Cliff Lee's surprising decision to sign a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Phillies exploded on the baseball scene with a mushroom cloud full of fallout extending to virtually every team in baseball. The initial reaction from just about everybody who is not a Giants fan or Giants beat writer to declare the Phillies' to have the best pitching rotation in the history of baseball and immediately award them the 2011 World Series Championship. No need to play the games, just add up the WAR's and give out the trophy. Any other outcome is just luck anyway! I mean fangraphs.com has no less than 4 articles all written by Dave Cameron, the guy who declared that first, Roy Halladay and second, Cliff Lee to be unbeatable in the playoffs, all pretty much saying the same thing in a different way. So what do we make of the baseball equivalent of the dawning of the nuclear age? Let's take a look at the fallout:
The Phillies now have themselves a very impressive pitching rotation, especially in the top 4 slots. Is it the best in baseball? I don't know about that. A website like fangraphs.com simply projects what each pitcher's WAR is going to be and, well, that settles that. Just remember, WAR is a complex, calculated state with almost innumerable variables and weightings. Fangraphs WAR may not necessarily be someone else's WAR. In fangraphs.com's WAR calculations, league and park factors are weighted heavily, too heavily IMO. Players, especially pitchers, are penalized for playing in the NL West, which is perceived to be the weakest division in baseball. Well, I'm not really sure that is true! Philadelphia pitchers automatically get a head start in WAR points for pitching in a bandbox. Well, that assumes the Giants pitchers wouldn't be able to duplicate their numbers if they were magically transplanted to Philadelphia and I'm not at all sure that is true either! Match up the Giants and Phillies in a 7 game series, and I still call it even money and wouldn't hesitate to bet on the Giants.
Remember how the Giants lefthanded pitchers dominated the Phillies lefty-leaning lineup in the NLCS? Well, this signing virtually guarantees an even more lefty leaning lineup as the Phils are out of money and looking to shed Joe Blanton's salary. Lefthanded hitting Domonic Brown is Jayson Werth's replacement in RF, come hell or high water.
The fallout goes way beyond the Phillies and Giants though. The obvious losers in all this are the two teams who thought they had at least a 50% chance of signing Lee, the Yankees and Rangers. The Yankees needed Cliff Lee and needed him badly. Andy Petitte is, once again threatening to retire and isn't the pitcher he once was anyway. The Red Sox have a very lefthanded heavy lineup and Yankee Stadium has a short RF porch. Lee was going to be the great equalizer. Well, THAT didn't work out! Texas is now left with a gaping hole in their rotation with no good way to fill it. They can try to sign Rafael Soriano to close and convert Neftali Feliz to starter or they can trade even more of their now depleted farm system for a starter. Problem is now that the Giants have shown the world just how valuable pitching is, teams are hoarding their pitching like crazy. Just ask the Phillies! And the Dodgers!
The Boston Red Sox, who have already had a pretty darn good offseason, just had an even better one. As I said before, keeping Cliff Lee out of a Yankee uniform takes away the evil empire's main chance of counteracting Boston's lefty heavy lineup. Meanwhile, the Yankee fans who spit on Cliff's wife must be thinking about moving to another country for their personal safety as it appears that may have been a real factor is Lee's now obvious distaste for signing with the Yankees.
The rest of the NL East can't be happy with this. Although the Phillies remain beatable in a 7 game series, they will win a ton of games in the regular season because their pitching will dominate a lot of teams who can't counter with pitching like the Giants. So, a titanic NLCS rematch becomes a very likely possibility.
Carl Pavano is now the best pitcher on the free agent market, making the Twins goal of re-signing him more difficult and likely much more expensive. Pavano is a good pitcher, but is also now the #1 candidate to end up with the most overvalued contract of the offseason.
Zack Grienke just got a lot more likely to be traded with the KC Royals a lot more likely to get a valuable package in return. Other teams with pitching to trade may well find the return more tempting. The Giants may be responsible for making pitching an overvalued commodity!
What do other fallout do you see from the Cliff Lee signing?
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DrB, before you posed that question, I was like others, thinking it had to do with Giants.
ReplyDeleteBut thinking further on it, I think this is more to do with staying ahead of Atlanta than beating the Giants, though obviously it would help should they met again in NLCS.
Braves have a very good rotation, young too, and the team led most of the way, and didn not really fade as much as the Phillies and Giants put on their afterburners late in the season. And the Phillies is actually a prety old team now,with only one starter - Hamels - Whois younger than 30. Their whole lineup is over 30 unless Domonic Brown can win the RF starting job. So while it is true that they would have won many more games without all those injuries, it is also true that with so many of their key players over 30, they might be starting to regularly have many of them on the DL for long stretches. Particularly Howard who does not have a body type that should last long in baseball.
So, 1) they needed Lee to make up for loss of Werth, 2) they needed Lee to keep up with Braves, 3) they needed to catch up with Giants, 4) it really helps a team get deeper in playoffs by having so many ace starters.
I think any comment that thinks the Phillies rotation is not the best rotation, and by a substantial margin, is just silly. And the very definition of homerism (which isn't necessarily wrong, just is what it is: non=objective thinking and analysis).
ReplyDeleteWho would you rather take for a season? Or two?
Halladay vs. Lincecum? You might argue the point, but again, most likely that would be based on fandom. For the next ten years, the answer is Lincecum, no question. But for the next one or two seasons, I am pretty sure if the question were a real one to 30 managers who had to keep their jobs, 30/30 would take Halladay.
Lee vs. Cain? See above.
Oswalt vs. Sanchez? See above.
Hamels vs. Bumgarner? See above.
The Giants argument comes down to youth and money. But youth and money won't matter in 2011 when talking about wins. And you can make the argument that in a seven game series, other factors are involved, and you would be right. But none of that has anything to do with the fact that the Phillies rotation is markedly superior to any other in baseball right now. Including the Giants. And acknowledging that fact does not make one a bad fan. To the contrary, denying it makes one less credible on the face.
OGC,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the Phillies, first and foremost, wanting to beat their division. What I was trying to say, and maybe not very well, is that it was the Giants who showed them the way, the Giants who showed that you can never have too much pitching and pitching trumps hitting. A secondary goal is to win the World Series and the Giants showed a blueprint for getting through the playoffs too.
Anon,
Maybe you could point out the sentence where I said the Giants have a better rotation than the Phillies, because I don't remember saying that. What I said is that in another 7 game series, I would have no problem betting on the Giants which you acknowledge is not the same thing.
Let's break it down though:
Tim Lincecum had an inconsistent year last year. In retrospect, it was probably related to conditioning more than anything and that has been addressed. Beyond that, he has 2 Cy Youngs and 3 consecutive years leading the league in K's. I see no reason to pick Roy Halladay over him and that's not a dis of Halladay.
Cain vs Lee? Go look up Lee's regular season record after his trade to Texas and compare that with Cain's record down the stretch. I also seem to remember something about 21+ innings of shutout baseball in the post-season. Sorry, but I'll take Matt Cain.
Oswalt vs Sanchez? Sanchez still occasionally gets the yips and he had a couple of stumbles in the post-season, but overall, his 2010 was every bit as good as Oswalt's and he's still on a pretty steep upward trajectory. Maybe a slight edge to Oswalt for experience, but I think it's very close and a case can be made for Sanchez.
Hamels vs Bumgarner: Again, Hamels is a good pitcher but Bumgarner got progressively stronger as the season went along. Go look up his record down the stretch. That performance against the Rangers in the WS didn't just come out of nowhere. Again, you might give a slight edge to Hamels for experience and a longer track record, but I don't think it's a lock that Hamels pitches better than MadBum next year.
I think reasonable people can disagree on whether the Phillies rotation is better than the Giants. I can see that the smack talk over this question is going to stretch on as far as the eye can see.
One more, Anon,
ReplyDeleteSo, you think 30/30 managers would take the Phillies' rotation over the Giants? Have you asked Bruce Bochy? Ron Washington? He's not a manager, but I bet Ned Colletti would take the Giants rotation too, but that's a whole other story! LOL!
Another thing we need to take into account because of age for the Giants is the vast room for improvement. If Jonathan Sanchez's track record is any indicator, he will probably slowly figure out control and be slightly better! I can't imagine Lincecum will post a 400ERA in any month this season and Bumgarner has a great deal of room for growth and improvement.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the Phillies staff is the best on paper, but they haven't played any games yet! Also, the Giants have Tejada and Ross for a full season and of course BUSTER.
It will be interesting how the season plays out and of course that's why they all have to play the games. If I had to make an assertion, it would be that the Giants have the confidence and now experience that tends to lend itself to the development of young players.
Sorry DrB, I did not mean to imply you with my statement, I was doing a blank general statement as that was what I was seeing out there.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that the Giants probably did influence the acquisition of Lee with how they did in the playoffs. The Phillies had probably already made the decision to pass on Werth and try to pick up Lee, given the size of their deals, as they knew they could only afford one but not both.
Like you, I still like the Giants rotation better, particularly 4-man in playoffs without Zito. BP's study of playoffs showed that team with pitching staff high K/9 tend to do better than other teams, and the Giants as a staff (i.e. including Zito) was still nearly 1 K/9 better than the Phillies. Without Zito, they are that much more ahead, probably.
Plus, as nicely as Lidge did in 2008, his history suggests that he loses it sometimes, oftentimes, whereas The Beard has been fearless and pretty consistent. So I think he tends to implode more often.
Even when he gives up a baserunner, people forget that as long as your WHIP is over 1.0, and vast majority are, that means the likelihood is that there will be a baserunner that inning. Unless the pitcher has a very low WHIP, if he gets a lot of 1-2-3's, that means he's having a lot of innings of multiple hits, to average out at 1+ WHIP. Wilson may give up the one runner per inning, but then he usually gets 3 outs before that runner scores.