Could a consistant 5th starter put us in playoff contention?

[Hendrix]

This kind of depends on if the offense can maintain next year. Which doesn't seem unreasonable imo.

This year our top 4 starters put up a weighted average FIP of 3.68, while the remaining starting games we got out of the 5 hole was an FIP of 5.30. So basically we have a pretty big outlier at our 5 starting spots as can be seen here showing production from each starting spot 1-5.



The top 4 guys posted a 3.68FIP like previously posted, and that reesulted in a record of 51-30. The 5th starting spot (and all those that filled it) posted a 5.30 FIP which resulted in a record of 9-19. If you were to supplant the FIP that the 5th starters posted with a reasonable # like 4.24 then the should have an expected winning % out of the 5 hole of .516%. Or 15-14.

If you look at Tampa they got a record of 57-36 (.613%) from their top 4. The Jays record is actually better at 50-31 (.629%). But Tampa's 5th starting hole + replacment pitchers (they only had 7 GS by guys not in their top 5) had an ERA of 4.10, and a 19-10 Record. Compared to our 9-19.

So basically I'm thinking if we were to get consistant production from our 5th starter next year, and Tampa looses Pena, Soriano, and Crawford (9.5 cumulative WAR) then we could potentially be mid-90's for wins and have a crack at the wild card vs. them. And I think we do have guys capible of putting up <.4.24ERA's next year from the 5 spot like Litsch, Rzep, Drabek etc...

Thoughts?

All other things being equal that would move us into low-mid 90's for wins.

[Hendrix]

Bleh, I had more I wanted to add to this but I have to go to class.

[Schad]

At best, a good fifth starter would likely only recoup what we're going to lose from our bullpen, assuming that the off-season unfolds as we expect. Even if Tampa falls off entirely, most years (and this has been a down year for much of the AL) it'll take 93-95 wins to grab the wildcard from this division, and we're still an awfully long way from that.

[DonYon]

this makes me miss Doc even more. He'd been a nice '5th starter' for us lol

Anyways... does a consistant '5th starter' even exist in this league? I think the better phrasing would be that we should look for another fronline starter, and maybe cecil gets pushed down to that 5 spot. Either that or take a gamble on Drabek quickly becoming what he's supposed to be.

[Hendrix]

At best, a good fifth starter would likely only recoup what we're going to lose from our bullpen, assuming that the off-season unfolds as we expect. Even if Tampa falls off entirely, most years (and this has been a down year for much of the AL) it'll take 93-95 wins to grab the wildcard from this division, and we're still an awfully long way from that.

I'm not sure it would necesarily be that far away. If you take the yeild of the disparity between what our current #5 hole delivered, and what a decent #5 would deliver. Then add to that an expected W's of 84 you end up at 90 wins. That's atleast in shouting distance no?

Yes there is other factors like our relievers. But would it really be that hard to replicate a 4.04 ERA from relievers? Yes we would loose some from the loss of good relievers, but some of that could also be negated by replacing Tallet. Also some could be negated by having 5 quality starters, so less need to go to the pen early in games.

[Hendrix]

this makes me miss Doc even more. He'd been a nice '5th starter' for us lol

Anyways... does a consistant '5th starter' even exist in this league? I think the better phrasing would be that we should look for another fronline starter, and maybe cecil gets pushed down to that 5 spot. Either that or take a gamble on Drabek quickly becoming what he's supposed to be.

I don't think it really matters how you phrase it. Just Romero, Marcum, Cecil, Morrow, + 1 more dependable starter. If he starts above Cecil, and Cecil becomes that #5 dependable starter doesn't really matter imo.


Yes Halladay woulda been pretty nice in the 5 hole, lol. If you replace the starts we got from the #5 spot with his 32 starts you're looking at about 95 wins this year.

[Hoopstarr]

this makes me miss Doc even more. He'd been a nice '5th starter' for us lol

Anyways... does a consistant '5th starter' even exist in this league? I think the better phrasing would be that we should look for another fronline starter, and maybe cecil gets pushed down to that 5 spot. Either that or take a gamble on Drabek quickly becoming what he's supposed to be.

Exactly. It's a top down thing, not bottom up. Also, many great teams have crappy 5th starters. Look at the Phillies, they have Blanton and Kendrick and had them in 2008 as well. Boston won with Tavarez in 2007. St. Louis had Mulder, Ponson, and Weaver in 2006. You can go back for years and find crappy starters on great teams. It's more important to have a good, deep bullpen than a steady 5th starter.

[Hendrix]

Exactly. It's a top down thing, not bottom up.

I disagree. I don't think it's nessecarily a bottom up, or a top down thing. I think it's a "total" thing, and that figuring out a consistant 5th starter would yield a major impact on the total production from the starting staff. Be it if he were injected into the #3 slot, or #5 is largely irrelevent here imo.

Also, many great teams have crappy 5th starters. Look at the Phillies, they have Blanton and Kendrick and had them in 2008 as well. Boston won with Tavarez in 2007. St. Louis had Mulder, Ponson, and Weaver in 2006. You can go back for years and find crappy starters on great teams. It's more important to have a good, deep bullpen than a steady 5th starter.

Just because some teams win with crappy 5th starters doesn't mean anything really. They were able to win despite that beacuse they had such good production from other areas. It's like saying that the Lakers could win a ring with a crap PG like Fisher, so the Raptors should be ok with a crap PG because you can win a ring with it. Replacing your worst starting player with a decent starting player is likely to yield the biggest impact for the least price in this situation imo.

[kavan]

We need a 5th starter so we can have a chance at winning 1 of those every 5 days the yanks would win 4 loose 1. We would loose 4 and win 1. Are consistency between are starters is not there yet. They were good but they were all never good in one week together. That is why we never had anything longer then what a 4 game winning streak?

[Schad]

I'm not sure it would necesarily be that far away. If you take the yeild of the disparity between what our current #5 hole delivered, and what a decent #5 would deliver. Then add to that an expected W's of 84 you end up at 90 wins. That's atleast in shouting distance no?

You wouldn't get a six-win swing, though...our fifth starter grouping of Tallet/Hill/Zip/Mills/the rest (prorating Tallet's numbers because he didn't pitch that many innings) gave us slightly above replacement-level output. A solid fifth starter gives you 2 WAR...possibly 3-4 if we're talking about a #2 guy masquerading as a fifth starter. To get close six WAR, we're talking Halladay, Wainwright, Felix, Lester or Jimenez, and that's about it.

Yes there is other factors like our relievers. But would it really be that hard to replicate a 4.04 ERA from relievers? Yes we would loose some from the loss of good relievers, but some of that could also be negated by replacing Tallet.

Our five most-used relievers all have ERA+ of 110 or better, which is excellent (and lucky, given their WHIPs). Losing Tallet helps, but he wasn't really a high-leverage guy, whereas Downs and Frasor have been; assuming their replacements don't blow up in the same fashion they did, we're probably going to drop about 1 WAR there, which negates the bulk of the improvement from the Fifth Starter Grab Bag.

[Randle McMurphy]

It's far too early to say there will be a entire 1 WAR drop within the bullpen when we don't even know what it will be comprised of yet (Frasor and Downs could also wind up back with the team).

The Jays have had a good one for years, though, and I don't anticipate it being a significant issue next season with the pitching depth in the organization.

[Hendrix]

I'm not sure you can just plug WAR in and expext that that is how many wins change there are. If you're injecting a 6War guy onto a team that produces 3.15runs of support vs. a team that produces 5.5 runs of support would you not get differing additional wins?

You're saying that we got slightly above average WAR from our package deal of #5's, and that a decent #5 would produce ~2 WAR. So you're saying that the difference would only result in ~1.5 more wins for the team?

That doesn't seem to match up. As earlier posted our "grab bag" of #5 starters have produced a record of 9-19. So you're saying that a 2 WAR pitcher would be in the range of 10-18, 11-17 record? If you look at our roster at guys like Marcum, and Cecil (3.2, and 2.5 WAR). They are 14-7, and 13-8. Now I realise there's some variance here, but that's a pretty big gap between what guys are actually producing, and what a #5 guy would produce if you added 1-2 wins onto our current #5's record.

Anothe example. You're saying if everything is constant, and the only variables are switching our current grab bag of #5's for Halladay we would add 6 wins. So our current #5's have a record of 9-19. That would put his record at 15-12 if he were on the Jays no? I think he would garner a much better record that in reality if he were on the Jays with our current run production. Doesn't seem to add up.

[evilRyu]

I didn't read all the messages, but was there consideration on how lucky the Jays have been this year to avoid any significant injury to the 4 starters? As much as I hate to say it, it'll be hard to repeat that next year, so we will have the occasional Shawn Hill's and Zep's making a few spot starts here and there.

[Blade_Runner]

No.

Several under acheving seasons on the mound as well as lack of hustle at the 1/2 did this team in.

[CapeCrusader]

I say give Drabek a chance next spring to see if he needs more seasoning in the minors. Besides the last spot in the rotation, were going to need a solid closer who we can count on.

Hopefully McGowan is healthy next season to possibly take that role.

[Hoopstarr]

I disagree. I don't think it's nessecarily a bottom up, or a top down thing. I think it's a "total" thing, and that figuring out a consistant 5th starter would yield a major impact on the total production from the starting staff. Be it if he were injected into the #3 slot, or #5 is largely irrelevent here imo.

I thought you meant #5 starter, but the point still stands. It's not absolutely necessary to have a consistent 5th starter.

Just because some teams win with crappy 5th starters doesn't mean anything really. They were able to win despite that beacuse they had such good production from other areas. It's like saying that the Lakers could win a ring with a crap PG like Fisher, so the Raptors should be ok with a crap PG because you can win a ring with it. Replacing your worst starting player with a decent starting player is likely to yield the biggest impact for the least price in this situation imo.

No it's not some teams. Almost every good team has at least one crappy starter every year. James Shields turned out to be pretty crappy for the Rays, as did Vazquez and Burnett for the Yankees, a bunch for Texas and Cinci, Blackburn in Minny, etc. If you can barely expect consistency from even your best pitchers, expecting 5 consistent starters is way more unreasonable and pointless to pursue.

Like Schad said, it's pretty ridiculous to expect a six win swing from your worst starter, let alone your ace, which is why I find it ridiculous when MB said that Roy Halladay made a 10 win difference by himself. Baseball just doesn't work like that.

Also, you're measuring the success of our 5th starter grab bag by their W-L. That's the first thing you need to reconsider.

[Hoopstarr]

.

[U_Mad]

well we do have drabek...if he turns out as good as predicted we'll have a great rotation and can focus on the bullpen and someone to leadoff and steal bases

[Michael Bradley]

Like Schad said, it's pretty ridiculous to expect a six win swing from your worst starter, let alone your ace, which is why I find it ridiculous when MB said that Roy Halladay made a 10 win difference by himself. Baseball just doesn't work like that.

It does when the disparity between top and bottom is as great as it was when Halladay was here (mostly the early years). The Jays with Halladay were typically top heavy. In 2002 for example, Halladay had a 2.93 ERA (6.9 WAR) in 239 innings. The rest of the starters (Carpenter, Loaiza, Parris, Walker, and Miller) had a collective ERA of 5.41 in 507 innings. The best of that group was Pete Walker at 4.79 in 115 innings. Yet they finished a couple of games off from .500. Replace Halladay with a league average starter and that team is horrendously bad. The pitching continued to stink after Roy for years until about 2006 or so. A team without a capable 2nd guy in the rotation to win 80-ish games for a few years without a top level offense seems pretty obviously to be on back of Halladay.

On the flip side, the 2006 Jays that won 86 games got 12 starts (2-10) from Josh Towers, who finished with an 8.42 ERA in 62 innings. Replace him with anyone that year and I'm positive that team wins 90 games.

What we have to account for is extremes. When you are dealing with elite (Halladay) and historically bad (Towers), they are not the norm. If the Jays fifth starters gave us league average production (I haven't checked so I don't know), then that usually is enough if the team around that starter can compensate for him. The Jays are lucky now that instead of one #1 starter, they have about four #2's. That works too.

Whatever upgrade the Jays get in the rotation (Drabek or whoever) will be offset by the loss of Downs, Frasor, and possibly Gregg. Sure the Jays could bring them back, or replace them adquately (Frasor and Gregg are good but replaceable), but if they run with the crew they have now (Purcey, Janssen, Camp, Carlson, etc) I find it hard to believe that is an above average pen.

[Hoopstarr]

Like Schad said, it's pretty ridiculous to expect a six win swing from your worst starter, let alone your ace, which is why I find it ridiculous when MB said that Roy Halladay made a 10 win difference by himself. Baseball just doesn't work like that.

It does when the disparity between top and bottom is as great as it was when Halladay was here (mostly the early years). The Jays with Halladay were typically top heavy. In 2002 for example, Halladay had a 2.93 ERA (6.9 WAR) in 239 innings. The rest of the starters (Carpenter, Loaiza, Parris, Walker, and Miller) had a collective ERA of 5.41 in 507 innings. The best of that group was Pete Walker at 4.79 in 115 innings. Yet they finished a couple of games off from .500. Replace Halladay with a league average starter and that team is horrendously bad. The pitching continued to stink after Roy for years until about 2006 or so. A team without a capable 2nd guy in the rotation to win 80-ish games for a few years without a top level offense seems pretty obviously to be on back of Halladay.

In 2005 Doc took that Kevin Mench line drive off his leg and ended his season on July 8. The Jays were 44-42 at the point. They finished 80-82. He was essentially replaced by Downs and McGowan who combined for a 4.98 ERA. So even if you think the entire team record was decided by that one change alone, the difference between an ace who got off to a 12-4 start with a 2.41 ERA and a 4.98 ERA replacement, which would be a #5 starter, was only 4 wins.

Look at St. Louis this year. Albert Pujols, I think we'd agree, is better than Halladay. His team is 80-75 right now. By your logic, if he was replaced with a league avg hitter, they would have like 68 wins. It's just not like basketball where you take away an elite player and the team is totally crap.

On the flip side, the 2006 Jays that won 86 games got 12 starts (2-10) from Josh Towers, who finished with an 8.42 ERA in 62 innings. Replace him with anyone that year and I'm positive that team wins 90 games.

On the flip side of that, the Jays had a ton of 5+ ERA starters in 2003, Escobar at 4.29, and Doc. They still won 86 games. If you replaced Doc with a league average starter, would that mean they would've won only 60-something or even 70-something? Of course not. They would very likely still finished with 80+ wins because the offense was bailing out the pitching all year long.