Ken Macha's First Iffy Move
New manager Ken Macha didn’t make many baseball statheads too pleased when he decided to set the spring training rotation with Jeff Suppan to lead off the spring training schedule. Hopefully this is only a spring training move — Macha noted specifically that this is only the spring training schedule and not necessarily the one that will begin the season, but beat writer Tom Haudricourt thinks that this will be the rotation throughout the year.
Certainly pegging your worst pitcher as your #1 starter throughout the season seems totally counter-intuitive, but in all honesty, I don’t mind the move. Ultimately every starter will get the same amount of starts regardless of who is where in the order, and Macha (a known managerial stathead) is smart enough to realize this — this move is ultimately nothing more than an attempt to take some pressure off the younger guys who aren’t yet sure full-season studs yet; Yovani Gallardo was injured the majority of 2007 and is only projected for around 100 innings this year and Manny Parra flamed out at the end of last year after reaching (and surpassing) that phantom “innings increase limit” that is supposed to protect pitchers from having a higher injury risk. These guys are still a season or two away from the spotlight yet, and since they’re all going to get the same amount of starts anyways, taking some spotlight off of them can do nothing but benefit the young studs.
Right Field Bleachers wrote an incredibly interesting post about how the Brewers are making up for the void created by the departures of C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets by citing a much-improved bullpen and combining them with the projections of Yovani Gallardo and Braden Looper and coming up with the conclusion that the pitching staff is actually better off this year than it was last year with CC and Benny.
I like the logic train here, but I’m not yet sold. The post hasn’t taken into account the huge regression that Dave Bush is set to have — despite career-best statistics and clutch pitching down the stretch (and in the playoffs!) he still posted a 4.93 FIP and had a .245 BABIP (that was lowest in the majors among pitchers who have pitched a significant amount of innings), so it’s impossible to expect him to have another year as lucky as he had. He should regress a win — maybe two.
The link also counts on Gallardo to toss 180 innings next year, which is probably a little bit too much. Gallardo in 2007 threw nearly 200 innings, however, for the last few he was totally gassed and couldn’t pitch effectively. Compare that with him having to take 2008 off due to his injury, I don’t think he’ll have the endurance — nor will the Brewers want him to have the endurance — to pitch a huge amount of innings in 2009.
Projections outside of the ones that the Right Field Bleachers reference seem to be much more pessimistic, as CHONE and Marcel projections don’t have him topping 110 IP and seem to think he’ll reinjure himself. I’m not so sure he’ll go that low (barring an injury), but I think 180 innings might be a few too many to expect from a young stud coming off major knee surgery who the Brewers are — and should be — cautious with.
There is unrest in the forest.