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Rocket to the rescue! Will the Astros and Roger Clemens blast off in '04? 01/14/04 Aaron Wolfson I've noticed a trend this offseason -- and when I think about it, it's really not that surprising. Every time a team signs (or even attempts to sign) a big-name free agent, its fans and certain members of the media are quick to annoint it an instant World Series contender. For instance, the Orioles' flirt with Vlad, the Angels' actual signing of Vlad and, most recently, the Astros' additions of Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens. Just look at this lead-in to an article on ESPN.com, entitled "Astros season-ticket sales skyrocketing": How quickly the perception of the Houston Astros has changed from playoff bumbler to World Series contender, all because of one future Hall of Famer. It's nice for the team that the fans are so enthusiastic about the Rocket, but as the sharp and logical thinker would note, perception does not equal reality. So what is the reality for the Astros in 2004? Well, I'd like to thank Houston for making my job easier, because they didn't do much this offseason to change their outlook. Acquiring Pettitte and Clemens were their only big free-agent moves, and their only major league trade was shipping out Billy Wagner to Philly. Give Astros' management credit for not messing with a good thing: they kept intact an offense that finished 4th in the NL in scoring last year with 805 runs. And not only that, but there's a major opportunity for improvement from within. Unfortunately for Astros fans, this improvement is contingent on Jimy Williams pulling his head out of his ass. If he does, however, he'll give Morgan Ensberg the starting third base job in spring training and never look back. Last season, Ensberg and Geoff Blum received roughly the same amount of plate appearances, as Blum began the year with the job and managed to hold it until past the All-Star break. Here's a comparison of the two third basemen using their stats from last season:
Quite clearly, Ensberg was worlds better than Blum last year, who didn't even manage to reach replacement level. If most of those plate appearances that Blum ate up last year are transferred to Ensberg, the Astros' offense can expect to see a nice increase in runs. Also, despite the fact that they actually resigned Brad Ausmus and plan to let him start at catcher again, the possiblity remains that he'll be replaced sometime during the season. And no matter who that replacement ends up being, the Astros will be much better off with [insert scrub catcher's name here] than Ausmus and his .594 OPS. So at a minimum, the Astros appear to be capable of sustaining last year's offensive production, if not increasing it. That's good, but it sure doesn't justify World Series predictions for a team that didn't make the playoffs last year. Now let's see if the strides taken to improve the pitching staff are enough to warrant such a claim. With the additions of Pettitte and Clemens, that leaves three spots in the Astros' rotation to be filled by incumbents. And these are almost certain to be Wade Miller, Tim Redding, and Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is certainly still the best pitcher on the team, but he only pitched 127.1 IP last season because of injuries. And since his injury was a recurring groin problem that required offseason surgery, there's no guarantee that he can remain healthy for a full season. If he can do it, however, the Astros will get around 60 more IP of Oswalt instead of replacement-level pitching, which is certainly significant. The other two rotation spots last year were filled by Jeriome Robertson and a combination of Ron Villone, Scott Linebrink, and Jared Fernandez. To compare these pitchers with their 2004 replacements, I'll be using Support-Neutral Win/Loss statistics from last season, which evaluate starting pitchers when given league-average support from the offense and bullpen.
SN Value Added is the expected value, in wins, of what the pitcher would be worth to an average team compared to that of a league average pitcher. Also, note that the stats only include starts, not relief appearances. What jumps out here is the significant difference between Houston's improvement in actual wins, which is what the average fan would likely look at, and Houston's improvement in support-neutral wins. As you can see, Pettitte and Clemens earned an additional 14 wins above the pitchers that they are replacing. But according to support-neutral wins, the Astros are only improving by 8 wins; and that's not even taking into account the fact that the new guys pitched about 100 more innings last year and did it in a park slightly more favorable to pitchers (1.9% more, to be exact). And according to support-neutral value added, Pettitte and Clemens are only worth 2.7 more wins to the average team than the guys they are replacing. Plus, at age 41, there is no guarantee that Clemens will not suffer a significant drop in his totals. Obviously, there is a large gap here between common perception and reality. Another interesting thing to note: see that chasm separating Pettitte's actual wins from his support-neutral wins? Well, it turns out that Andy was the single luckiest pitcher in all of baseball last year. Just another reason why the (understandably) optimistic Astros fans are perhaps misguided in assessing the improvement of this year's pitching staff. From this information, it's clear that the Astros have indeed improved their team from last year, so the credit being given to them is not entirely misplaced. They didn't do anything to improve their offense, but added playing time for Ensberg and Jason Lane and the potential displacement of Ausmus should allow it to make up for any injuries or disappointments from the stars of the lineup. And while the improvement to the staff isn't quite as good as people think, it's an improvement nonetheless. However, when you factor in the simultaneous improvement by the Cubs, who finished a game ahead of the Astros last year, it would appear that World Series talk is extremely premature. If you've got a comment, question, suggestion, or want to console me about the Chiefs game, send me a mail. |
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©Copyright 2003
Phil Orr
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