So, this image floated across my Facebook feed randomly the other day, and I was struck by it. I’ve seen these done elsewhere, but never for Baseball rotations. So, i’m in.
Build your rotation. $15 max spend. Here’s my “rules” for the competition:
- You have to pick 5 guys: you can’t pick three from the $5 line and say, “the rest are AAA starters”
- Consider each pitcher by their peak, not by their entire career. I say this because a few of these guys tailed off badly, or are more known for their longevity.
- Ignore the fact that some (one?) of these guys has PED associations. I guess that’s just a concern for Clemens. I didn’t end up picking him anyway.
OK here’s my team:
- $5 Sandy Koufax: no better stretch of dominance at the end of his career.
- $5 Pedro Martinez: he put up a 291 ERA+ season in the height of the PED era.
- $2 Bob Feller: that’s some serious value for $2
- $2 Curt Schilling. Twitter comments aside, he was a very good starter. Never won a Cy Young, losing out multiple times to his own teammates, else he’d be a no-brainer Hall of Famer.
- $1 Orel Hershiser. Best in the sport for a short amount of time, short enough to cost him the Hall. I’ll take that as my 5th starter.
Who you got?
I wonder what cost they would have assigned to Max or Stras?
FredMD
20 Jan 26 at 11:56 am
This was harder than I expected… comparing Walter Johnson to Randy Johnson is an impossible task.
With that in mind, I identified a few “deals”, namely Roger Clemens. Statistically, Clemens is the best pitcher in the history of baseball according to fWAR. He has the peak 8 seasons of 7+ WAR in 11 seasons, and longevity: 24 seasons with positive WAR. Easy first choice.
Don Sutton, an absolute bargain at $1. Very good peak (30 WAR from ’71-’75) plus an extremely long career (23! seasons with positive WAR). 86 career WAR (14th most all time) 300+ game winner, 20+ game winner, etc. Easy choice.
CC Sabathia, $1. Again, a very long and productive career (18 seasons, 66 WAR), but also an excellent peak from ’06-’11 (36 WAR), 1 CYA, 1 WS title, one 20+ win season. He’s got it all.
Randy Johnson @ $5. Johnson’s peak stretch of dominance was statistically better than Koufax’s, though it gets easily overlooked when everything that was happening in MLB from 99-02. In those 4 seasons, Johnson put up 37.6 WAR (punctuated by 10.4 in 2001 while carrying the Diamondbacks to a WS victory). Koufax’s 4 year peak to end his career was also great, but was only worth 34.4 WAR and his peak season was “merely” 10.0 WAR.
Lastly, with $4 remaining: Tom Seaver. Seaver was so good, and put up 56 WAR between ’70-’77, and has all the accolades: 3 CYA, 1 WS title, 300+ wins, 5 20+ win seasons, etc. Easy pick (though I hesitated to go with Gibson instead, Seaver’s peak AND longevity gave him the edge).
Rotation
1. Clemens (RHP)
2. Johnson (LHP)
3. Seaver (RHP)
4. Sutton (RHP)
5. Sabathia (LHP)
Includes 4 pitchers in the top 14 most WAR of all time. 1 MVP, 16(!) CYAs, 39 AS games, 5 WS titles. 4 300 game winners (Sabathia bringing up the rear with “only” 251 wins). And the individual brilliance in addition to the longevity: Clemens’ 2002 and Johnson’s 2001 were among two of the best individual seasons of all time.
Will
21 Jan 26 at 5:13 am
Fred: I’d expect Scherzer to be around $3 or $4, and Strasburg to be $1, though statistically he’s not much different than Kershaw, who feels like an overpay at $4, compared to other guys in that tier.
Strasburg would pretty easily be the worst value at $1. He was very good, but never great in his career, and injuries just sapped his upside the whole time. 36.6 career WAR, no CYA, peaked at 18 wins, but he does have the WS title and MVP, which kind of sets him apart… but compared to the other guys at $1, they all have stats like that, plus 5-10 more seasons of above average performance.
Will
21 Jan 26 at 5:20 am
Will, you seem to have disregarded Todd’s second rule.
FredMD
21 Jan 26 at 8:13 am
I guess I read that part too fast, as more of Todd’s own thinking rather than the rules we all must abide by. I’d have to dig furter into guys like Ferguson Jenkins’ peaks (which by the way after a quick glance is pretty insane), but I’m not sure my list would change too much. Johnson, Clemens and Seaver had insane peaks. I might need to swap out Sutton who was more of a compiler than a peak player.
Though this just raises more questions than answers. How long is a “peak”? For example, Clemens posted 90.1 WAR over a 13 year period (his peak, or 6.9 WAR/season, insane, which is more WAR than almost all the guys listed in their entire careers. Clemens’ “non-peak” was worth an additional 43.6 WAR, just showing how much better he than everyone below the $5 mark), whereas Koufax’s peak was only 4 years. But Clemens was in another gear from 97-98, putting up 18.9 WAR in just two seasons (almost identical two Koufax’s two best consecutive seasons: 19.1). Do you include longevity into the equation for guys who were elite for longer?
It would also render compilers like Nolan Ryan, next to useless. I think the best 4 year stretch for Ryan was 22.8 WAR (5.7 WAR/season), which is identical to Whitey Ford (22.7 WAR) and worse than Sabathia (25) and Sutton (24.2), all $1 values.
Then guys like Steve Carlton (and Clemens) get penalized for having two peaks with a few down years in between. Carlton’s ’72, one of the best season performances in pitching history, came years before his peak in the early 80s. Clemens was outstanding from 86-92, then again from 96-98 when the steroids starting having an effect. It’s hard to pinpoint his “peak” without stretching it to 13 years.
Speaking of Jenkins, he had a 4 year peak worth 33.6 WAR, which is pretty tantalizing value for $3. Meanwhile why is Catfish Hunter even listed here, much less $2? His peak 4 year stretch was a total value of a mere 16.1 WAR.
Anyway, fun thought exercise.
Will
21 Jan 26 at 10:02 am
@WiLL’s rotation is money. Maybe the way to go was load up on $4 guys instead of doing what i did, which was peak with two $5 guys. Clemens as a $4 probably a steal.
Where do you put modern guys? Well, if Kershaw is a $4 guy, Scherzer has to be close to him; call him a $3 guy. Verlander may be a $2. I don’t think Strasburg makes the cut.
Todd Boss
21 Jan 26 at 11:56 am
well if I can pick up Stras for free then I would do so. his postseason performances are all I need.
Kershaw: 223-96, 2,855 IP, 2.53 ERA, 154 ERA+, 78.6 WAR
Scherzer: 221-117 2,963 IP, 3.22 ERA, 131 ERA+, 74.1 WAR
comparing the stats I guess you have to give the nod to Kershaw though I would have picked Max. I guess if I had watched Clayton more I might feel differently
fun post, thx
FredMD
22 Jan 26 at 9:11 am
If I had to take exactly one from each column?
– $5: Pedro
– $4: Clemens
– $3: Carlton
– $2: Feller
– $1: Hershiser
Todd Boss
22 Jan 26 at 11:56 am
New posted on Gore trade.
Todd Boss
23 Jan 26 at 10:56 am