Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 06, 2008
Rotation Evaluation, Los Angeles Dodgers

The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their starters posted a 4.43 ERA in 2007, sixth in the National 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. Since Marcel did not rate Kuroda, I used his PECOTA projection.

Hiroki Kuroda

Hiroki Kuroda
Photo: Icon SMI

Marcel predictions for the Los Angeles Dodgers top five starters for 2008.
StarterInningsERERA
Brad Penny183763.74
Derek Lowe181793.93
Hiroki Kuroda158693.94
Chad Billingsley127513.61
Jason Schmidt94454.31
Totals7433203.88

This projects to be an extremely solid rotation. Last season, the Dodgers starters fell well short of six innings per start, but if Schmidt is healthy and Billingsley gives them a full season, this starting staff will get much closer to that mark. The big question mark here is Kuroda. Do you get Matsuzaka or Igawa? My guess is that his projection is a bit optimistic.

Still, Penny and Lowe are capable of out performing their predictions, and if Billingsley gives them 160 innings at that level, the Dodgers could end up leading the NL in starters ERA in 2008.

Previous posts in this series:

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Posted by David Pinto at 08:50 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I think Schmidt starts the season on the DL. Most likely out for 1.5-2 months, perhaps longer. With Hongzhi Guo a question mark coming off of his third elbow surgery, Esteban Loaiza is worth a mention as the likely #5 starter atleast when the season begins.

I have the likely rotation members with the following WAR (based on ZIPS).

Brad Penny: 2.96
Derek Lowe: 2.29
Chad Billingsley: 1.86
H.Kuroda: 2.04
E.Loaiza: 0.66
J.Schmidt: 1.15

vr, Xeifrank

Posted by: Xeifrank at March 6, 2008 02:28 PM

I think Schmidt starts the season on the DL. Most likely out for 1.5-2 months, perhaps longer. With Hongzhi Guo a question mark coming off of his third elbow surgery, Esteban Loaiza is worth a mention as the likely #5 starter atleast when the season begins.

I have the likely rotation members with the following WAR (based on ZIPS).

Brad Penny: 2.96
Derek Lowe: 2.29
Chad Billingsley: 1.86
H.Kuroda: 2.04
E.Loaiza: 0.66
J.Schmidt: 1.15

vr, Xeifrank

Posted by: Xeifrank at March 6, 2008 02:28 PM
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