Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 01, 2008
Rotation Evaluation, Toronto Blue Jays

The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Toronto Blue Jays. Their starters posted 4.24 ERA in 2007, fourth in the American League.

Note that in figuring ERAs, I'm using Marcel's mIP and mER columns. The ERA listed in the spreadsheet uses the average of mER and bsrER. I wanted to avoid posting 1/2 runs in the table. Pitcher order is taken from the CBSSportsline depth chart.

Jesse Litsch

Jesse Litsch
Photo: Icon SMI

Marcel predictions for the Toronto Blue Jays top five starters for 2008.
StarterInningsERERA
Roy Halladay195783.60
A.J. Burnett156693.98
Shaun Marcum135644.27
Dustin McGowan139694.47
Jesse Litsch115513.99
Totals7403314.03

The Blue Jays are very much like the Giants from the previous post. The staff looks very strong, but because many of them are young, they're not predicted to pitch that many innings. Due to his time on the DL the last few years, Burnett doesn't project very high in innings, either. The do have the experienced Gustavo Chacin waiting in the wings to cover those extra starts, and he projects to a 4.61 ERA. This might prove to be the best rotation in the American League if they stay healthy.

I'm a bit wary of the low ERA projected for Litsch. His strike out rate projects at 5.3 per nine innings, pretty near the low end for successful pitchers. He'll need the Blue Jays defenders on their toes to achieve an ERA below 4.00.

Previous posts in this series:

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Posted by David Pinto at 07:16 PM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I find it hard to believe that Chacin will cover many starts. His innings pitched during his career are 14, 203, 87, & 27 - He's always seriously injured.

Posted by: Basura at March 1, 2008 08:19 PM

There's also a distinct possibility that Casey Janssen will get the 5th starter's job over Litsch. The Toronto media is painting the competition as being just as much between Gibbons - who wants to keep Janssen in the 'pen - and Ricciardi - who wants him in the rotation.

The popular speculation/conclusion seems to be that if BJ Ryan and/or Brandon League are healthy/good enough to make the staff by Opening Day that Janssen will move to the rotation and Litsch will start in AAA.

Posted by: Brian at March 1, 2008 09:29 PM

Be surprising if Litsch's ERA is 0.5 lower than McGowan. His saving grace is a good variety of pitches

BTW David have you given any thought to having a pledge this month

Posted by: AndyC at March 2, 2008 08:34 AM
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