March 16, 2008
Rotation Evaluation, Houston Astros
The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Houston Astros. Their starters posted a 4.71 ERA in 2007, tenth 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.
Roy Oswalt
Photo: Icon SMI
Marcel predictions for the Houston Astros top five starters for 2008.
| Starter | Innings | ER | ERA |
|---|
| Roy Oswalt | 187 | 69 | 3.32
|
| Wandy Rodriguez | 162 | 88 | 4.89
|
| Brandon Backe | 78 | 38 | 4.38
|
| Woody Williams | 167 | 91 | 4.90
|
| Chris Sampson | 112 | 54 | 4.34
|
| Totals | 706 | 340 | 4.33
|
Once again, the Astros face the problem of a shallow rotation. Oswalt is great, but there's really nothing behind him. The biggest positive for the back four of the rotation is their walk rate. It's predicted to be 3.1 per nine, not bad at all. The rotation, however, is hittable, with Williams and Sampson allowing a number of home runs on top of that.
With the projection for just over 700 innings from this group, the Astros are going to need to depend on other starters as well. With pitchers like Shawn Chacon as backups, 2008 does not look fruitful for the Astros starters.
Previous posts in this series:
The Baseball Musings pledge drive continues through March. Please consider making a donation.
Bring back Roger...bring back Roger...;-)
These projections are all well and good, but I have to question their validity when not a single pitcher in the league is projected to pitch 200 innings. There is clearly a deep flaw somewhere.
