In North America, cowhide is used to cover baseballs. In Asia, it's horsehide. There is a difference in its tackiness.

http://tinyurl.com/2aaul4

(Just saying)

Upside, fantasy-like: if the "big three" pitch slightly above their projections, Schmidt does something miraculous, and Kuroda is league-average, we could be looking at 90+ wins regardless of how many games JP and Garciapara take to play themselves out of their jobs...

Assuming the big 3 stay healthy and and continue to produce at last years levels, the back end of our rotation will likely determine if we make the post season. I wouldn't call 96 ERA+ a success for the money being paid, but it would be a significant upgrade over what we had pitching #4 last year.

I have a question. You note:

None of the eight hurlers who started a game for the Dodgers outside their "Big Three" had an ERA+ of 100 or better. Only the Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins can share this dubious claim. Think about that for a moment. Nearly every team in the NL got league average innings out of at least one starter outside their top three.

But we also see that taken as a whole, the third starter has an ERA+ of 98 and the fourth starter and ERA+ of 96. Do the Dodgers (as far as the 4th starter is concerned), Pirates and Marlins drag these averages down below 100, even though all the other teams are at 100 or greater?

Nate, what kind of conclusions or projections can we draw from the 2.25:1 GB:FB ratio? Does that number mean that we shouldn't expect Derek Lowesque numbers, but some success wouldn't be surprising?

Nate (or anyone),
I know it would be a small sample size, but do you have any information on whether GB rates stay steady when moving from Japan to the US, or, whether the GB rates in Japan are - on average - comparable across the league to the US?

Basically, the Dodgers had no ERA 100+ depth whatsoever from 4 down.

Seems to me we'd really need to know where linedrives fit in before we can really make accurate projections. Clearly, Ratio A would have very different implications than Ratio B, despite having the same GB:FB ratios.

Ratio A: 9 GBs, 1 FB, 10 LD

Ratio B: 9 GBs, 1 FB, 1 LD

19 If what Bob said about the Japanese leagues is true, I'd imagine it'd go down with less people trying for the fences and most players just trying to put the bat on the ball.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe the Rockies got 155 starts out of pitchers with an ERA+ of 97 or better.

16
Speaking of luck, look at the Dodgers "rest" versus the Padres. The Padres got even worse pitching than the Dodgers (72 ERA+ vs. the Dodgers' 80) yet the Padres' winning percentage in those games was .477 as compared to a nearly league worst .390 for LA.

I'm sure some of that was due to the Padres' superior bullpen and offense but I don't all of their advantage was due to those factors.

Seems unlikely, though.

The 8 point difference in ERA+ between the Dodgers and adjacent Padres is the largest gap between adjacent teams in the Big Three ERA+ standings.

However, our big three would have less weight than anyone elses because they threw less innings.

vr, Xei

And echoing an earlier comment, Japanese hitters hit more grounders because they are just trying not to strike out.

Wolf had 18 starts of 97 ERA+
Hendrickson had 15 starts of 88 ERA+
Tomko had 15 starts of 79 ERA+
Wells had 7 starts of 89 ERA+
Kuo had 6 starts of 62 ERA+
Schmidt had 6 starts of 72 ERA+
Loaiza had 5 starts of 55 ERA+
Stults had 5 starts of 79 ERA+

Kuo, Schmidt, Loaiza, and Stults all went 1-4 each.

Wells got lucky and went 4-1.

I had forgotten about Wolf. Kuroda will need to do make many more starts than Wolf's 18 to be much of an improvement. The rest will depend on starters #5-6+ being healthy enough to not go 1-4 or god forbid 2-11.

I tried to remove all subjectivity from this. We could go through and debate which starter occupied which slot, but in reality the innings pitched kind of determine that. Think of it as a way to show how teams allocated their staters' innings. Perhaps if Gallardo was called up sooner, the Brewers would have had a bigger division lead and would have made the playoffs. But they didn't, and that's instructive.

Are any Japanese teams looking for a centerfielder...?

5 innings or fewer: six times
6/6+ innings: 13 times
7/7+ innings: 13 times
8 innings: once

I know Penny averaged 6.30 IP per start.

Bravo!

Sincerely,

SB

Something I don't fully understand: among the "big 3", the Padres had more innings pitched and a lower ERA, but a lower ERA+ . Does this reflect park adjustments?

I researched this same question last year and I don't believe any carrier has direct flights from any LA airport to West Palm. Plenty directs from LAX to Orlando, though.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and thanks to Jon for the opportunity!

And nice work, Eric - this is most illuminating! Considering the Dodgers also have Schmidt (fingers crossed) and Loiaza (toes crossed) plus Kershaw-McDonald-Stults-Kuo, it's hard to imagine how the bottom of the rotation can't be markedly improved over the '07 model.

Carlos Silva, perhaps the top starting pitcher remaining on the free-agent market, does not figure to be available much longer.

The Mariners are in serious negotiations with Silva on a contract that would be worth at least $44 million over four years, according to major-league sources.

--

68 - wasn't this the general consensus going into '07 with Schmidt and Wolf added though?

Meaning, now matter how much we plan, we will probably need one or more of Kuo, McDonald, or Kershaw to start at some point this season.

They didn't have specifics on whether the hits were groundballs, flyballs or line drives.

I included sac bunts as ground outs and line outs as fly outs if that makes any difference.

What does this mean for Kuroda? If they can get more than 124 IP with an ERA+ of 96 or more out of their newest Japanese import, they will be above average in the National League, and I'd call his season a success.

You could have just used the Kuroda Accord!

Ahh, it was a good ride..

Ouch