The Secret to Starting Pitching

That title ought to get a few of you to look at this.

I hate starting pitchers. Over the years starting pitchers have cost us more money in this league than anything. They are completely unpredictable, and one bad outing can just kill you (the Jim Bullinger rule). And throwing extra money at starting pitching is no guarantee that they still won’t kill you and leave you with less money to buy hitting.

The riskiest spot in our auction plan was the Lowry/Willis #4 pitcher slot, which we budgeted at $14. Here is a list of the starting pitchers we valued at PECK values from 4-15 with INF values from 10-21 ranked in PECK order. The numbers after the pitchers’ names are Auction Price/PECK/INF.

Maddux 16/15/20 Rips
Webb 14/14/21 Pecklers
Penny 15/13/17 Bums (on DL)
Thomson 15/13/16 Pounders
Smoltz 20/12/16 Cappers (after opening day pounding)
Hernandez 9/12/16 Lickers
Lawrence 13/11/15 Hobo
Pettitte 16/10/15 Cappers
Willis 14/10/14 Any 9
Lieber 14/9/15 Falkuhns
Lowe 13/9/14 Rips
Lowry 11/9/14 Pecklers
Marquis 13/9/14 Lickers
Morris 10/9/13 Lickers (was on DL)
Vazquez 10/9/11 Falkuhns (bombed 1st outing)
Wolf 14/8/14 Busch Leaguers
Williams 7/8/10 Any 9
Davis 12/7/12 Lickers
Hampton 3/6/11 Pecklers
Ortiz, Russ 6/6/11 Cappers
Eaton 14/6/11 Cartel
Milton 10/4/10 Cartel

So far all of these pitchers except Penny and Morris have had 3 or 4 starts. It’s early, but it’s still interesting to look at their results to date. Below they are grouped into categories based on early performance:

HOT – Webb, Willis, Lieber, Lowe, Marquis, Hampton
So far, So good – Pettitte, Ortiz, Eaton, Morris (based on 1 outing)
Fair – Maddux, Smoltz (OK since opening day), Lowry (bad Col. outing)
Disappointing – Thomson, Davis, Milton
Ouch – Hernandez, Lawrence, Vazquez, Wolf, Williams
DL – Penny

The owners of teams in the first division with pitchers in the hot group are the Pecklers (2) and Any 9. The other 3 are owned by the Falkuhns, Rips and Lickers. The so far, so good group are owned by the Cappers (2), Cartel and the Lickers.

The Ouch group are owned by Hobo and Any 9 in the 1st division, the Lickers, Busch Leaguers and the Falkuhns.

It appears there is virtually no correlation between success or failure at picking these middle starting pitchers and success in the standings, at least at this point in the season.

So what have I learned from this exercise? Not a damned thing. Reminds me of a small book I saw in a book store with the title "What Men Know About Women". The book had about 100 blank pages.