The Reds have pitched the 2013 season with 20 different arms (compared to just 17 last year.) Eight different pitchers have made at least one start this year while another 12 were used exclusively in relief appearances.
The table below summarizes the season’s statistics (through 8/17) for these 20 pitchers, ranked by WAR. Some items worth noting:
— After having five different starters make all but one start last year, the Reds still had 4 different pitchers make at least 30 starts this season.
— Looking at all MLB pitchers, Mat Latos and Homer Bailey rank 9th and 17th, respectively, in fWAR.
— The pitching staff is still very young.
— If you extrapolate LeCure’s and Hoover’s WAR out to the number of innings the starters threw, they’d have a WAR slightly better than Mike Leake.
— Adjusted for innings pitched, Aroldis Chapman has the best WAR on the team.
— Manny Parra has struck out more than 11 batters per nine innings, the highest rate of his career.
I think it is pretty clear that the pitchers on the playoff roster come from the top 12 on this list. As Steve posed yesterday, if the Reds go with 11 pitchers (in the NLDS/NLCS/WS rounds) there is a tough decision to be made about who is left off the roster.
| # | Name (Age) | G/GS | IP | ERA | FIP’ | WHIP | BABIP | HR/9 | BB/9 | K/9 | WAR’ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mat Latos (25) | 30/30 | 197.2 | 3.14 | 3.24 | 1.21 | .301 | 0.5 | 2.5 | 8.2 | 4.2 |
| 2 | Homer Bailey (27) | 30/30 | 198.1 | 3.40 | 3.16 | 1.11 | .291 | 0.8 | 2.1 | 8.8 | 3.9 |
| 3 | Mike Leake (25) | 30/30 | 190.2 | 3.21 | 3.97 | 1.22 | .277 | 0.9 | 2.3 | 5.7 | 2.7 |
| 4 | Bronson Arroyo (36) | 30/30 | 192.1 | 3.56 | 3.99 | 1.13 | .270 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 5.6 | 2.5 |
| 5 | Tony Cingrani (23) | 23/18 | 104.2 | 2.92 | 3.65 | 1.10 | .241 | 1.2 | 3.7 | 10.3 | 1.9 |
| 6 | Aroldis Chapman (25) | 64 | 59.2 | 2.56 | 2.28 | 1.04 | .287 | 1.1 | 3.9 | 15.8 | 1.7 |
| 7 | Johnny Cueto (27) | 10/10 | 53.2 | 3.02 | 3.41 | 1.08 | .252 | 1.0 | 2.5 | 7.7 | 1.0 |
| 8 | Sam LeCure (29) | 59 | 57 | 2.84 | 3.18 | 1.21 | .290 | 0.6 | 3.6 | 9.8 | 1.0 |
| 9 | J.J. Hoover (25) | 63 | 61 | 2.95 | 3.70 | 1.12 | .245 | 0.9 | 3.5 | 9.3 | 0.9 |
| 10 | Manny Parra (30) | 51 | 41.2 | 3.46 | 3.02 | 1.25 | .317 | 1.1 | 3.2 | 11.4 | 0.5 |
| 11 | Alfredo Simon (32) | 58 | 78 | 3.23 | 4.05 | 1.08 | .243 | 0.9 | 2.4 | 6.8 | 0.4 |
| 12 | Sean Marshall (30) | 12 | 8 | 2.25 | 1.98 | 0.75 | .211 | 0.0 | 2.3 | 10.1 | 0.2 |
| 13 | Nick Christiani (25) | 2 | 3 | 0.00 | 6.53 | 0.67 | .000 | 0.0 | 6.0 | 3.0 | 0.1 |
| 14 | Zach Duke (30) | 9 | 5.2 | 1.59 | 3.39 | 0.71 | .188 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 6.4 | 0.1 |
| 15 | Justin Freeman (26) | 1 | 1 | 18.00 | 11.61 | 2.00 | .250 | 9.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | -0.1 |
| 16 | Logan Ondrusek (28) | 46 | 48 | 4.13 | 4.07 | 1.31 | .284 | 1.3 | 3.0 | 7.7 | -0.1 |
| 17 | Greg Reynolds (27) | 4/3 | 20.2 | 5.66 | 4.88 | 1.4 | .307 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 3.5 | -0.2 |
| 18 | Jonathan Broxton (29) | 34 | 30.2 | 4.11 | 4.60 | 1.27 | .261 | 1.2 | 3.5 | 7.3 | -0.4 |
| 19 | Pedro Villarreal (25) | 2/1 | 5.2 | 12.71 | 9.27 | 2.82 | .429 | 6.4 | 4.8 | 6.4 | -0.4 |
| 20 | Curtis Partch (26) | 13 | 21.1 | 6.75 | 7.83 | 1.55 | .161 | 3.4 | 6.8 | 6.3 | -0.7 |
All statistics above are from either Baseball-reference.com or Fangraphs.com.
FIP’ is an average of FIP and xFIP.
WAR’ is an average of fWAR (Fangraphs) and rWAR (Baseball-Refence). The two websites calculate this statistic slightly differently, so I’ve used the average.
Go to Fangraphs.com glossary for an excellent, brief primer on WAR. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an attempt by the sabermetric baseball community to summarize a player’s total contributions to their team in one statistic. You should always use more than one metric at a time when evaluating players, but WAR is pretty darn all-inclusive and provides a handy reference point. WAR basically looks at a player and asks the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a minor leaguer or someone from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?†This value is expressed in a wins format, so we could say that Player X is worth +6.3 wins to their team while Player Y is only worth +3.5 wins.