San Diego Padres 2010 Projections: Starting Pitchers (Part 1)
March 28th, 2010 | Published in Daniel Gettinger, San Diego Padres, baseball, player evaluation, projections | 11 Comments
by Daniel Gettinger
Continuing my forecast series, today I look at the four San Diego Padres pitchers who have been locks for the rotation all spring…
Chris Young
|
IP |
K |
BB |
HR |
ERA |
FIP |
WAR |
|
110 |
85 |
43 |
12 |
4.15 |
4.25 |
2.0 |
Young is a really interesting pitcher, and very difficult to project. He was fantastic in 2007, but has struggled with injuries since then. I still believe he can be a quality pitcher, and his fly ball tendency seems well suited to Petco Park, but I do worry whether he will fully regain his post-injury effectiveness, and whether he can stay healthy for a full season.
Kevin Correia
|
IP |
K |
BB |
HR |
ERA |
FIP |
WAR |
|
170 |
120 |
64 |
17 |
4.15 |
4.22 |
2.5 |
Correia was fantastic in 2009 posting a 3.2 WAR in nearly 200 innings. I expect a bit of regression from him in 2010, but he should still be a solid presence in the Padres rotation.
Jon Garland
|
IP |
K |
BB |
HR |
ERA |
FIP |
WAR |
|
195 |
105 |
58 |
20 |
4.25 |
4.35 |
2.5 |
Garland is nothing special, but has been consistent throughout his career. He always throws around 200 innings of somewhere around league average baseball. Garland won’t overpower many batters, but the Padres could do a lot worse than have Garland take the hill every five days.
Clayton Richard
|
IP |
K |
BB |
HR |
ERA |
FIP |
WAR |
|
150 |
105 |
56 |
16 |
4.20 |
4.31 |
2.2 |
I like Richard. I can see him turning into a Jon Garland type pitcher, a guy who eats up innings while posting average numbers. Richard only has one year of major league service time, which makes him a very valuable player for the Padres over the next few seasons.
Recap:
I see Young, Correia, Garland, and Richard all posting very comparable seasons. None of them project to be Cy Young candidates, but they are all solid, middle of the rotation starters who would receive innings on nearly any major league team.
Next I will look at the players who were candidates for the “fifth slot” in the rotation this Spring, all of whom stand to receive a decent chunk of innings at some point this season.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:45 am (#)
Sounds about right, Daniel.
Personally, I’m holding out hope that Richard can find whatever control he lost between the minors and major leagues (he walked over a full batter less in his minor league career than he did in the majors in 2009). If he could do that, he’d be an above average pitcher, wouldn’t you agree?
March 29th, 2010 at 10:12 am (#)
Actually, those projections would put the Padres in a much better position than they were last year in regards to starting pitching. Those four pitchers alone look to give us around 9 WAR. So long as whoever the fifth starter and various injury replacements are don’t completely suck, the Padres should get over 10 wins from their starters.
Compare that to last year, when all the starters put together didn’t manage to give San Diego more than 3 WAR.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:01 am (#)
I still hold out the belief that CY has 2 or so very good years left in him.
I am just not so sure that this year will be one of them.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:19 pm (#)
Zach-The starting rotation should definitely be improved this year compared to last. The loss of Peavy’s production won’t help, but the rotation is much deeper than last season.
Soundbounder-Lets hope this year is one of those 2 very good years he has left. The team holds an $8.5MM option on Young for 2011, after which he becomes a free agent.
March 30th, 2010 at 10:54 am (#)
Daniel,
Losing Peavy’s production will hurt. But not having the garbage innings thrown by Josh Geer, Walter Silva, Josh Banks, etc. will cancel out that loss.
March 30th, 2010 at 12:51 pm (#)
@Zach
We probably won’t see quite as many garbage innings this year, but it’s still possible that Richard/LeBlanc/Stauffer give us Gaudin-ian or Banks-ian production with more exposure.
The problem with losing Peavy isn’t that we’re missing out on his 2009 production, which was nothing to write home about. It’s that we don’t have many candidates to turn in a great 2010 campaign.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:37 pm (#)
Tom-Don’t forget Latos. The upper end of his production distribution is extremely solid. Its just that there is also a decent amount of downside with him.
March 30th, 2010 at 4:09 pm (#)
Apologies if this ends up being a duplicate post, our web access went down just as I submitted the original.
@Daniel
I’m not forgetting Latos, just being realistic about how much value he’s going to contribute this year. He’s young, he may start the year in Portland, and even if he breaks camp with the big club, his innings will be limited, if not by injury (which he has a history of), then by management fiat. As a reference, Jake Peavy posted a 96 ERA+ in his first full major league season.
It’s a similar situation to Young. He’s shown he can dominate when healthy, but he hasn’t been healthy since 2007, and even then he didn’t throw 175 innings. If we’re looking at probabilities, neither pitcher is likely to give us the 215 inning, 130 ERA+ (which I use for convenience’s sake) effort that would qualify as a great campaign.
Latos is far more likely to be a great major league pitcher next year than he is in 2010.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:43 pm (#)
I agree Tom (as evidenced by my Latos projection). I’m just pointing out that the potential for a “great 2010 campaign” is there even if it is not the most likely outcome.
March 30th, 2010 at 7:05 pm (#)
Daniel,
What do you think Richard’s issue is with the walks? He seems to have a much harder time finding the plate in the major leagues than he did in the minors. If he could find that control again, he’d be a much better pitcher, don’t you think?
March 31st, 2010 at 10:27 am (#)
Zach-I’m not really sure why Richard has been walking more guys at the major league level than he did in the minors. Perhaps he is concerned major league hitters will hit anything he leaves over the plate, so he is trying to be more careful. I do agree that in order to have long lasting major league success, Richard needs to have a fairly low walk rate.