NL West Pitching Staffs

by Richard Wade on May 30, 2005 4:32 PM EDT

I believe I'm the newest addition to Beyond the Boxscore and I'm certain this is my first post here, so I thought I'd introduce myself. My name, as you can see above, is Richard Wade. I run a blog, Friar Faithful, and as you can no doubt see from the title, I am a San Diego Padres fan. Without further ado, here is my first post here: A SportsNation poll this past week asked several questions about the NL West. The two questions I found most interesting were numbers three and four, which asked which NL West contenders had the best rotation and bullpen. The Padres topped both lists and were followed in the same order both times by Los Angeles, Arizona and San Francisco. There were two things I took issue with. The first is that 30.8% of respondents believed a team other than San Diego had the best bullpen. The second is that only 7.2% of people gave the Diamondbacks the credit they deserve as having arguably the best rotation in the NL West. Here are the relevent data:

Padre Bullpen
Name	VORP
Rudy Seanez	9.7
Chris Hammond	8.9
Scott Linebrink	7.7
Trevor Hoffman	5.0
Akinori Otsuka	2.6
Dennys Reyes	0.7
Brian Falkenborg	-0.1
Darrell May	-0.7
SDN Bullpen	34.5
SDN Top 6	34.6

That's a combined VORP of 34.5 from the full San Diego Bullpen. The Giants are second in the division at 10.4. If you'd like the stats for all four contenders, you can find them here. As for the starting rotations, you can judge that for yourself, but it's much closer than the poll would seem to indicate.

Diamondback Rotation
Name	VORP
Javier Vazquez	15.7
Brandon Webb	14.5
Shawn Estes	11.9
Brad Halsey	4.4
Russ Ortiz	1.9
ARI Rotation	48.4
ARI Top 5	48.4

Diamondback Rotation
Name	VORP
Jake Peavy	28.4
Adam Eaton	9.4
Tim Stauffer	4.6
Brian Lawrence	3.9
Woody Williams	3.3
Tim Redding	-13.4
SDN Rotation	36.2
SDN Top 5	49.6

As you can see, the argument comes down to whether or not you want to look at everyone who has been primarily a starter for their respective team or if you only want to look at the top 5 guys in each rotation. For the other two contenders, click here. Now, I anticipate a number of you should take issue with how I've drawn my conclusions. Rather than answer those criticisms now, I've decided to wait until they are brought up. Any and all feedback will be appreciated.

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Comments

Welcome and a quickie

Welcome to BtB, fresh meat and blood, err, just welcome! People are impressed by numbers Richard. Jake Peavy is having a monster season, and he's all over places like SportsCenter and FSN.

Peavy 5 Wins 1 CG/SHO 2.00 ERA .88 WHIP 9.13 K/9 is just gross, and people know the numbers because of what I meantioned above. So they associate Peavy with the Padres rotation, and associate the Padres rotation with Peavy's excellent start.

Moreover, Peavy (and Adam Eaton for that matter) are a feel good story. They're fun to root for because they aren't the same old song and dance. People like Vazquez, Ortiz, and Brandon Webb are not popular names or likable personalities. When you think Dbacks rotation, you still think Schilling/Johnson, or at least I do. With them gone, most people assume it's an empty void, and when you're talking about the shoes of Johnson and Schill, I understand why they feel the way they do.

I like your conclusions, but I think I understand why the people on sportsnation voted the way they did. ESPN is very East Coast Bias (being in Bristol and all), and when we hear about the West, we hear about people like Peavy, not Brandon Webb.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Welcome to BtB, looking forward to working with you!

by Matthew Kizner @ Beyond the Box Score on May 30, 2005 6:02 PM EDT reply actions

Thanks...

I know the biases and you have no idea how much it pleases me to hear that Peav is the name guy in the NL West. That being said, the fifth starter role has been such a blackhole that it's difficult for me to say our rotation is better than Arizona's even if they lack an ace on par with Jake.

by Richard Wade on May 30, 2005 6:06 PM EDT up reply actions