March 26, 2008
Rotation Evaluation, Washington Nationals
The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Washington Nationals. Their starters posted a 5.11 ERA in 2007, fifteenth 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.
Matt Chico
Photo: Icon SMI
Marcel predictions for the Washington Nationals top five starters for 2008.
| Starter | Innings | ER | ERA |
| Odalis Perez | 136 | 82 | 5.43 |
| Jason Bergmann | 109 | 57 | 4.71 |
| Tim Redding | 100 | 49 | 4.75 |
| Matt Chico | 143 | 71 | 4.47 |
| John Lannan | 77 | 36 | 4.21 |
| Totals | 565 | 295 | 4.70 |
A clue that this rotation doesn't work is that the fourth starter is projected to pitch the most innings, and the fourth and fifth starters project to the lowest ERA among the starting five. It's really sad that the Nationals can't come up with a better solution than Odalis Perez for opening day.
Shawn Hill starting the season hurt certainly doesn't help. Although he projects to a good ERA, he doesn't project to a lot of innings either. Expect this team to use lots of starters this season.
Update: Lannan was just optioned to AAA. However,
Manny Acta said he could be back soon depending on Shawn Hill's status.
Previous posts in this series:
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