Diamond Mind 2008: Pitchers

My pitching has been pretty terrible in my first two seasons. I think my team was letting up like five runs a game. Some of this was due to my park (I played in the 2005 version of the Skydome, which was a rocket launching pad) and some of it was because the pitchers I had were just not that good. I was also trying to “develop” a few pitchers for later. By “develop,” I mean:

Let’s say I am about to play the 2006 season. I know that Shaun Marcum had a lousy 2006, but had a promising 2007. In order to ensure that Marcum is on my team for 2007, I need to play him at a 33% clip for the 2006 season. He needs to face 33% of the batters he faced in the real-life 2006 (keeping in mind we only play 82 games).

This results in me throwing out a hilariously bad pitcher for many innings. But the benefit is that I can, thereafter, enjoy his really good seasons. Of course, he just recently had Tommy John surgery in real life, meaning he will be useless to me when we play the 2009 season. So I am having second thoughts about snapping up pitchers in the hopes that they develop.

Here’s what my rotation and bullpen look like for 2008:

 Scott Kazmir, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays. 12-8, 152 IP, 3.49 ERA, 125 ERA+, 1.267 WHIP

Absolutely dominated left-handed bats. Actually, in terms of just batting average, he was great – righties hit .227 off him, and lefties hit .198. He let up more home runs in 2008 than he did the year before, and that’s with pitching 44 less innings. He missed a bunch of time at the beginning of the year, but with how my rotation went, I am just glad he’s not having a combo Tommy John surgery / torn labrum stay in Alabama. Kazmir was inexplicably terrible for me when we played the 2006 Diamond Mind baseball season, and I never really figured out why. I was skipping his starts at one point. Infuriating.
 

Shaun Marcum, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays, 9-7, 151 IP, 3.39 ERA, 127 ERA+, 1.163 WHIP

I don’t have a lot of insightful things to say – he looked dominating for most of the year. He was sent down to Syracuse when he started getting rocked, and the story has it that the Chiefs pitching coach figured out a problem with his mechanics in a single pitch. He came back up, was dominant again… and then had to shut it down for TJ surgery. He’ll miss the entire 2009 season. I get the trifecta here: he’s gonna be gone from my favorite real-life team (Toronto), he was going to be a keeper on my fantasy baseball team, and he was supposed to anchor my rotation for my DMB team. Also, he was going to help me move a few arcade cabinets downstairs next month, and I guess that’s cancelled, too. (/shakes fist)

 

Felix Hernandez, RHP, Seattle Mariners, 9-11, 200 IP, 3.45 ERA, 121 ERA+, 1.385 WHIP

He walked more batters per inning in 2008, and he also drilled 8 guys, which will be fun to see during the season. “Fun,” as in, at least he can’t hit my own batters.  Left-handed batters hit .275 off him, which won’t be fun, so I should probably make some kind of effort at picking up some in DMB, instead of having them dispersed through the other 7 teams. I have to assume he’ll stick with the Mariners as they rebuild, but he does seem to be the kind of guy whose concentration and ability to not balloon up you worry about. He’s kind of chubby, in that pick, isn’t he?

 

Gil Meche, RHP, Kansas City Royals, 14-11, 210 IP, 3.98 ERA, 114 ERA+, 1.317 WHIP

I have received an EARFUL all season long about Mr. Meche, since I subscribe to Rany Jazayerli’s blog about the Royals. I don’t even like the Royals, but I read that blog because the writing is very insightful. I’ll happily throw Gil out there every five days because it takes a special brand of person to sign a $55 million contract, understand the world is giving you shit about it, take 55 as your uniform number, and then go out and earn the money.

 

Josh Beckett, RHP, Boston Red Sox, 12-10, 174 IP, 4.03, 114 ERA+, 1.187 WHIP

I was just going off ERA here, really, in terms of the makeup of my lineup, but Beckett had a better season than Meche, I believe. He’s also my hammer when I play the 2007 season in a bit. I know that Beckett had some trouble with his oblique muscle(s) this year, and it is amazing to me how hitters will jump on a guy with the slightest amount of weakness. When Roy Halladay had his appendix removed, we could tell there was something wrong as fans – we were RELIEVED that it was just that. Beckett is the sort of guy that’s safe to draft in our AL-only league: he’s not leaving Boston unless he sucks, and if he sucks maybe I didn’t want to play him anyway.

 

Justin Speier, RHP, Anaheim Angels,  2-10, 68 IP, 5.03, 87 ERA+, 1.412

I’ll kill myself before keeping Speier on my 2008 team. He’d need to put up Cliff Lee num… no, fuck that, he’d need to put up Sandy Koufax numbers in 2009 for me to play him at a 33% clip for 2008. He’s gonna be a solid, solid player in 2007, though – what happened to this guy? Did he just get old?

 

Dustin McGowan, Toronto Blue Jays, 6-7, 111 IP, 4.37 ERA, 99 ERA+, 1.374

Well, after my horrendous trade (may I mention that I am never trading away draft picks again?) I absolutely have to keep him and hope that he makes a full recovery in 2009. What he did to right-handed pitchers in 2007 showed a complete lack of respect for hitters, and frankly, I’d say that the MLBPA should have gotten involved and asked him to take it easy, but fuck me, he’s like the 80th injured Blue Jays pitcher that I have.

 

Casey Janssen, Toronto Blue Jays, Did Not Play in 2008

Janssen had surgery to repair a torn labrum in 2008. He was nails in 2007 – I’ll be carrying him over in the hopes that he becomes a “free,” quality starting pitcher in 2009.

 

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that when it comes to the bullpen in 2008… I could use some help.