Bullpen or Starting Rotation

Everybody seems pretty concerned about the overwhelming amount of pitching we have available and additionally the depth we have at certain positions around the field where a trade wouldn't hurt the team that much now, but give it stability in the future.  Today I'm going to flip through the potential starting pitchers and really try to figure out who deserves to be where.  Before I do that though, I have a few things to say about what makes a good pitcher.

When you talk to the most average of fans, they measure a pitcher by ERA and wins.  I consider myself an average fan, nothing special, but I believe that I have an above average knowledge of the game.  I never had phenomenal talent, but I always did the fundamentals well, and never made the mental error.  When push came to shove, my coaches used to always dub me the most intelligent player on the team because I knew what it took, even though I may not have had the physical capacity to get there.  I don't think I've lost site of that since, and as I work my way through articles and watch more and more seasons, I've realized that wins mean nothing.  They're more of a team aspect.  Just look at Dice-K from the Red Sox and you'll know what I mean.  And ERA can sometimes be misleading (big innings, bad outings and circumstances).  When I look for a good pitcher, I look at three stats, WHIP, SO/Walk Ratio and Strike/Ball Ratio.  WHIP, for those who aren't in the know is Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched.  I'll refer to the SO/Walk ratio as SOW from here on out and the latter to SBR.

Think about it, a pitcher with a low WHIP, lets fewer baserunners on and finds himself pitching with more room for error, where a person with a higher WHIP, constantly has runners on and is a mistake away from finding himself in the bullpen.  Cue Claudio Vargas' theme music.  The SOW stat is pretty self-explanatory while SBR needs just a brief statement.  If you pitch strikes and have good location, you are more likely to be ahead in the count.  It's a well known, and apparent fact that normal batters have a lower Avg if they are behind in the count and are forced to protect.

Let's get on to the career numbers:  WHIP/SOW/SBR (could only be found as % Strikes at Baseball-Reference.com)

Ben Sheets                 1.21/3.94/63%

Yovani Gallardo       1.27/2.73/64%

Carlos Villanueva     1.24/2.16/63%

Jeff Suppan               1.43/1.71/62%

Chris Capuano          1.36/2.43/63%

Dave Bush                 1.26/3.28/63%

Claudio Vargas         1.46/1.86/62%

I am truly surprised right now.  I really thought that there would be more of a significant difference here.  I expected Suppan's numbers to be this high because he's a groundball pitcher and gets away with more guys on base.  While his SOW is pretty low, you can expect that to be because he doesn't strikeout a lot of guys.  Vargas' numbers are pretty clear.  He's not good and he's a big risk.  His WHIP last year was 1.541.  No wonder he never made it past the 6th.  Obviously Yo's, Los' and Sheets' numbers are pretty darn good.  

The surprise for me is Dave Bush.  I still can't believe his numbers are better than Capuano's.  Their 2007 numbers are almost identical, but Bush pitched significantly more innings and had a higher strike %.  Maybe I just got down on him for his 7th innings so much I was blinded.  Some of Cappy's numbers can be adjusted though for his ability to keep runners at bay.  Additionally, he's a lefty and therefore has to play the matchup game more often.  In the end, I think they're identical, but someone is going to get the axe.  I think we need to keep the lefty in the rotation.  Right now, he'd be the only one.  It's tough, but these numbers may give Bush a better trade value than Capuano.  I don't see how they're that much different except Capuano has All-Star on his jersey for one year.  A move will be made in the spring once the injury bug hits other team's starting rotations.  None of these guys can be out-righted and lost without some sort of compensation.  We need more depth in the lower levels of our minor-league system and here are the chips we have in play.

Don't forget to check out the Winter Warm-Up posted on milwaukeebrewers.com.  Salomon Torres was really the only guy who I was impressed with because all the other guys were just saying their usual cliche statements, but that's the whole point of that thing anyways.  And I'm sad to say that the new woman broadcaster could be the best one FSN Wisconsin has ever put on a Brewers telecast.  Brian Anderson is still too golfy and Schroeder just gets on my nerves.

Four more weeks and here we come...