Diamondbacks Bullpen

[whatuwant]

Hello Everybody, I am a new poster on DBBP. I posted this on that other MB, so for those who visit both, I apologize for the redundancy. I'd like to see what everybody here thinks of this


I believe that ERA only portrays certain capabilities of the pitcher. ERA really just says how well the defense and pitcher work together, its more of a TEAM stat. I like WHIP, K's, GB, and OBA (on base against), along with ERA, so i took these stats into consideration and looked at our projected starters.

Brandon Webb: NL Cy Young Award winner, if he can stay healthy, he'll win 20. Not much to say here, i think we can all agree that he is a superstar and will lead this team.

Randy Johnson: Was this a good idea? PR move? I wasn't all that excited at first, until I saw the press conference. He said his back was bothering him all year, and he only felt comfortable out of the windup. Bad back making it difficult to pitch out of the stretch? makes sense? look at these numbers when pitching out of the windup: OBA of .271 (insane), and a WHIP of 1.08. Only one starter had a better whip, Mr. Johan Santana. BA against of 206. Don't even mention against lefties, he was absolutely dominant. ERA doesnt count here because it only counts homeruns, you're trying to judge his ability to keep runners off the bases when out of the windup. But if you're interested its 1.00. So lets say that the back was keeping him from pitching from the stretch, and the surgery fixes this....we have an exciting Randy Johnson to look forward to. He still throws hard, listen to the press conference, if healthy he can have a great year.

Livan Hernandez: I think it is much better to judge Hernandez by what he did with Arizona. His June and July w/the Nationals were hideous. Try ERA's over 6 in both months despite the 4-3 record. However, after the all star break he was 7-5 with a 3.62 ERA. Livan's WHIP w/Arizona was 1.38, which is above average. Penny was equal to this, while Willis, Westbrook, Cliff Lee, and even the big free agents Meche and Zito were all worse. His OBA w/Arizona was .336, again, sort of above the curve, but not amazing. All in all though, he's just above Penny, and lands ahead of players like Willis, Zito, Meche, Westbrook, and 20 points better than former Dback Batista. All in all, with Arizona he was pretty good at keeping runners off base, which for a fly ball pitcher in Arizona he is going to need. His ability to strike out runners wasn't all that great with Arizona, on par with guys like Maddux, batista, and Contreras(who is supposed to be a K guy). His final ERA w/Arizona was 3.76, which tells a much different story than the rest of his year. So when you look at Hernandez like that, he looks like a solid third starter on par with divisional third starters like Penny.

Doug Davis: He's pitched over 200 innings each of the last three years, but has also experienced a decline in 06. The difference in 04 and 05 of ERA is negated by the fact that all his other stats are almost identical. However there is a jump in everything from 04-05 to 06. From 1.3 Whip to 1.5, and an almost 40 point jump in OBA. Whats the perpitrator? It seems to be an increase in BB. He averaged 4.5 walks per game, as opposed to previously allowing 3.7. Also a dip in K/9 inings, although he still K'd over 7/9. Despite the decline, his numbers all ended up being a few notches better than former Dback pitcher Batista. (Davis 1.5, .352, 1.56 K/BB) (Batista 1.53, .357, 1.31 K/BB) Batista's double plays had a huge responsibility for his year. But Davis has a similar GB/FB ratio, and will have the same DP duo. Furthermore, Davis has a MUCH lower SLUG against, 30 points lower. Davis has a great SLUG against, apparently when he does give up hits, they are usually singles. Hopefully with the improved defense he is coming to, some of those singles will be outs; and those that land will be wiped out by his GBs. So if Davis manages to cut down the walks and come back to 04-05 form, we got a good pitcher. At worst, we swapped Batista for a younger left handed version of the same pitcher.

Nippert/Cruz/Owings/Gonzalez/Gonzalez: LOL...difficult to say who is going to win this. Nippert and Cruz have 95 mph fastballs, but struggle with control. En. Gonzalez has a hard sinker, but struggled to get out of the first inning. Ed. Gonzalez had a good last few outings at the end of the year, but until then hadn't shown us much. I think Micah Owings is the best of these, but may be too green. I've only seen him once, in the MiLB championship, and he looked really good. Lots of movement.

I'd like to hear everyone else's input on the fifth starter and my take on the rest of the staff. I realize all this is optimistic, i tried to be objective, but when you love the team its difficult. cynics never prosper.
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"He that speaks much, is much mistaken. " BF

[Projekt]

Glad you made the trip over here. I think you will fit in much better on this board than on the other one...

We are actually prepared to discuss baseball over here.



We seem to be in agreement with everything except you seem higher on Livan than I am, and I am higher on Davis than you are. I think Hernadez will be better than he was in Washington, but worse than he was here last year. Somewhere in the middle... Davis, however, will not fear pitching to contact this year, and subsequently will have a better season, and walk less batters...

[whatuwant]

You're right about Davis. AZ's defense is going to be better than in MIL, considering we have the best defensive 2b, a rangey SS, and amazing OF defense.

Webb benefited from an improvement in defense a few years ago and cut his walks in half, so i probably was too harsh on Davis.

I think Hernandez's 06 was an abberation. It was his worst year in four years. I think the move to AZ motivated him a bit, thus the better numbers; i still feel like he'll be consistent and put up similar numbers, but only time can tell.

What does anybody think about the fifth starter?
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"He that speaks much, is much mistaken. " BF

[stu]

That is a good summary. The only thing I take issue with is that I think Batista is a gb pitcher while Davis is closer to neutral. Davis' gb/fb for the last 3 years (from ESPN different sources count these differently) were 1.29; 1.16; 1.42. Batista's were 1.88; 1.27; 1.79. One year here Bastista was over 2. Batista had almost 100 more gb's than Davis last year (part of that was because Davis had fewer BIP's, but the difference I think is real).

[Dangerfield]

good summary, Livian shows up to spring training, in shape, it will say a lot about his season. This team is loaded. too bad we can't play the MFYs.
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[shoewizard]

[Dangerfield]

Whoa, we're going from the PHils, to Mets, to the g-men, to the red sox, to the MFys.
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[diamondbacker]

As I said on the MLB board (as webbmastr), good work whatuwant.
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[whatuwant]

[whatuwant]