SL 2003 Individual Pitching Results

I ran this chart the last couple seasons, but this year thought it would be a good companion piece for the Draft Notes. It again is meant to help us understand how we valued each pitcher in the SL 2003 draft, and their corresponding results.

Rd Pitcher    Rtngs  ERA    IP   HR  BB   H   BF  HR/BF BB/BF  H/BF
 1 PMartinez  17ZG   2.79  252.0 33  81 180 1000  .0330 .0810 .1800
 1 DLowe      16ZG   3.84  255.1 38 100 218 1074  .0354 .0931 .2030
 1 RJohnson   17     4.35  263.0 56 104 223 1100  .0509 .1040 .2027
 1 Halladay   14ZH   4.60  246.1 33  96 235 1068  .0309 .0899 .2200
 1 Hudson     14ZG   4.34  234.1 28  84 210  982  .0285 .0855 .2138
 2 Maddux     14ZG   4.41  210.0 28  87 208  921  .0304 .0945 .2258
 2 Oswalt     13ZG   4.15  208.1 32  54 199  876  .0365 .0616 .2272
 3 Millwood   13ZG   4.16  205.2 25  81 190  876  .0285 .0925 .2169
 3 Zito       15     5.41  199.2 39  87 204  888  .0439 .0980 .2298
 3 OPerez     13Z    4.85  200.1 39  66 200  847  .0460 .0779 .2361
 3 Schilling  12Z    5.46  196.0 38  38 241  861  .0441 .0441 .2799
 3 Padilla    12Z    4.10  215.1 33  72 192  895  .0369 .0804 .2145
 4 Pettitte   11ZH   3.45  198.1 22  54 177  826  .0266 .0654 .2143
 4 Washburn   14     4.60  203.2 29 100 185  885  .0328 .1130 .2090
 4 Colon      14     6.18  179.0 36  75 192  791  .0455 .0948 .2427
 5 Rueter     12Z    5.48  200.1 43  73 203  881  .0488 .0829 .2304
 5 Glavine    13     4.59  184.1 35  77 158  777  .0450 .0991 .2033
 5 Buerhle    12Z    4.69  242.0 42  97 228 1039  .0404 .0934 .2194
 6 Moyer      12Z    3.59  190.2 31  65 180  814  .0381 .0799 .2211
 6 Mulder     12Z    5.89  146.2 27  52 155  633  .0427 .0821 .2449
 7 Weaver     11ZG   4.86  174.0 31  60 188  764  .0406 .0785 .2461
 7 Ohka       12Z    4.59  174.2 23  52 162  735  .0313 .0707 .2204
 7 DWells     11Z    4.08  187.2 26  70 196  819  .0317 .0855 .2393
 9 Dessens    12ZL   7.50  117.2 31  51 134  530  .0585 .0962 .2528
10 Piniero    13     4.56  183.2 29  71 191  813  .0357 .0873 .2349
10 Morris     12 G   5.64  162.2 27  59 176  719  .0376 .0821 .2448
10 Burnett    12 G   5.30  122.1 17  60 136  559  .0304 .1073 .2433
11 Nomo       13     5.88  162.1 25  74 176  732  .0342 .1011 .2404
12 Wolf       12     3.80  177.2 14  66 168  750  .0187 .0880 .2240
13 Miller     12     4.80  137.0 27  69 134  608  .0444 .1135 .2204
14 OHernandez 10Z    5.48  151.0 28  49 152  643  .0435 .0762 .2364
15 RLopez     12     3.40  161.1 23  63 152  683  .0337 .0922 .2225
16 Mussina     9Z    5.24  153.0 24  44 194  682  .0352 .0645 .2845
16 RuOrtiz    11 G   4.77  117.0 17  57 118  517  .0329 .1103 .2282
18 Clement    11     4.27  139.0 19  58 136  601  .0316 .0965 .2263
19 Schmidt    11     4.45  129.1 18  45 139  570  .0316 .0789 .2439
22 Reed       10ZL   5.87  148.2 31  37 186  676  .0459 .0547 .2751
23 Trachsel   11     4.80  150.0 22  68 154  651  .0338 .1045 .2366
23 Rogers     10     4.78  122.1 22  46 128  533  .0412 .0863 .2402
23 Leiter     11     7.05  134.0 34  64 169  627  .0542 .1021 .2695
23 Byrd        9ZL   3.70  146.0 24  28 144  603  .0398 .0464 .2388
24 Wood       10     4.81  140.1 20  52 129  594  .0337 .0875 .2172
25 Lawrence    8ZG   4.33  131.0 21  43 139  582  .0361 .0739 .2388
25 Lidle       8Z    4.91  121.0 26  34 133  528  .0492 .0643 .2519
26 Reitsma     8Z    6.44  146.2 45  49 195  675  .0666 .0726 .2889

Some things stand out at me, like the success of Randy Wolf. Matt asked me after the season if a pitcher without a HR Allowance rating ever had the success he did in not allowing HR's. I told him Sele may have for Bob in SL 2002, but in truth, Sele didn't have near the same success in HR/BF. Wolf was incredible. In the opposite vein, Reitsma was incredibly bad, worse at HR/BF than the Ls or anyone else. Paul Byrd's success as an L was hard to fathom ... it's pretty telling to see some of the ERAs at the bottom of the list compared to the top of the list. From round 15 on, of the 14 pitchers taken, there were as many ERAs in the 3s as there were over 5.87 ... while if you exclude CY Pedro and look at the top 14 pitchers, you see only 1 ERA in the 6s (Colon) but the same 2 ERAs in the 3's (DLowe and Pettitte), with both groups having 2 ERAs in the 5s and the rest in the 4s. Makes you think taking staring pitchers early in the SL, if they were not sure-fire CY candidates, was a waste of a pick in 2003.

It fascinated me all year to see the differences in the lefty 12Zs, especially since I had spent early picks on Rueter and Mulder. Moyer and Buerhle were very similar, with Rueter and Mulder owning better moves to first. But Moyer and Buerhle had better, and in some cases significantly better, HR/BF and H/BF totals. My theory would be that the bullpens backing them up have something to do with the better numbers, but that doesn't seem to hold water when you think about Moyer and Buerhle and their 51.1 innings pitched difference ... that suggests to me that the factors could have something to do with their use, but blanketly saying Steve and Chris and their use of the bullpens in backing these guys up in tough situations may be overstating it.

As an aside, if you look at H/BF totals for the group of lefty non-Zs, it's kind of striking to note that 17 Randy Johnson (.2027) was good, but not significantly better than 13 Glavine (.2033) or 14 Washburn (.2090) or 12 Wolf (.2240), or even 15 Zito (.2298) and maybe even 10 Kenny Rogers (.2402). About the only lefty non-Z he was significantly better than was 11 Al Leiter (.2695). I would point out that Ken had one of the poorer pens, and that might be related to why, but then again, it's not like Randy Johnson was coming out for Trevor Hoffman, nor would he have come out if Ken had Gagne and Percival.

Dessens, Burnett, and Russ Ortiz, each with uniquely different results and for different reasons, had a value that their GM wanted, and as such were taken a little early, in my opinion (as I would point out to Steve in trade talks, Traschel was taken 7 rounds after Ortiz, but was essentially the same pitcher ... Burnett was taken early in my opinion, but not so early that he was the first righty 12 G to go, as he followed Matt Morris). What their results show, though, is that, compared to the pitchers taken around them, they each pitched to very few batters. I'm not lambasting Greg or Steve, I just find it interesting how much their managers saw things differently from their GMs. I don't know, maybe some of the low BF is related to injury or late season FA moves (I know it was for Mark Mulder, who pitched to significantly less batters than all of the pitchers on the top of this list).