Point Blank – July 7
Clayton Kershaw is an All Star (remembering Jack Armstrong)…Brett Anderson has been grounded at a historic level…
An honest case can be made that someone might prefer Max Scherzer over Clayton Kershaw right now; Scherzer has earned the right for the comparison. But Kershaw is better than Madison Bumgarner, A. J. Burnett, Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole, Jacob DeGrom, Zack Greinke, Mark Melancon, Shelby Miller, Jonathan Papelbon, Francisco Rodriguez and Trevor Rosenthal. Yet unless the fans vote him him in, Kershaw will not be able to do anything more than watch those others perform in Cincinnati next Tuesday.
Which is absurd.
It leads to a debate that I get into around this time each season, usually with far lesser examples than Kershaw – this is the “All Star Game”, not the “Inter-League Exhibition Between the Players that have had the Best First Half of 2015”. I am not sure there has been a single day in which Kershaw was not in the top five of my pitcher power ratings since early in the 2011 season, and it is likely that he was on top of the ratings the majority of those days. His current snub shows not just the silliness of relying too much on the statistics of the first half of a single season, but also on the statistics being used as well. The former reminds me of Jack Armstrong. It is the latter that matters more to the serious handicapper. Let’s get to each.
Armstrong had a lousy MLB career, a 40-65/4.58 with four different teams. Cincinnati gave up on him after a 7-13/5.48 in 1991. The Indians tried him for a season, and 6-15/4.64 was enough for them. The Marlins gave him one last crack, and it was a 9-17/4.49. Then there were two starts with Texas in 1994, before the end. Why would Cleveland, and then Florida (before the name changed to Miami), offer a rotation spot to someone off of such a bad previous season? Because Armstrong started for the National League in the 1990 All Star Game, that’s why.
Armstrong was not anything special prior to 1990, with tallies of 4-7/5.79 and 2-3/4.64 across his first two Major League seasons. But in ’90 he opened with an 11-3/2.28 flash, and that got him the nod. The rest of that season? How about a 1-6/5.96. He had one extremely out of character stretch in his career, yet it somehow made him an All Star Game starter, and he will forever remain the poster child for those putting far too much emphasis on the statistics of the first half given season.
As for the proper statistics, as noted here about a month ago there is nothing wrong with Kershaw, despite a 5-6/3.08 being the first bottom line that most folks see. His K/9 sits at a career high 11.6; his SwS% is at a career high of 15.6; his BB/9 is at 2.1, well below a career average of 2.7; his FIP is 2.55, #2 in the National League, and his xFIP is 2.12, #1.
So think of this bottom line – the pitcher that is #2 in his league in FIP, after being #1 last year; is #1 in xFIP for the second straight season; and for the second straight campaign leads the league in both K/9 and SwS%, somehow is not good enough to be an All Star. The fan voting should correct that this week, but it is a baseball absurdity that a guy sitting on a career 103-55/2.53 (2.71 FIP) was passed over for anyone other than Scherzer.
It is quite a day for this, because Kershaw might not even be the most interesting Dodger starter to talk about this morning…
In the Sights…
Health has been a career-long issue for Brett Anderson, who worked 287 2/3 innings with Oakland in 2009-10, but prior to this season had only managed 206 1/3 since. The Dodgers took a gamble and offered him what seemed like an exorbitant $10 million for one season, and Anderson has indeed been healthy. He has also been special, though in a way that the radar screens do not necessarily gauge. And it sets up a game that I believe can break open tonight, making #910 Los Angeles Run Line a part of the portfolio.
Anderson’s 5-4/3.00 is not going to jump off the page, but a part of it should, a guy who showed promise with his ability to work the lower part of the strike zone may finally be fulfilling that, and more. Anderson’s GB% had been showing a steady climb throughout his career, from the 50.9 of his rookie season to as high as 62.9 in 2013. In 43 1/3 innings with the Rockies last year it was 61.0. At full health this season the count has built to a most significant 68.4, and to understand why you should be rating him higher than you do, let’s set some perspective.
Of the 96 pitchers with enough to qualify on the league charts so far, only Dallas Keuchel and Tyson Ross are over the 60.0 mark in the category. Let’s look at the last five full-season leaders, and also how many total pitchers were able to reach the 60.0 plateau in those campaigns -
2014 Keuchel (63.5) 1
2013 Masterson (58.0) 0
2012 Cahill (61.2) 1
2011 Westbrook (59.3) 0
2010 Hudson (64.1) 2
That shows you just how unique Anderson’s stuff has been, and if you do some proper isolating it gets even better. It should not have been a surprise that a guy coming back from several injury-shortened campaigns got out of the gate slowly, with a 5.49 across four April starts, with his GB% below 60.0 in three of them. He has worked to a 2.36 in 12 outings since then, however, with his lowest GB% in that stretch a 57.9, and in half of those 12 games it topped 75.0. As his rhythm builds up so does his confidence to attack the strike zone – in back-to-back road wins over the Marlins and Diamondbacks in his last two games he had 17 Ks vs. only three BB allowed.
Anderson should continue that form against a lousy Philadelphia offense that should struggle on the first look, with only Ben Revere having previously faced him. And run support by the Dodger offense should not be a challenge – Chad Billingsley simply may not have it anymore. Billingsley has not been a full-time MLB starter since 2012, and there was nothing special about his stuff that earned a spot in a rotation this season, as he slogged to a 2-2/4.85 at AAA. But the Phillies are desperate for arms (a team that has already started Jerome Williams, Kevin Correia and Sean O’Sullivan pretty much admits to that), which has given him the opportunity. He has not made much of it, with an 0-2/7.71 that shows little promise, including a 4.5 SwS% that is close to church league softball, and a Dodger offense that leads the Majors with a .783 OPS against right-handers should only add to his woes.
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