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Last year we had obviously pretty terrible pitching from our starters. In total our starters logged 916 IP and surrendered 491 ER giving us a starter's ERA of 4.8.

Now if you sub out our starters not named Romero & Morrow and sub in Dickey, Johnson & Buehrle you get new numbers of 931 IP and 393 ER- a decrease down to an ERA of 3.79 and 98 runs. Actually 105 runs when you consider the innings displaced by relievers (b/c of double counting of innings).

You can't expect that performance exactly, but Bill James has given out his projections for 2013 already on Fangraphs. Here's the results: 999 IP and 409 ER (3.68 ERA)- good for a savings of 82 raw runs saved and 122 runs saved when you consider the innings displaced by relievers (b/c of double counting of innings)

Bill James projections include a major regression back for RA Dickey & Brandon Morrow with a major improvement in Romero & smaller improvement for Johnson. He has Buehrle just about the same.

These projections would have us 2nd in the AL (after the Rays) and tied for 5th in MLB for starter's ERA. The Rays are head and shoulders ahead of anyone else. Even after losing Shields they'll still have the best rotation probably.

Overall, if the offense didn't change a bit from last year, and the bullpen gave us a similar 4.33 ERA as last year our run differential would go from -68 to somewhere between +37 to +54 and a Pythagorean projected wins total of 85 to 87 wins.

For reference here is the raw #'s of Bill James' projections.

Just to add to your post, our Pyth win/loss in 1991 when we made the playoffs but lost in the ALCS was 88-74, so it would seem like we're definitely on the right track as far as that is concerned.

Considering that our offense should be quite a bit better with a full season of Bautista, Reyes & Cabrera I think we're right in there for 90+ wins.

Okay, so I took a weighted (50/30/20) average of their last 3 years and normalized that average to 32 starts (this is by no means a perfect or even justifiable exercise, but I am not an algo guy so it's just a quick and dirty way to give their numbers some historical context). This is not meant in any way to be predictive of the staff, just that if you just do the weighted part (like James) in the context of a team you can get some odd results. Happ is not included in the 2013 totals, but I showed him to give you a sense of what you might get if he replaced anyone for a period of time. Dashes after numbers are only there to make the columns line up.

All I can say is, barring something fairly dramatic happening in terms of injuries or individual collapses, AA just took a bottom 5 staff and made it top 5.

EDIT: Numbers are totally changed as I discovered I weighted my average upside down. I couldn't figure out why JJ looked so damn good.

So your analysis shows us at 407 and James comes in at 409. I'd say it's pretty close overall with some puts and takes in there. Either way it's a huge improvement.

To expand on the batters side. Last year we scored 712 runs. I ran a baseball lineup simulator with the lineup below and came up with 776 runs.

With James' projections of our batting order, combined with our new pitching staff we get a Pythagorean wins of 93. So on a macro basis we should be in the running as there's always a few wins +/- because of luck and we're still assuming a constant bullpen production.

This is what I have personally, objectively via numbers, projected for the Blue Jays new rotation, accounting for changes in ballparks:

R.A. Dickey 3.67
Josh Johnson 3.59
Brandon Morrow 3.77
Mark Buehrle 4.41
Ricky Romero 4.38

For a rough average of 3.96 if they all stay healthy. That would have been 5th in the AL last season, when we had a 4.82 ERA from our starters. Doesn't seem like as big an improvement as I'd have thought at first, but there's room for improvement for Morrow and Romero. Although JJ is a bit low since the formula doesn't take into account his injury that caused the drop in performance last season which can't simply be regressed to his former skill level. Happ comes in at 4.81 which for a 6th starter, is more than acceptable.

Well, one of the impacts is that I can buy tickets for just about any game and not worry that I will get Aaron Laffey pitching that day.

Olney suggests this rotation

Dickey
Morrow - hardest thrower
Buehrle - softest thrower
Johnson - fairly hard thrower
Romero - fairly hard thrower

Same thing with the lineup, but normalized for PA instead of 32 starts. Craziest part was a column I removed to make it fit in the layout, projected for 44 Triples. Also the R and RBI projections are ludicrous (too many lead-off hitters, not enough middle of the order guys for history).

Again, this is a perfectly healthy squad so forget all that, but again it's the kind of place to start and maybe sub things in and out to see what's likely. We're also getting a lot of credit for Melky and E5 here, but I thought it'd be fair to keep the approach as consistent as possible.

Griping about the Dickey trade aside, I am very excited about about this lineup/rotation.

dagger wrote:Well, one of the impacts is that I can buy tickets for just about any game and not worry that I will get Aaron Laffey pitching that day.

Olney suggests this rotation

Dickey
Morrow - hardest thrower
Buehrle - softest thrower
Johnson - fairly hard thrower
Romero - fairly hard thrower

Johnson's arguably our best pitcher, so I don't think you can put him way down there. I'd go.

Johnson
Dickey
Morrow
Buehrle
Romero

Dickey would split up the two fireballers pretty nicely imo.

I think James's projections were done when 3 of these guys were in the NL as well, so you'd probably have to make an adjustment there too, as they will now be facing a DH ever 9th batter instead of a pitcher.

You're right. The historical difference between AL & NL is about .3 runs per game.

baulderdash77 wrote:You're right. The historical difference between AL & NL is about .3 runs per game.

Yes, and those even change fWAR totals as run environment plays a huge factor in calculating it.

Damn, makes me wish that the season was sooner. Hopefully we can play well on the field.