51]

Dillon Gee as our number 2? Interesting.

For the 2013 Mets, easily...no Met pitcher other than Harvey was within 50 innings of Gee, and of the 5 Met pitchers with 100+ innings, Gee was 1st in innings, and 2nd in ERA, WHIP, BB/9, K/BB (only Harvey did better in those categories).