AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > February > 09
Friday, February 9, 2007
What about the starting rotation?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The late, great Harry Caray once said, “It’s the fans who need spring training. You gotta get ‘em interested. Wake ‘em up. Let ‘em know that their season is coming, the good times are gonna roll.”
God bless Skip’s dad. Now are we just about ready to get this thing rollin’?
Here’s a Friday night blog, a few thoughts on the starting rotation for home nine, just some junk pulled from the margins of my brain or notepad while attempting to clean them out on this last work-free weekend for a long time, before we break out the sunblock and head to Florida.
We’ve all made a big deal about the bullpen overhaul, and me, John Schuerholz and everyone else has laid the blame for last year’s season at the feet of a ragtag and injury-depleted relief corps.
But let’s not forget how bad the ragtag and injury-depleted starting rotation was, too, at least a whole. I mean, the bullpen didn’t lose all those games on their own. They got plenty of help most nights from the starters other than John Smoltz and Chuck James.
And with the notable exception of Mike Hampton, who’s coming back from elbow and knee surgeries and after 18 months away from competition, the Braves didn’t make any additions to the rotation, and subtracted two starters (Horacio Ramirez, John Thomson).
In other words, cautious optimism might be as far as we should go with this unit, for now.
But anyway, a quick recap on just how bad last year’s rotation was, at least by Braves standards.
The starters were a combined 54-60 with a 4.71 ERA that ranked ninth in the NL. It was the first time that Braves starters posted a losing record since 1990, when the starters finished 48-69 and half of their wins were by two kids named Smoltz (14-11) and Glavine (10-12).
Every season from 1991 through 2005, Braves starters finished with a cumulative record of at least 13 games over .500. They were 20 or more games over .500 in 12 of those 15 seasons, 30 or more games over three times, and an astonishing 90-40 in 1998.
Let’s repeat that: Braves starters were 90-40 in 1998, when they led the NL in innings (1,074-2/3), strikeouts (888), fewest homers (84), had the second-fewest walks (2.93), and an ERA (3.06) more than half-run lower than the next-best.
That rotation included Glavine (20-6, 2.47 ERA), Greg Maddux (18-9, 2.22), Smoltz (17-3, 2.90 in 26 starts), Kevin Millwood (17-8, 4.14) and Denny Neagle (15-11, 3.59).
We’re not likely to see a similar rotation again, not with the price of free-agent pitchers. The Braves, with their self-imposed payroll restrictions, realized it’s easier to build a formidable bullpen, which is what they’ve done by re-signing Bob Wickman and trading for Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez.
Schuerholz said this is the best bullpen the Braves have had since he arrived in October 1990. It’s certainly the most talented in terms of the back end, though the bullpen as a whole may be hard-pressed to match the 2002 Braves’ league-leading 2.60 bullpen ERA, 30-14 record and 57 saves in 71 opportunities.
Anyway, back to starters. The Braves only had two starters pitch 110 innings last season, Smoltz (232) and Tim Hudson (218-1/3), with Chuck James totaling 107-2/3 in 18 starts after joining the rotation in late June.
It was the first full season since 1990 the Braves didn’t have at least three starters pitch 185 or more innings, and in every full season from 1991 to 2001 they had at least three pitch 208 or more innings. Five times in that stretch, they had three pitchers work at least 225 innings apiece, and three times the Braves had four pitchers work 210 or more innings.
In 1997, the Braves got more than 230 innings out of four different pitchers: Smoltz (256), Glavine (240), Neagle (233-1/3) and Maddux (232-2/3).
Don’t need much more in your bullpen than a closer and a situational lefty when you’ve got four horses like that in your rotation.
But as we said, those days are no longer. And probably never will be again, for the Braves or anyone else.
This season, the Braves would just like to be able to get steady work out of four or five starters, so they don’t have to scramble to piece together the rotation like they did all of 2006 because of injuries to John Thomson and Horacio Ramirez and poor performance by Jorge Sosa.
All of those guys are gone now, and it’ll be up to 40-year-old Smoltz, Hudson, 34-year-old comeback lefty Hampton and at least one and probably two guys who haven’t had a full season in the majors: James and Kyle Davies.
Good thing that bullpen looks loaded….
Speaking of Hudson…. Lest we forget how good Huddy was for six seasons with Oakland, and what he and the Braves hope he’ll finally be again on a consistent basis in his third season with the Braves, I’ll refer to a comment that Baltimore first baseman Kevin Millar made to ESPN’s Buster Olney last week.
Buster asked him who threw the best game Millar, formerly of the Marlins and Red Sox, had ever seen pitched against a team he played for?
Millar: “Hands down, Tim Hudson in 2003. He threw a nine-inning complete game against us. We were leading the league in just about every offensive category, and hot as a firecracker as a club, and I think he threw a two-hitter in mid-August, and both hits where infield hits, one by Nomar, and I can’t recall the other. I don’t think we got a ball out of the infield. He had command of every pitch that day — fastball, slider, and splitter, and didn’t get a pitch above the knees, it seemed.”
As for Hudson, I was talking to him the other day and he was saying how excited he was about this bullpen, particularly the addition of Soriano. While most Braves fans haven’t seen much of the former Mariners right-hander, Hudson remembers him well from a 2002 matchup with him.
“I already know what kind of stuff that kid Soriano has, because he almost no-hit us when he was a starter,” Hudson said. “He was filthy. I think he beat me. I pitched a good game but had to suck on a loss.”
For the record, that was June 4, 2002, at Oakland. It was Soriano’s fifth major league game and third start, and he limited the A’s to two runs on two hits (both homers) in seven innings. He got no decision in the Mariners win.
That was, and is, the best start of Soriano’s career. He went 0-2 with a 6.29 ERA in his next five starts, then moved to the bullpen, where he’s been since.
It was a wise move, judging from results: In 108 career relief appearances, Soriano has a 2.17 ERA and .196 opponents’ average, with 151 strikeouts and only 37 walks in 128-2/3 innings.
And now music, a Blue Rodeo song that really makes me think of my ex-wife. Damn.
“FALLING DOWN BLUE” by Jim Cuddy (Blue Rodeo)
Everyone tells me I’m lucky/Got my whole life to live yet
I can’t say they’re wrong/But the days seem so long/Living inside of my head
Maybe I’ll get some relief now/Now that your things are all gone
I won’t sit here staring/At nothing all night/Bleary-eyed greeting the dawn
(chorus)
All right I miss you tonight/And I’m not really sure what to say
It keeps rolling in like a slow moving train/It gets harder and harder each day
Each time I think that the worst of it’s through/I am stopped in my tracks by some vision of you
All right I miss you tonight/I admit that I’m falling down blue
She lived outside of the city/On days when I’d visit her there
I’d watch her out dancing/All lit by the moon/The cold winds of time in her hair
Then we’d go driving for hours/Turn off the lights and just glide
Moving like spirits/Along through the night/The light through the trees as our guide
(chorus)
All right I miss you tonight/And I’m not really sure what to say
It keeps rolling in like a slow moving train/It gets harder and harder each day
Each time I think that the worst of it’s through/I am stopped in my tracks by some vision of you
All right I miss you tonight/I admit that I’m falling down blue
