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.

The 2009 Oakland A's Starting Pitchers?

Tyler Bleszinski — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:00:05 -0000

It's been the unlucky 13 for the Oakland Athletics in 2008. The A's have had 13 different pitchers start at least one game for the A's this year. You ready for this list? Joe Blanton, Rich Harden, Justin Duchscherer, Gio Gonzalez, Kirk Saarloos, Lenny DiNardo, Chad Gaudin, Dan Meyer, Josh Outman, Sean Gallagher, Dallas Braden, Dana Eveland and Greg Smith.

Some of those guys were traded, some were injured and some didn't perform up to expectations. Yet when I look at that list, I see several pitchers who make me excited about 2009. Gallagher, Duchscherer, Outman, Eveland and Smith could very well be the opening day rotation for our green and gold next year.

And that doesn't even take guys like Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson into account who very well could prove to be ready by the end of spring training next year. Gio Gonzalez could also very well bounce back and have a stellar spring training. And Dallas Braden has probably at least put himself in the conversation with his pitching performances of late too.

Now it's probably going to take one or maybe two pitchers to possibly get a bat if that's the route Billy Beane and company want to go. And with the A's history of having injured starting pitchers, the truth is that the team could probably use as many starting pitchers as possible.

But it's going to make for a fascinating spring training and the good news is that even if the starting pitchers are all healthy, a few of them will be excellent additions to the bullpen.

Now that you've pretty muc h seen all the A's starters at least once this year, who do you think wind up being the starting five on opening day next year? Course it won't matter much if Beane can't significantly improve this offense this offseason. But I'll just pretend for a moment that our offense could somehow approach league average and therefore pretend that the starting rotation will matter.

SB Nation - Kirk Saarloos

The Brewers Against Starters Making Their Major League Debut

The 2009 Oakland A's Starting Pitchers?