Point Blank – June 29
Is Texas now the Best Record/Worst Rotation (for the Rangers, the going is about to get tough)…Watching Noah’s Arc, through this next cycle…The First half at Coors today may be a Rocky Mountain Low…
The Texas Rangers have been a topic rather often of late, in various forms here and also in the post-column threads, not just running their way to MLB’s best record at 51-27, but doing it while the markets failed to catch on. Having a Ranger ticket in pocket for every game this season would have returned a profit of +31.1 positions, a rather staggering rate of return, and that is based on common market closers, and not someone shopping it out well.
Having said that, and off of their easy win in the Bronx last night, now going to 22-4 in the last 26 Cole Hamels starts, things may be about to change. It is quite possible that the team with the best record in the Major League’s also sports the worst starting pitching rotation, as it is currently configured, and their commitment is to run through the All Star break with what they have. That may be problematic, given that the Rangers play 17 games in as many days in this cycle, and it is an issue on two fronts - not only does the rotation come up short in terms of quality, but quantity might be an even bigger problem because of the bullpen, which I will get to in a moment.
Let’s deal with the starters first. With Yu Darvish, Colby Lewis and Derek Holland all on the DL, and none coming back before mid-July, the patching that Texas has done over the past two series is how it will continue to play out. So after Hamels, here are the other four starters in the order they will be appearing, with their starts and innings pitched over the past two seasons, and career ERA and FIP counts -
2015-16 Starts IP Career ERA/FIP
Nick Martinez 23 131.1 4.33 5.05
A. J. Griffin 7 38 3.54 4.25
Martin Perez 30 175.1 4.03 4.11
Chi Chi Gonzalez 11 65.1 4.25 4.87
Not an impressive lot, is it? There is a particular reason for looking at the first tables in their order – the quantity issue may be what comes front and center first. Jeff Bannister was the A.L. Manager of the Year in 2015, and would be the front-runner for that award so far this season, but this is going to take a lot of his skill to sort through.
None of the non-Hamels options for the Texas rotation has reached six IPS the past two seasons, and in truth some of these guys just don’t bring the stuff to face a lineup a third time, or much less a fourth. And this is a problem because –
2016 Texas bullpen
ERA 4.69 (28)
FIP 4.71 (29)
K% 18.5 (29)
How do you get to 51-27 around that? Start with Sam Dyson, with his 16 saves and 1.88 ERA, but FIP (2.92) and SIERA (3.04) are calling his run prevention rates a little too good to hold up. Beyond Dyson, who only had two saves prior to this season and could wear down in his first summer as a closer, the rest of it has been a rather motley crew, but because the Rangers are only #18 in bullpen innings pitched, that group has not had to come front-and-center. Now they do. Also note the style aspect – to better understand this relief corps I listed that K%, because it showcases the impact of the Ranger defense, which has been outstanding. As bad as the overall bullpen numbers are it is that defense, which charts at #2 across the best metrics I use, that has kept things from being worse. Even Dyson is only at 6.8 BB/9 and 19.7 K%, which is not what you want from a closer.
So now comes the grind. With the heat of summer picking up, and no off days on the horizon, the game-by-game sequences will be a challenge. Hamels gave them what an ace was called to do last night, working seven shutout innings, to set the relief crew up well for this evening. But chart the innings from those other starters carefully going forward, especially in the night-to-day transition that they face on Thursday. There could be some tough sledding ahead.
Item: A Noah Syndergaard follow-up
Syndergaard was a prime topic here yesterday, dealing with the question of whether his elbow may be a problem, and whether he thinks his elbow may be a problem. Now the Mets have made it public that both Syndergaard and Steven Matz, who has been pushed back in the rotation, both have bone spurs. You can get a detailed read on that here.
One of the worst things for a young hard-thrower to do is pitch through an injury, and in Syndergaard’s case it may be an extreme because no starter in the game consistently hits the radar guns at a higher count. How confident will he be to cut it loose? Stephen Strasburg stayed in the Nationals rotation despite being hurt to open the 2015 season and it was a disaster, a 3-5/6.55 that was so out of character that I don’t even chart those numbers anymore. Strasburg altered his style to make up for the injury, and it did not work. As such, a guy like Syndergaard absolutely goes under the microscope the next couple of times he takes the hill, the handicappers MRI in play.
In the Sights…
Coors Field has been a rather silly place on this Rockies home-stand, a 6-0 surge to the Over with run counts of 13, 19, 17, 16, 14 and 23. It might sound suicidal to get in front of that train but markets are what they are, reacting to the most recent information available, and that means that we can play the form of Aaron Sanchez and Tyler Anderson at a more than fair price. So let’s make it #969 Blue Jays/Rockies First Half Under (3:10 Eastern), with 7’s the going rate this morning.
For as great as Coors can be for hitters this is not the ideal setting – because of a long rain delay first pitch was pushed back to 9:21 local time last night, and then the teams slogged through a 3:51 game that saw 179 pitches thrown. That takes the position players well out of their comfort zones, perhaps the Blue Jays even moreso because they fly home after the game to open a series with Cleveland on Thursday, which may lead John Gibbons to tweak his lineup a bit (I at least don’t expect to see Russell Martin, who had three hits last night). The usual procedure for a road team in this setting is to not take batting practice, and that can help the starting pitchers to be ahead of the hitters in the early stages.
Now that Sanchez has settled into the role of a starter, and has confidence with the strike zone, he has enormous upside. His 7-1/3.33, with FIP at 3.47, attests to that, and note that it has come against a first-tier schedule – of 107 pitchers at 70 IP or more, his DBF is #15. When your K/9 is 8.6 and your GB% is 58.1 (#4 in MLB), that is a pitcher getting a lot of outs the way that he wants to get them.
Meanwhile Anderson was considered a damn good prospect when he was drafted in the first round in 2011, and after losing a full year to injury he looks like a damn good prospect again. He opened with a 2-2/1.80 through two AA starts, then 2.12 over three at AAA this season, and the Rockies saw enough to bring him to The Show, where his early career arc has been on point. Yes, it is a short sample size, but the raw stuff shows up in 9.2 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, 62.0 GB% and 11.4 SWS%. There have been no fears of attacking hitters at Coors, with 14 K vs. 2 BB over 12 innings here. Anderson just has not been backed with a win in three starts for those efforts, which helps to keep him off the radar just enough for our purposes.
We are not going into a buzzsaw with this play. In Anderson’s last start the Rockies trailed Arizona 2-1 after the First Five, a game that ended 10-9 Diamondbacks. In this series opener it was Toronto 1-0 after the First Five. Some bullpen blowups have helped to create those recent high scores, and we can take advantage of the markets elevating the Total with these two starters.
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