SB Nation - Paul Wilson

Heroes of the Zeros: The Starting Rotation

Slyde — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:21:24 -0000

It's that time of the decade when people start creating lists of the best and worst whatevers of the past 10 years. I was going to do that too, but then I decided to make you guys do all of the work. So, over the next two weeks we will be voting on the players that we think deserve the title of All-Decade team member for the Cincinnati Reds. Each day, I'll present you with a new position, and you get to vote. While we do this, the running totals will be kept secret so that you will be surprised when we announce the final roster on December 31st. The maybe we can finally put to bed what might be the worst decade in Reds history.

We'll start with where it started to end, the starting rotation. The Reds haven't exactly been stocked with quality starting pitching during the decade, but you still have to figure out who the top 5 of the decade are. To qualify for the team, a pitcher must have spent at least 50% of his time with the Reds as a starter and he must have made at least 20 starts in a Reds uniform. The rest of the qualifications are up to you. I've listed the stats for the 23 pitchers that meet our minimum qualifications. The voting form is in this post after the jump.

Click header to sort table by column
	ERA+	FIP	GS	Years	G	CG	SHO	W	L	W-L%	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	ERA	HR	OPS
Jose Acevedo	78	5.17	54	2001-2004	68	1	0	16	21	.432	304.1	334	198	189	97	222	5.59	58	.830
Bronson Arroyo	113	4.47	136	2006-2009	136	8	3	53	50	.515	871.2	887	424	387	260	630	4.00	119	.755
Homer Bailey	81	4.92	37	2007-2009	37	0	0	12	13	.480	195.0	217	129	118	97	132	5.45	23	.803
Rob Bell	92	5.93	35	2000-2001	35	1	0	7	13	.350	184.2	176	112	105	90	145	5.12	41	.840
Brandon Claussen	85	4.96	57	2004-2006	57	0	0	15	27	.357	309.2	351	195	176	120	223	5.12	47	.824
Johnny Cueto	94	4.87	61	2008-2009	61	0	0	20	25	.444	345.1	350	191	177	129	290	4.61	53	.792
Lance Davis	97	4.66	20	2001	20	1	0	8	4	.667	106.1	124	60	56	34	53	4.74	12	.808
Ryan Dempster	66	5.27	35	2002-2003	37	1	0	8	12	.400	204.1	236	150	145	108	150	6.39	30	.856
Elmer Dessens	115	4.47	80	2000-2002	104	2	1	28	27	.509	530.1	564	246	232	148	306	3.94	66	.756
Osvaldo Fernandez	88	4.60	28	2000-2001	35	1	0	9	9	.500	159.0	172	95	93	64	71	5.26	14	.775
Aaron Harang	106	4.07	193	2003-2009	195	13	6	69	73	.486	1231.1	1288	606	572	315	1043	4.18	169	.767
Pete Harnisch	92	5.80	29	2000-2001	29	3	1	9	9	.500	166.1	181	105	94	63	88	5.09	32	.836
Jimmy Haynes	84	5.05	56	2002-2004	57	1	0	17	25	.405	306.0	354	188	172	145	183	5.06	38	.820
Luke Hudson	87	5.44	25	2002-2005	31	0	0	10	11	.476	139.0	124	83	76	81	98	4.92	18	.790
Cory Lidle	80	4.95	24	2004	24	3	1	7	10	.412	149.0	170	95	88	44	93	5.32	24	.832
Kyle Lohse	101	4.24	32	2006-2007	33	2	1	9	17	.346	194.2	213	109	99	52	131	4.58	23	.777
Eric Milton	77	5.40	66	2005-2007	66	0	0	16	27	.372	370.1	439	256	240	103	231	5.83	73	.850
Ramon Ortiz	80	5.66	30	2005	30	1	0	9	11	.450	171.1	206	110	102	51	96	5.36	34	.882
Steve Parris	98	5.10	33	2000	33	0	0	12	17	.414	192.2	227	109	103	71	117	4.81	30	.858
Elizardo Ramirez	75	5.30	26	2005-2007	31	0	0	4	14	.222	142.2	176	106	97	47	86	6.12	24	.876
Ron Villone	87	5.92	23	2000	35	2	0	10	10	.500	141.0	154	95	85	78	77	5.43	22	.871
Edinson Volquez	128	3.90	41	2008-2009	42	0	0	21	8	.724	245.2	201	107	94	125	253	3.44	20	.681
Paul Wilson	86	5.00	66	2003-2005	66	1	0	20	21	.488	396.2	450	231	215	130	240	4.88	60	.817

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/13/2009.

I will only be accepting your first vote, so don't bother trying to stuff the ballot box, you cheaters. I don't care how much you want Jimmy Haynes in this rotation Dan O'Brien, you only get one vote.

Feeling a Draft

erik — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:00:17 -0000

More photos » by Frank Franklin II - AP

The greatest player to be drafted #1 overall?

Browse more photos »

Previously, we reminisced over a few of the drafts from the 1990's. Now, let's look at the bigger picture and see what we can learn by studying all of the drafts from the previous decade (1990 through 1999).

First, let me explain my methodology:

Thanks to baseball-reference's handy draft tool, I was able to compile all the names and pertinent details for every player drafted in the first round over the ten year period.
Next, I headed over to Rally's historical WAR database and added the WAR totals for each player's first six seasons in the big leagues (not including September call-ups). Again, we look at the first six seasons because that is when a player is under team control and not yet eligible for free agency. Obviously, players get a lot more expensive once they become free agents and won't be a member of the organization that drafted them if they don't want to be.
With the six year WAR totals, I created different groupings of drafted players: high school players, college players, pitchers, hitters, and various combinations, and found the average WAR per season for each grouping.

First, we'll separate the picks from the top to the bottom of the first round to get an idea of talent distribution in the first round:

Pick Range	Avg. WAR per year per player
1 Thru 5	1.20
6 Thru 10	0.85
11 Thru 15	0.66
16 Thru 20	0.72
21 Thru 30	0.24

To no one's surprise, top ten draft picks saw the best results, but oddly enough, picks 16-20 outperformed picks 11-15, on average.
Number one overall picks averaged 2 WAR per season, and they included some notable busts (Brien Taylor, Paul Wilson) as well as future Hall-of-Famers (Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones).
The talent thinned considerably after the first 20 picks, so it's no wonder why of some teams with these picks opt to sign a Type A free agent, even if it means they give their pick away. That's not to say that late first round picks are without value, but the drop off was significant.

Now let's visit the college players vs. high school players debate. College players out-played high schoolers, with an average WAR per season of .7 to .65, but what happens when we separate the hitters and pitchers?

College Hitters	0.93
College Pitchers	0.56
HS Hitters	0.80
HS Pitchers	0.44

This is nearly the same as what Victor Wang found: High school pitchers as a whole are bad. College hitters are good.

But wait. While it is early in the current decade and a lot can change, so far high school pitchers are on the upswing. First round high school arms from the years '00-'04 are averaging .8 WAR per season.

Next, let's check out the split between RHP and LHP in the high school and college ranks:

College LHP	0.72
College RHP	0.50
HS LHP	0.29
HS RHP	0.50

I'm not sure if it's because of a smaller sample, but it is interesting, especially considering there are a lot of first round-worthy lefties in the upcoming 2009 draft. Here college lefties were pretty close in value to high school hitters, while high school southpaws bombed worse than any other grouping -- C.C. Sabathia was the only success of the group. Again, this fact has changed dramatically during 2000 through 2004 drafts thanks to the likes of Scott Kazmir, Cole Hamels and John Danks. High school lefties so far are averaging 1.1 WAR per season.

There's one last split we'll look at, and that is between position players. Because high school players and college players are so close, we will just keep them together and divide them by position:

Shortstops	1.00
Corner IF	0.85
Catchers	0.80
Outfielders	0.79

A-Rod. Jeter. Nomar. Shortstops typically are your most athletic hitter and as a group they handily outperformed all the other position groupings. I didn't separate corner outfielders with center fielders because many times B-R made no distinction, just classifying the player as "OF". There were so few players drafted as a 2B that they were not worth looking at.

Is there a lesson here? Well, TINSTAAP is a beast. First round pitchers, be it from the high school or college pools were riskier than hitters. But while drafting hitters was less dicey, the draft is a crap shoot with 62% of all 1st rounders busting. Just 7% of first round picks were above average regulars (worth 3 WAR or more per season). There might be some measures teams can take to lessen the risks, like using their 1st pick on a hitter, but when it comes down to it, clubs must do their due diligence, call a name on draft day and then hope for the best.

Looking Back at the 1st Round of the 1994 Draft

erik — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:30:10 -0000

Call me a curmudgeon, but I really hate the NFL Draft. Captain Hair-Do aside, it is a slog of a television event that really could be done in a matter of hours rather than days. Because football has become America's most popular sport these days, Bud Selig thinks he has to mimic the NFL by broadcasting the draft in prime time, starting at 6pm eastern on June 9. Rather than getting through several rounds on day one of the draft, only three rounds will be drafted, and then the draft will resume the next day at noon. All told, it is going to take three days to get through 50 rounds.

Thankfully, the draft is going to be broadcast on the MLB Network rather than ESPN, so we're spared of Steve Phillips and Bermanisms. While I'm happy that televised drafts mean more exposure, I miss the old days when the first round was blitzed through within a half-hour, with simply names being called monotonously through a speaker phone at a feverish pace.

Now that I got my Andy Rooney moment out of the way, I thought it might be fun to do a little retrospect of the first rounds of various drafts. This isn't deep draft research, there is plenty of that out there already to read up on.

We'll start with 1994, which is bustier than a cabaret show.

Charted below are all of the first rounders and their total WAR compiled for each player before they become eligible for free agency. A players' names that are italicized are those that did not play a single game in the majors.

	Pick	Team	POS	HS/College	WAR
Paul Wilson	1	NYM	P	COL	0.5
Ben Grieve	2	OAK	OF	HS	8.4
Dustin Hermanson	3	SD	P	COL	8.2
Antone Williamson	4	MIL	3B	COL	-0.7
Josh Booty	5	FLA	SS	HS	0
McCay Christiansen	6	CAL	OF	HS	-0.3
Doug Million	7	COL	P	HS	0
Todd Walker	8	MIN	2B	COL	7.4
C.J. Nitkowski	9	CIN	P	COL	-2.1
Jaret Wright	10	CLE	P	HS	0.3
Mark Farris	11	PIT	SS	HS	0
Nomar Garciaparra	12	BOS	SS	COL	41.5
Paul Konerko	13	LA	C	HS	6.4
Jason Varitek	14	SEA	C	COL	10.7
Jayson Peterson	15	CHC	P	HS	0
Matt Smith	16	KC	P	HS	0
Ramon Castro	17	HOU	C	HS	0.2
Cade Gaspar	18	DET	P	COL	0
Bret Wagner	19	STL	P	COL	0
Terrence Long	20	NYM	OF	HS	6.5
Hiram Bocachica	21	MTL	SS	HS	-1.1
Dante Powell	22	SF	OF	COL	-0.2
Carlton Loewer	23	PHI	P	COL	-1.8
Brian Buchanan	24	NYY	OF	COL	-0.4
Scott Elarton	25	HOU	P	HS	3.8
Mark Johnson	26	CHW	C	HS	1
Jacob Schumate	27	ATL	P	HS	0
Kevin Witt	28	TOR	SS	HS	-0.4
Jay Payton	29	NYM	OF	COL	7.3
Russ Johnson	30	HOU	SS	COL	2.5
Mike Thurman	31	MTL	P	COL	1.3
Jacob Cruz	32	SF	OF	COL	0.7
Chris Clemons	33	CHW	P	COL	-0.3
Travis Miller	34	MIN	P	COL	0

Nomar and his "No-mah!" days aside, this is a pretty "ouch" group. Varitek and Konerko later became all-stars, but for other teams than they were originally drafted. Paul Wilson and Ben Grieve were supposed to become superstars, instead Paul Wilson fell prey to his poor mechanics and later became a Kyle Farnsworth tackling dummy. Ben Grieve allegedly had no heart. Them washing out is like the equivalent of Matt Wieters and David Price both going bust. Bad times.

Josh Booty probably has the most interesting story out of this group, and it's worth telling. He was considered to be Peyton Manning's equal coming out of high school, but elected to take the big signing bonus and play baseball instead. After hitting .198/.256/.356 in the minors, including a record-setting 195 strikeout performance in 475 at-bats while in the Midwest League, Booty went back to football and quarterbacked at LSU. (Amazingly, Booty was on the post-season roster when the Marlins won the World Series). For the Bayou Bengals, Peyton Manning he was not, but he wasn't totally awful --- over two seasons he completed 49.3% of his passes for 3,951 yards and 24 TDs. Booty has been a third-string QB in the NFL for the Browns and Raiders, but never has taken a snap in the NFL.

Booty married one of "Barker's Beauties" from the Price is Right, a model who on the show dinged a prize car on Stage Door 3. Then there was also a DUI and taser incident involving Booty a year ago. His brother, John David, quarterbacked at USC and is now a backup for the Vikings. (Thank you, Wikipedia)

Sorting them out into groups ---

Group	#	Total WAR	Avg. Per Player	Avg. WAR per yr.
High School P	6	4.1	0.68	0.114
College P	9	5.8	0.64	0.107
College Hitters	9	68.8	7.64	1.27
High School Hitters	10	20.7	2.07	0.345
Non-Nomar Col. H	8	20.6	3.43	0.572

Not all drafts classes are equal, and while first-rounders don't have as high rates of attrition as players drafted from other rounds, the attrition rates are still high. For this draft at least, there seems to be a lot more sad stories than usual. At least it boasts of one (former) super-star.

WAR data from the ever-resourceful BaseballProjection.com

The Cub Can Of Worms: Kyle Farnsworth

Al — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:30:38 -0000

Dr. Tightpants (named for how he wore his uniform trousers). Heartthrob of Lincoln Park Trixies. Owner of a million-dollar arm that could throw a baseball 100 MPH. And owner of a ten-cent brain that prevented him, most likely, from becoming an elite closer.

Farnsworth first came to the majors with the Cubs in 1999, and was put into the rotation for that really bad team. He made 21 starts that year, and on August 29, 1999, he threw a two-hit shutout against the Dodgers in Los Angeles (oddly, the two hits, both singles, were made by future Cubs: Mark Grudzielanek and Todd Hollandsworth).

The next year Farnsworth was moved to the bullpen and struggled again, posting a 6.43 ERA. But in 2001 he started to dominate, striking out 107 batters in 82 innings and his ERA dropped to 2.74. This started a strong alternate-year pattern which lasted through 2006 -- good in the odd-numbered years, bad in the even-numbered years.

But he had a reputation for being a late-night partier, hanging out in one bar that stayed open till 4 am, and supposedly was caught sleeping in the clubhouse one day in 2002 when interim manager Bruce Kimm was looking for him to pitch. If memory serves, this is the game in question -- Kyle came in and faced five batters, walking three of them. The Cubs won the game anyway.

It was the next year that Dr. Tightpants endeared himself to Cubs fans forever. On June 19, 2003, in a game vs. the Reds at Cincinnati, Kyle threw an inside pitch to Reds pitcher Paul Wilson, who was trying to bunt. Wilson started yelling at Farnsworth, and the result was a bloody takedown by Kyle.

The Cubs lost the game, but Farnsworth won over fans who had previously been up and down about him because of his up and down pitching. The following year, Farnsworth turned on a fan and kicked it. I say "it" because the fan in question was one used to cool down the dugout. That came after this massive meltdown against the Astros on August 27, 2004. He sprained his knee and spent a month on the DL. (He had, earlier in the season, hurt himself and missed a couple of games fooling around kicking footballs around the Wrigley Field outfield. Maybe he should have tried the NFL as a career.)

That tantrum, along with a pitching meltdown in the disastrous eighth inning of game six of the 2003 NLCS, got him sent out of town -- traded to the Tigers for the guy many of us called "Spanish for Kyle Farnsworth", Roberto Novoa (and also Scott Moore and Bo Flowers). Kyle's tenure in Detroit lasted four months; he was traded to Atlanta at the 2005 trading deadline, but not before showing off his pugilistic skills again on July 17, 2005, a game he wasn't even pitching in.

Here's the description from the Retrosheet boxscore linked above (Kyle's in this photo, hidden behind the Royals' Jeremy Affeldt):

TIGERS 6TH: Guillen was hit by a pitch; the second pitch hit Guillen's helmet; Guillen yelled at Hernandez and the two charged each other; both benches and bullpens cleared; no punches were thrown and it appeared to be over when Farnsworth charged Affeldt and threw him to the ground; KC ejections: Runelvys Hernandez, Emil Brown, Alberto Castillo, Mgr Buddy Bell; Detroit ejections: Carlos Guillen, Jeremy Bonderman, Kyle Farnsworth

Two weeks later, Farnsworth was traded to Atlanta. After the 2005 season, he signed a three-year deal with the Yankees worth $17 million. His production was poor -- ERA's over 4 all three years -- and by the middle of 2008, the Yankees had had enough, and shipped him back to the Tigers. He's currently a free agent, and with the 100 MPH fastball no longer there, turning 33 in April, Farnsworth may not find too many suitors ready to sign him, except maybe for WWE.

If only he'd had a brain to match that arm.