Last month, we looked at the Astros starting rotation in comparison to the surprising Royals and the current Champion Red Sox. We found that the Astros had a surprisingly good starting rotation, pretty much equal to what the Red Sox were putting out there on a team-wide basis, but that the Royals had been nothing short of excellent at preventing runs from their starters.
This month, I have changed teams around. We will revisit the Royal and Red Sox later in the year, but I decided to look at two other teams. Both of the new teams had the narratives attached that they had the basis of a good starting rotation, but they needed to be active in accumulating SP talent from around the the Majors during the offseason (mostly due to dry farm systems). And they did. Meet the Angels and the White Sox, to be compared to the Astros:
Houston Astros (average age 26.3, average salary approx. $2.1 million)
29 starts
IP: 182, H: 176, R: 80, ER: 70, BB: 52, K: 141, HR: 14, ERA: 3.45
K:BB Ratio: 2.29, WHIP: 1.39
Groundballs: 250, Flyballs: 149, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.68
Wins: 12, Losses: 13, Quality Starts: 18, Disaster Starts: 2
Record for Quality Starts: 10-6, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (average age 27.6, average salary approx. $5.7 million)
28 starts
IP: 175, H: 155, R: 83, ER: 75, BB: 58, K: 146, HR: 16, ERA: 3.86
K:BB Ratio: 2.51, WHIP: 1.22
Groundballs: 197, Flyballs: 177, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.11
Wins: 13, Losses: 10, Quality Starts: 16, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 11-2, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-3.
Chicago White Sox (average age 26.8, average salary approx. $3.35 million)
27 starts
IP: 151, H: 165, R: 87, ER: 80, BB: 53, K: 115, HR: 21, ERA: 4.76
K:BB Ratio: 2.17; WHIP: 1.44
Groundballs: 174, Flyballs: 152, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.14
Wins: 6, Losses: 12, Quality Starts: 14, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 4-5, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.
* - Disaster start defined as <5IP, 4 or more runs or earned runs given up.
** - Each of the three teams used six starters in the month of May, so the average age and salaries of the rotation are calculated using these six players.
The White Sox are clearly the most inferior of the three rotations on raw numbers. Some of this is likely due to Chris Sale's absence (he pitched only three starting innings in May due to injury), but the lack of a true ace pitcher - probably the best pitcher on all three teams - is unlikely to account for the extent in the skew in numbers.
Of course, these numbers are not park-adjusted. The Cell is rated the 21st overall park for suppressing run scoring (Minute Maid is fifth, and Angel Stadium is sixth), so the park-factor, if anything, protects the White Sox rotation in comparison to the other two. The Astros and Angels pitch in one of the hardest parks to suppress runs in the majors, making their raw numbers look more impressive.
(These raw statistics do not account for strength of schedule, either.)
Further comparison reveals that the White Sox have an ERA that is around 136% of that of the Astros, and a WHIP of around 115% that of the Astros. They have tossed the fewest innings of the three clubs looked at, given up the most runs, the most walks, the most home-runs, and stuck out the fewest batters. As May has progressed, they have continued to hover around .500, and their starting pitching has clearly nor assisted much. Still, most Astros fans would kill for "hovering around .500" - in a franchise with recent history like Houston has, that would be cause for a party this late in the season.
The two teams lending themselves to the most direct of comparisons are the Angels and the Astros. The raw numbers are very similar for starting pitching, and we will look at the raw batting and base running statistics tomorrow.
The Angels entered May 14-13, having won three games in a row, and exit May at 30-25, comfortably in second place in the AL West, and now 3.5 games behind the juggernaut A's. Overall, their starting numbers are very decent, and this has been helped by excellent May results for Weaver (8IP/1ER, 6.3IP/1ER, 7IP/2ER, 9IP/1ER and 6IP/3ER) and Wilson (8IP/3ER, 6IP/5ER, 9IP, 0ER, 6.1IP/1ER, 7.2IP/3ER) and solid May for Garrett Richards (6IP/3ER, 7IP/2ER, 7IP/0ER, 7IP/5ER, 7IP/3ER... but 0.2IP/5ER in his last start of the month). Thirteen out of sixteen quality starts for that trio, and one start lasting less than six innings-pitched. Not shabby.
The other metrics like the Angels as a staff, too. Their ERA sits at a solid, non-park-adjusted 3.78, and the WHIP sits at a very solid 1.20. They strike out over two-and-one-half more batters than they walk.
That said, the Astros staff has pretty much their absolute equal, if not slightly better. While the Astros' WHIP is a little higher (1.25), their ERA is a quarter-run lower, possibly by virtue of their defensive shifting and their ground-ball centric staff (1.66 GB:FB ratio, compared to the Angels' 1.12). Both staffs have very similar numbers of innings pitched, quality starts and disaster starts.
The Astros threw 8 more innings, gave up a 21 more hits, walked six fewer batters, and struck out five fewer hitters. The Astros gave up two fewer home-runs. They started one extra time, so that could account for the innings difference, but not the other differences. So, perhaps the Astros are just a little more hit-prone at this stage, but again this is likely a reflection of their policy of pitching to contact, and making the contact of the ground-ball variety.
The Astros and Angels starting staff were credited with roughly the same number of wins compared to losses (12-13 compared to 13-10). Clearly, the win and loss stats are influenced by both pitching and hitting, but all things being equal, the Astros have the wins as losses tilted against them in comparison to the Angels.
The real advantage to the Astros comes when the average age and average salary is weighed against the the overall production. The Astros are the cheapest and youngest of the rotations by a considerable margin, and are arguably the most effective of these three rotations.
In last months' article, we removed the statistical outliers from the various rotations, then re-analysed the rotations to try and get a better feel for how much of an effect the outlier had on the numbers of the overall staff. Last month, Lucas Harrell, who made four starts, three awful, for the Astros was removed as a "bad" outlier, along with the Red Sox and Royals' worst starters. Predictably, we found the Lucas had dragged the Astros down somewhat in terms of their overall starters' stats, and once his numbers were excluded, the Astros were very similar to the Red Sox.
I want to continue to remove the leading statistical outlier on the Astros staff, and reanalyse. However, this month the outlier on the Astros is not the worst pitcher, but most likely the best. Dallas Keuchel has been the focus of a few articles expressing wonderment recently, because of his excellent month. (Imagine what the month could have been like without seventh inning sudden loss-of-control versus the Tigers (3 May), a two-out, 2 run triple (May 19) against the Angels, and a fifth-inning loss of control versus the Orioles (31 May). Yikes!).
But, until Keuchel can prove that he dominate for half a season or more, his current performance remains somewhat outlier-ish, so lets remove him, and the other two best starters from each team (Jose Quintana and Jered Weaver) and re-run the digits:
Houston Astros (minus Keuchel)
IP: 136, H: 144, R: 68, ER: 59, BB: 45, K: 107, HR: 13, ERA: 3.90
K:BB Ratio: 2.38; WHIP: 1.39
Groundballs: 169, Flyballs: 127, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.33
Wins: 8, Losses: 11, Quality Starts: 13, Disaster Starts: 2,
Record for Quality Starts: 6-5, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (minus Weaver)
IP: 139, H: 133, R: 75, ER: 67, BB: 48, K: 119, HR: 13, ERA: 4.35
K:BB Ratio: 2.48; WHIP: 1.31
Groundballs: 164, Flyballs: 129, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.27
Wins: 9, Losses: 9, Quality Starts: 12, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 7-2, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-3.
Chicago White Sox (minus Quintana)
IP: 117, H: 130, R: 73, ER: 66, BB: 42, K: 89, HR: 21, ERA: 5.09
K:BB Ratio: 2.12; WHIP: 1.47
Groundballs: 127, Flyballs: 123, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.03
Wins: 4, Losses: 9, Quality Starts: 10, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 3-3, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.
Obviously, with the best starter removed, all the teams' major statistical measures take a bit of a tumble. The Astros and While Sox increase their ERA's approximately 0.5 of a run per nine, whereas the Angels hold their increase to just under 0.4 runs per nine. The Astros experience the largest increase in WHIP out of the three teams, proving just how efficient Keuchel has been in keeping batters off bases (7 walks in May, one in the four starts between his May 3 start and his May 31 start). The Astros also experience the largest tumble in GB/FB ratio (0.33, compared to the White Sox 0.08 and the Angels' improvement in GB:FB ratio of -0.19), showing (i) that Keuchel is the most effective on the Astros staff in keeping the ball on the ground, and (ii) Weaver is an extreme fly-ball pitcher who relies on weak contact. The Astros experience the largest reduction in strikeout to walk ratio with Keuchel removed (0.35, compared to the White Sox' 0.05 and the Angels very slight improvement: -0.01 (again, proving how much of a statistical outlier Jered Weaver is).
Regardless, the characteristics of the starting staffs described above remains broadly intact. The Astros outperform both other teams in ERA, whilst remaining somewhat of a ground-ball staff which gives up more in the way of hits to the Angels. Both the Angels and the Astros outperform the White Sox. All three starters have done a great job of keeping themselves in the contest, and doing a good job of avoiding disasters.
On the surface, the Astros' pitching staff has been very solid. But while most of the brilliance has been provided by Dallas Keuchel, the rest have been plenty solid with the occasional dominant performance thrown in. All Astros starters have pretty much kept the team the game, which is something, especially over a long season, and especially given the relative youth of the group.
Finally, lets compare April 2014 Astros with May 2014 Astros:
April Houston Astros
IP: 157, H: 146, R: 79, ER: 75, BB: 66, K: 126, ERA: 4.28
K:BB Ratio: 1.90; WHIP: 1.34
Groundballs: 235, Flyballs: 138, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.70
Wins: 7, Losses: 13, Quality Starts: 13, Disaster Starts: 6,
Record per Quality Start: 6-1, Record per Disaster Start: 0-6.
May Houston Astros (rehashed from above)
IP: 182, H: 176, R: 80, ER: 70, BB: 52, K: 141, HR: 14, ERA: 3.45
K:BB Ratio: 2.29, WHIP: 1.39
Groundballs: 250, Flyballs: 149, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.68
Wins: 12, Losses: 13, Quality Starts: 18, Disaster Starts: 2
Record for Quality Starts: 10-6, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.
An across-the-board improvement for the Astros between April and May, with perhaps the only peripheral that is not in their favour being the slightly increase number of hits (especially when compared to innings pitched) in May. That said, there will be some random variability there, and it is most likely a combination of noise, and Feldman regression (who was filthy for most of April, and has struggled a bit in May). Arguably, the May Astros are a tiny bit less ground-ball-y as well, but again, most likely random variation plus subtraction of Lucas Harrell. Singificant improvements in disaster starts (but remember three April disasters were attributed to Lucas Harrell), and quality starts are noted as the season has progressed, and are certainly welcomed.
The biggest improvement is the significant ERA drop between April and May. Also, remember that the minus-Harrell ERA was 3.84 in April, so this continues to represent a significant improvement, even with Harrell excluded. This improvement demands ongoing monitoring.
So, in summary, the solid April that the Astros starting pitchers put together have continued into a solid May. The Astros starters also compare vary favourably with a rotation with two expensive free-agents on a club that (as a team) has had a great month, and finds itself contending through the first third of the season (the Angels). The Astros continue to minimise base runners and home runs, and keep the ball on the ground at a far better rate than any of the teams that we have looked at this year. The longer this starting pitching continues like this, the more likely that it will continue, as the statistical noise gets eliminated, and regression becomes less of a concern. Some of the starters still have room to improve, given their ages, and improvements in their peripheral stats, but also when the individual box scores are looked at. Some of the starters may also turn into pumpkins - and if that happens, the organisation still has some arms that they will want to see having an opportunity in a ML rotation.
Tomorrow, I will put up a much, much briefer post, using the advanced statistics to compare the rotations, once Fangraphs bangs them up.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
Showing posts with label Quality Starts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quality Starts. Show all posts
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Friday, May 2, 2014
Data from One Month of the Astros Starting Rotation
Those of you who follow the Astros are doubtless aware of the narrative to this point of the season. It goes something like this:
I thought that I would look into the starting rotation thus far. The Batguy recently published an article recently on how many at-bats, plate-appearances or batters-faced are needed before various statistics stabilise. The stabilisation points for pitchers range from 70 batters-faced (strikeouts) to 1450 batters-faced (extra base-hits).
For comparisons sake, Jarred Cosart has faced 133 batters thus far in the 2014 season, and Dallas Keuchel has faced 126 batters. Cosart has faced 379 batters in his career, and Keuchel has faced 1185 batters, so it is early days for the career stats of the vast majority of the 2014 rotation, Feldman excepted.
Personally, I like what the the Astros have done with the total rebuild. The tear-down is complete, and the phase of the rebuild has moved on to giving young players time on the park, and seeing who is worth keeping, and who isn't. I much prefer this strategy than the moves the Astros made earlier in my fandom, such as dropping 9 figures on Carlos Lee (when no one else was really bidding on him), trading for Jason Jennings, signing the corpse of Woody Williams, and so on and so forth (Miggy Tejada, anyone?)
Many pundits indicate a preference to build around a starting rotation. The Cardinals have done that, and people seem to think that the Luhnow connection means that the Astros will be like the Cards in a few years time. And the Cards have a solid front-five, and a bullpen jam-packed full of future starters, and the Astros seem to have a bunch of interesting arms at all levels of the minors.
Now that the season is 28 games old, 17% of the season has passed. From the perspective of analysing the trends of the rotations (as opposed to individuals), things are starting to become clear.
For this article, I was interested in looking at how the Astros rotation has pitched compared to two other randomly selected AL rotations. I went through each start for each team, and recorded how the starting pitcher did. The blinded comparison is below:
Team A: 149 IP, 166H, 85R, 72ER, 68BB, 135K (1.98K/BB), 1.14 GB/FB ratio
15 Quality Starts, 5 Disaster Starts, 9 wins, 9 losses
4.40 ERA, 5.1 RA/9, 1.57 WHIP
Team B: 157 IP, 146H, 79R, 75ER, 66BB, 126K (1.90K/BB), 1.70 GB/FB ratio
13 Quality Starts, 6 Disaster Starts, 7 wins, 13 losses.
4.28 ERA, 4.52 RA/9, 1.34 WHIP
Team C: 156 IP, 143H, 68R, 53ER, 42BB, 127K (3.02K/BB), 1.21GB/FB ratio
14 Quality Starts, 3 Disaster Starts, 10 wins, 6 losses.
3.05 ERA, 3.92 RA/9, 1.18 WHIP
(A Disaster Start is defined as <5IP, 4 or more earned or unearned runs given up, just for kicks)
I am guessing that most of you have an idea which team the Astros are.
For Team A, if the starter threw a QS, the pitchers' W-L record was 8-3
For Team B, if the starter threw a QS, the pitchers' W-L record was 6-1
For Team C, if the starter threw a QS, the pitchers' W-L record was 9-1
Team A seems to value attacking the strike zone, giving up the most hits of the three teams, but also striking out the most. This team also gets the most fly-balls.
Team B seems to value ground balls, and has been pretty reasonable at run prevention. They still strike guys out at a reasonable clip.
Team C's starters are having a great season, preventing runs by limiting walks. They have the best WHIP, but have given up roughly the same number of hits as Team B. The unearned runs are significant here too.
Team A is the Boston Red Sox, the reigning World Series champs. Team B is your Houston Astros. Team C is the surprising Kansas City Royals. I chose the Royals because they filled roughly 60% of their rotation with veteran retreads - the tactic that some commentators advocated for the Astros for this season.
Of course, Team B's statistics contain the buxom 9.49 ERA of Lucas Harrell. If we were to exclude Harrell's starts, then we get:
Houston Astros: 145 IP, 127H, 65R, 62ER, 57BB, 117K (2.05 K/BB), 1.66 GB/FB ratio
13 Quality Starts, 3 Disaster Starts, 7 wins, 10 losses.
3.84 ERA, 4.03 RA/9, 1.27 WHIP
Now you can't go around selecting which starters or starts you want to analyse - you are dealing with a population, and picking and choosing out of that population introduces bias. Which makes the findings largely irrelevant. However, Lucas Harrell is not going to pitch again for the Astros this year (or - probably - any year), so potentially taking the time to look at the statistics in this light could be useful.
So, if we remove all the starts of the pitcher from each team with the most Disaster Starts (which is the case with Lucas Harrell), we get:
Boston Red Sox: 125 IP, 136H, 65R, 56ER, 57BB, 119K (2.08K/BB), 1.07 GB/FB ratio
13 Quality Starts, 3 Disaster Starts, 8 wins, 6 losses
4.00 ERA, 4.7 RA/9, 1.54 WHIP
Kansas City Royals: 137 IP, 115H, 52R, 37ER, 35BB, 109K (3.11K/BB), 1.26GB/FB ratio
14 Quality Starts, 1 Disaster Starts, 9 wins, 4 losses.
2.43 ERA, 3.42 RA/9, 1.09 WHIP
The pitchers excluded are Felix Dubront and Bruce Chen. Both pitchers have had non-disaster starts, unlike Harrell. Both pitchers have reputations as streaky lefties.
When looking at the Astros' starting rotation compared with the other two ball clubs, the ground-ball to fly-ball ratio really stands out. I think that this is closely correlated to to the number and frequency of shifts that the Astros are employing. But interestingly, the Astros' defence has been commented on recently as being poor and lacking range. Let's quickly look at the infield, via Fangraphs admittedly imperfect defensive ratings:
Marc Krauss: -2.1 runs saved
Jesus Guzman: -0.5 runs saved
Jose Altuve: -2.6 runs saved
Jonathan Villar: -0.3 runs saved
Matt Dominguez: -0.2 runs saved
More Ground-Balls into an elite defence would be a formula that a pitching staff would definitely be interested in, so it is interesting to note that the current Astros defence has not been assessed as being helpful thus far.
Finally, as a whimsical fantasy, I decided to couple the Astros' starting pitcher performance (with Harrell) with a hypothetical league-average offence. The Astros are currently scoring a svelte 3.14 runs per game, giving a pythagorean projected season standing of 53 wins over a full season, or 9 wins after 28 games.
Coupling the Astros starters to a league average offence (4.42 runs per game to this point in the season) gives a pythagorean record of 79 wins over a full season, or 14 wins after 28 games.
This confirms what we already know: the Astros starters are not the reason that this team sits at 9-19. We also know that the Astros are a GB orientated team, and they are certainly putting that into effect this early in the season. With the offence and the Goatpen both likely to improve (I mean, how could it get worse!), the starters would be hopeful that their solid work to this point will be more obvious as the season progresses.
- The bullpen is awful, and has blown a bunch of leads
- The offence is under performing, but is due for a luck-related correction
I thought that I would look into the starting rotation thus far. The Batguy recently published an article recently on how many at-bats, plate-appearances or batters-faced are needed before various statistics stabilise. The stabilisation points for pitchers range from 70 batters-faced (strikeouts) to 1450 batters-faced (extra base-hits).
For comparisons sake, Jarred Cosart has faced 133 batters thus far in the 2014 season, and Dallas Keuchel has faced 126 batters. Cosart has faced 379 batters in his career, and Keuchel has faced 1185 batters, so it is early days for the career stats of the vast majority of the 2014 rotation, Feldman excepted.
Personally, I like what the the Astros have done with the total rebuild. The tear-down is complete, and the phase of the rebuild has moved on to giving young players time on the park, and seeing who is worth keeping, and who isn't. I much prefer this strategy than the moves the Astros made earlier in my fandom, such as dropping 9 figures on Carlos Lee (when no one else was really bidding on him), trading for Jason Jennings, signing the corpse of Woody Williams, and so on and so forth (Miggy Tejada, anyone?)
Many pundits indicate a preference to build around a starting rotation. The Cardinals have done that, and people seem to think that the Luhnow connection means that the Astros will be like the Cards in a few years time. And the Cards have a solid front-five, and a bullpen jam-packed full of future starters, and the Astros seem to have a bunch of interesting arms at all levels of the minors.
Now that the season is 28 games old, 17% of the season has passed. From the perspective of analysing the trends of the rotations (as opposed to individuals), things are starting to become clear.
For this article, I was interested in looking at how the Astros rotation has pitched compared to two other randomly selected AL rotations. I went through each start for each team, and recorded how the starting pitcher did. The blinded comparison is below:
Team A: 149 IP, 166H, 85R, 72ER, 68BB, 135K (1.98K/BB), 1.14 GB/FB ratio
15 Quality Starts, 5 Disaster Starts, 9 wins, 9 losses
4.40 ERA, 5.1 RA/9, 1.57 WHIP
Team B: 157 IP, 146H, 79R, 75ER, 66BB, 126K (1.90K/BB), 1.70 GB/FB ratio
13 Quality Starts, 6 Disaster Starts, 7 wins, 13 losses.
4.28 ERA, 4.52 RA/9, 1.34 WHIP
Team C: 156 IP, 143H, 68R, 53ER, 42BB, 127K (3.02K/BB), 1.21GB/FB ratio
14 Quality Starts, 3 Disaster Starts, 10 wins, 6 losses.
3.05 ERA, 3.92 RA/9, 1.18 WHIP
(A Disaster Start is defined as <5IP, 4 or more earned or unearned runs given up, just for kicks)
I am guessing that most of you have an idea which team the Astros are.
For Team A, if the starter threw a QS, the pitchers' W-L record was 8-3
For Team B, if the starter threw a QS, the pitchers' W-L record was 6-1
For Team C, if the starter threw a QS, the pitchers' W-L record was 9-1
Team A seems to value attacking the strike zone, giving up the most hits of the three teams, but also striking out the most. This team also gets the most fly-balls.
Team B seems to value ground balls, and has been pretty reasonable at run prevention. They still strike guys out at a reasonable clip.
Team C's starters are having a great season, preventing runs by limiting walks. They have the best WHIP, but have given up roughly the same number of hits as Team B. The unearned runs are significant here too.
Team A is the Boston Red Sox, the reigning World Series champs. Team B is your Houston Astros. Team C is the surprising Kansas City Royals. I chose the Royals because they filled roughly 60% of their rotation with veteran retreads - the tactic that some commentators advocated for the Astros for this season.
Of course, Team B's statistics contain the buxom 9.49 ERA of Lucas Harrell. If we were to exclude Harrell's starts, then we get:
Houston Astros: 145 IP, 127H, 65R, 62ER, 57BB, 117K (2.05 K/BB), 1.66 GB/FB ratio
13 Quality Starts, 3 Disaster Starts, 7 wins, 10 losses.
3.84 ERA, 4.03 RA/9, 1.27 WHIP
Now you can't go around selecting which starters or starts you want to analyse - you are dealing with a population, and picking and choosing out of that population introduces bias. Which makes the findings largely irrelevant. However, Lucas Harrell is not going to pitch again for the Astros this year (or - probably - any year), so potentially taking the time to look at the statistics in this light could be useful.
So, if we remove all the starts of the pitcher from each team with the most Disaster Starts (which is the case with Lucas Harrell), we get:
Boston Red Sox: 125 IP, 136H, 65R, 56ER, 57BB, 119K (2.08K/BB), 1.07 GB/FB ratio
13 Quality Starts, 3 Disaster Starts, 8 wins, 6 losses
4.00 ERA, 4.7 RA/9, 1.54 WHIP
Kansas City Royals: 137 IP, 115H, 52R, 37ER, 35BB, 109K (3.11K/BB), 1.26GB/FB ratio
14 Quality Starts, 1 Disaster Starts, 9 wins, 4 losses.
2.43 ERA, 3.42 RA/9, 1.09 WHIP
The pitchers excluded are Felix Dubront and Bruce Chen. Both pitchers have had non-disaster starts, unlike Harrell. Both pitchers have reputations as streaky lefties.
When looking at the Astros' starting rotation compared with the other two ball clubs, the ground-ball to fly-ball ratio really stands out. I think that this is closely correlated to to the number and frequency of shifts that the Astros are employing. But interestingly, the Astros' defence has been commented on recently as being poor and lacking range. Let's quickly look at the infield, via Fangraphs admittedly imperfect defensive ratings:
Marc Krauss: -2.1 runs saved
Jesus Guzman: -0.5 runs saved
Jose Altuve: -2.6 runs saved
Jonathan Villar: -0.3 runs saved
Matt Dominguez: -0.2 runs saved
More Ground-Balls into an elite defence would be a formula that a pitching staff would definitely be interested in, so it is interesting to note that the current Astros defence has not been assessed as being helpful thus far.
Finally, as a whimsical fantasy, I decided to couple the Astros' starting pitcher performance (with Harrell) with a hypothetical league-average offence. The Astros are currently scoring a svelte 3.14 runs per game, giving a pythagorean projected season standing of 53 wins over a full season, or 9 wins after 28 games.
Coupling the Astros starters to a league average offence (4.42 runs per game to this point in the season) gives a pythagorean record of 79 wins over a full season, or 14 wins after 28 games.
This confirms what we already know: the Astros starters are not the reason that this team sits at 9-19. We also know that the Astros are a GB orientated team, and they are certainly putting that into effect this early in the season. With the offence and the Goatpen both likely to improve (I mean, how could it get worse!), the starters would be hopeful that their solid work to this point will be more obvious as the season progresses.
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