The Brewers Against Starters Making Their Major League Debut

TheJay — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:36:50 -0000

Anthony Swarzak is scheduled to start for the Twins tonight. Haven't heard of him? That could be because he's never pitched in the majors before. Since joining the National League in 1998, the Brewers have faced eighteen starting pitchers making their major league debut. It's been done before, it never hurts to look again at a rundown of how they did:

Player	Date	Tm	Opp	W/L	Score	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	GmSc
Brian Meadows	4/4/1998	FLA	MIL	L	2-6	3.2	10	6	6	2	3	0	18
Dan Reichert	7/16/1999	KCR	@MIL	W	12-10	1.2	5	7	7	4	1	0	14
Buddy Carlyle	8/29/1999	SDP	MIL	W	5-4	7	2	4	1	2	5	1	66
Brian O'Connor	5/13/2000	PIT	MIL	W	11-8	2	7	6	6	2	0	1	16
Adam Eaton	5/30/2000	SDP	MIL	W	6-3	5.1	5	3	3	2	4	1	48
Jose Acevedo	6/19/2001	CIN	MIL	L	8-10	4	4	6	6	2	4	3	32
Carlos Zambrano	8/20/2001	CHC	MIL	L	2-10	4	4	7	7	4	3	1	25
Juan Cruz	8/21/2001	CHC	MIL	L	1-3	6	3	2	2	1	8	0	65
Josh Pearce	4/20/2002	STL	@MIL	L	3-5	4.2	6	3	3	3	0	0	37
Nate Teut	5/4/2002	FLA	@MIL	L	4-6	4.1	8	5	5	1	3	0	29
Kirk Saarloos	6/18/2002	HOU	@MIL	L	1-7	4.2	6	6	6	3	4	1	29
Chin-hui Tsao	7/25/2003	COL	MIL	W	7-3	6.1	8	3	3	1	5	2	49
Zach Duke	7/2/2005	PIT	@MIL	L	3-5	7	5	3	3	1	9	1	63
Anthony Reyes	8/9/2005	STL	@MIL	W	5-2	6.1	2	2	2	1	5	1	65
Paul Maholm	8/30/2005	PIT	@MIL	W	6-0	8	4	0	0	3	5	0	76
Boof Bonser	5/21/2006	MIN	@MIL	L	3-5	6	5	1	1	3	8	0	63
Rick VandenHurk	4/10/2007	FLA	MIL	L	2-3	4.2	5	1	1	3	5	0	52
Jonathon Niese	9/2/2008	NYM	@MIL	W	6-5	3	7	5	5	4	2	1	23
All Players	1998-2008	MLB	MIL	8-10	87-95	88.2	96	70	67	42	74	13	43

The won-loss marks and scores are from the perspective of the pitcher's team, so the Brewers have actually gone 10-8 in games started by opposing pitchers making their major league debut. "GmSc" stands for game score, a fun little number that tries to rate the effectiveness of a pitcher's start without getting too complex. The pitcher list contains some eminently forgettable names and some guys who still give the Brewers fits, but taken together, they didn't do well in their first starts:

Here are the rate stats for their 88 2/3 combined innings: 9.74 H/9, 7.11 RA, 6.80 ERA, 4.26 BB/9, 7.51 K/9, 1.32 HR/9

For quick and dirty comparisons' sake, the Brewers have turned starters making their major league debuts into Chan Ho Park with a few more homers. Hopefully they make Swarzak's stats look like Park's 2009 numbers.

Money In The Bank Pt. 4

Tommy Rancel — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:00:10 -0000

Thanks to Fangraphs new WAR, Value in Dollars and Salary features, we can easily see how much a player made vs. how much he was worth. For the Rays, getting more value for less buck is essential if the team is going to continue it's recent success. We all know Andrew Friedman has made some excellent moves via trades and signings, but now we can actually see how good those moves have been in terms of dollars. Finally, we have this data available for pitchers.

Today, I take a look at the signings/trades of 2006.

A few ground rules here.

To qualify using "worth", The player must have been acquired by Friedman prior or during the 2006 season and must have had at least 50 IP as a starter or 20 IP as a reliever with the team during the year.
Several players were acquired by Friedman, but did not qualify for worth. However, since they received a salary, I included them in the salary portion of the chart. Call them "sunk costs."

2006	SP IP	RP IP	FIP	WAR	Salary	Worth
Walker	N/A	20	2.6	1.3	$0.40	$4.80
Harville	N/A	41	4.88	0.1	$0.40	$0.20
Miceli	N/A	32	5.62	-0.2	$0.70	-$0.90
Jackson	7	29.1	4.52	0.1	$0.40	$0.50
Meadows	N/A	69.2	5.4	-0.3	$0.60	-$1.10
Camp	N/A	75	4.33	0.9	$0.30	$3.20
Lugo	N/A	85	4.11	0.7	$0.30	$2.60
Seo	88	2	5.87	0.2	$0.40	$0.60
Dunn	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.30	N/A
Childers	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.30	N/A

Looking at some of those names just makes me cringe. Brian Meadows was just awful, but as a whole Friedman some how got $9.9 million worth of production for $4.10 million dollars in costs.

WTFITW you ask? He's the pitcher that was worth $4.8 million dollars while with the Rays. Other steals of 2006 include Ruddy Lugo, who pitched 85 innings and was worth $2.6 million while making the league minimum. And some how Shawn Camp, who was valued $3.2 million and was worth almost a full game over replacement level. This leads me to believe that if Camp had been playing in front of the 2008 or 2009 defense, I'm pretty sure we'd have a different perception of him.

SB Nation - Brian Meadows

The Brewers Against Starters Making Their Major League Debut

Money In The Bank Pt. 4