Dontrelle Willis as a Reliever Could Be a Good Thing

It was announced yesterday that the Orioles have signed Dontrelle Willis (who was recently released by the Philadelphia Phillies) to a minor league deal.  Take a look at the following four lines:

21.0 IP  30 K   8 BB  2.13 FIP
44.2 IP  17 K  48 BB 7.27 FIP
17.0 IP  20 K   2 BB  2.01 FIP
58.2 IP  37 K  35 BB 4.71 FIP

All four of those lines are one created by Willis.  The first two are from his 2010 season for the Tigers and Diamondbacks.  The second two are from last year with the Reds.  The first and third lines are his numbers against lefties and the other two are his numbers against righties.

Willis' career lines?

vs L 10.5 k/9   2.92 bb/9   2.50 FIP
vs R  5.7 k/9   3.86 bb/9   4.61 FIP

Some Year-by-Year FIP?

A wrinkle in all of this obvious information about Willis' brilliance against lefties and symbol as a harbinger of the apocalypse when he faces right handed batters is that he has had only three relief appearances over his entire career.  He has been quite insistent in the past that he was a starter.  His change of heart will likely bring him a great deal of success, but it is not exactly something we can take for granted.  Relievers prepare differently than a starter.  Furthermore, a reliever who faces a couple lefties and sits down really needs to be someone who has a rubber arm.  A guy who can get up and down several times during a game and be able to pitch several nights in a row.  Otherwise, you have a near black hole in the bullpen with a guy who will give you about 100 southy outs in a season.

All that being said...it is somewhat interesting how so many of the things I have asked for in the past are being done with this team.  Yes, these moves are not deciding whether or not the team makes the playoffs, but it is helpful to find cheap upsides that can help the team down the road in terms of future performance or in acquiring talent.

NL West FIP and Pitching xWARs by Slot

There is a series of articles by Jack Sackman that you can find here.  It is an idea I found interesting an often use when I describe pitchers as a certain type of slot pitcher.  I think in common use a person referring to a guy as a one slot pitcher is more or less actually saying that the guy is a one slot pitcher on a first division team.  In other words, an ace on one of the ten best teams in baseball.  In this series of posts, I am going through each division and describing what each slot means and how that relates to teams.

AL East | Central | West
NL East | Central | West

Methodology
For each team, slots were broken down in 32 starts per slot (for a total of 160 games).  Pitchers were ordered by FIP, lowest to highest.  They were then broken up into slots.  Their FIPs were weighted by inning allotment and a weighted average was calculated for each slot.

An example:

Chris Tillman had an FIP of 3.99 over 11 starts, Zach Britton had an FIP of 4.00 over 28 starts, and Jeremy Guthrie had an FIP of 4.51 over 32 starts.  For the purpose of this study, Tillman's 11 starts all counted for the Orioles slot 1 along with 21 of Britton's 28 starts.  The remaining 7 starts were put into the slot 2 position with 25 of Jeremy Guthrie's starts.  When a pitcher's starts are split between multiple slots, it is assumed that their FIP is equal for every inning thrown and that their IP are equal for every start.

NL West

FIP

The Diamondbacks look pretty awful here, but part of it has to do with how home run friendly their park is.

Below is the NL Central FIP by Slot Table.

	1	2	3	4	5
Diamondbacks	3.22	3.28	3.79	4.68	5.88
Dodgers	2.47	3.65	3.82	4.07	4.34
Giants	2.67	2.90	3.15	3.68	4.67
Padres	3.16	3.56	4.01	4.10	4.21
Rockies	3.41	3.94	4.30	4.72	5.79

xWAR

The following graph is simply a predicted fWAR value using only FIP and IP as described in this post.  It serves as an approximation of fWAR worth.

Below is the NL Central xWAR by Slot Table.

	1	2	3	4	5
Diamondbacks	4.42	4.31	2.45	0.70	-2.90
Dodgers	6.48	3.09	2.44	1.62	1.15
Giants	5.35	5.17	4.49	2.99	-0.13
Padres	4.23	2.95	2.02	1.85	1.36
Rockies	3.22	2.08	1.39	0.22	-2.54

NL Central FIP and Pitching xWARs by Slot

There is a series of articles by Jack Sackman that you can find here.  It is an idea I found interesting an often use when I describe pitchers as a certain type of slot pitcher.  I think in common use a person referring to a guy as a one slot pitcher is more or less actually saying that the guy is a one slot pitcher on a first division team.  In other words, an ace on one of the ten best teams in baseball.  In this series of posts, I am going through each division and describing what each slot means and how that relates to teams.

AL East | Central | West
NL East | Central | West

Methodology
For each team, slots were broken down in 32 starts per slot (for a total of 160 games).  Pitchers were ordered by FIP, lowest to highest.  They were then broken up into slots.  Their FIPs were weighted by inning allotment and a weighted average was calculated for each slot.

An example:

Chris Tillman had an FIP of 3.99 over 11 starts, Zach Britton had an FIP of 4.00 over 28 starts, and Jeremy Guthrie had an FIP of 4.51 over 32 starts.  For the purpose of this study, Tillman's 11 starts all counted for the Orioles slot 1 along with 21 of Britton's 28 starts.  The remaining 7 starts were put into the slot 2 position with 25 of Jeremy Guthrie's starts.  When a pitcher's starts are split between multiple slots, it is assumed that their FIP is equal for every inning thrown and that their IP are equal for every start.

NL Central

FIP

The two things that strike me here is that (1) there are basically three very good pitchers in this division and there are on three separate teams: Matt Garza, Zack Greinke, and Chris Carpenter; and (2) that the Astros front end is as underwhelming as the Orioles and that the Reds backend is as catastrophic as the Orioles.  The backend of the Reds' rotation certainly did not help matters, but it alone was not responsible for them missing out of the playoffs.

Below is the NL Central FIP by Slot Table.

	1	2	3	4	5
Brewers	3.06	3.60	3.74	4.05	4.28
Cards	3.06	3.22	3.64	4.14	4.41
Cubs	2.97	3.89	4.23	4.77	5.44
Astros	3.99	4.15	4.24	4.55	4.79
Pirates	3.77	3.81	4.36	4.72	5.38
Reds	3.58	4.09	4.18	4.95	5.82

xWAR

The following graph is simply a predicted fWAR value using only FIP and IP as described in this post.  It serves as an approximation of fWAR worth.

The NL Central five slot pitchers have as much trouble as the AL East pitchers.  However, it differs from the AL East in that there is not much talent here.

Below is the NL Central xWAR by Slot Table.

	1	2	3	4	5
Brewers	4.39	3.18	2.72	1.71	1.68
Cards	5.01	4.00	3.09	1.60	0.97
Cubs	4.75	2.05	1.05	0.24	-1.76
Astros	1.99	1.96	1.84	0.50	-0.28
Pirates	2.55	2.45	1.09	0.03	-1.81
Reds	3.22	1.74	1.66	-0.50	-2.11

How Much Have the Orioles Spent on International Talent in 2010 and 2011?

The following graph was made from data supplied from Baseball America.

Perhaps with Dan Duquette, the Orioles will see themselves climb up the chart as much as the IFA signing cap permits.

NL East FIP and Pitching xWARs by Slot

There is a series of articles by Jack Sackman that you can find here.  It is an idea I found interesting an often use when I describe pitchers as a certain type of slot pitcher.  I think in common use a person referring to a guy as a one slot pitcher is more or less actually saying that the guy is a one slot pitcher on a first division team.  In other words, an ace on one of the ten best teams in baseball.  In this series of posts, I am going through each division and describing what each slot means and how that relates to teams.

AL East | Central | West
NL East | Central | West

AL Slot Summary

Methodology
For each team, slots were broken down in 32 starts per slot (for a total of 160 games).  Pitchers were ordered by FIP, lowest to highest.  They were then broken up into slots.  Their FIPs were weighted by inning allotment and a weighted average was calculated for each slot.

An example:

Chris Tillman had an FIP of 3.99 over 11 starts, Zach Britton had an FIP of 4.00 over 28 starts, and Jeremy Guthrie had an FIP of 4.51 over 32 starts.  For the purpose of this study, Tillman's 11 starts all counted for the Orioles slot 1 along with 21 of Britton's 28 starts.  The remaining 7 starts were put into the slot 2 position with 25 of Jeremy Guthrie's starts.  When a pitcher's starts are split between multiple slots, it is assumed that their FIP is equal for every inning thrown and that their IP are equal for every start.

NL East

FIP

The Phillies pitching staff was quite amazing.

Below is the NL East FIP by Slot Table.

	1	2	3	4	5
Braves	3.23	3.39	3.60	3.70	4.26
Marlins	3.14	3.49	3.56	4.08	5.26
Mets	3.35	3.78	4.01	4.44	4.57
Nationals	2.93	3.78	4.05	4.32	4.61
Phillies	2.20	2.60	3.01	3.32	4.00

xWAR

The following graph is simply a predicted fWAR value using only FIP and IP as described in this post.  It serves as an approximation of fWAR worth.

This graph shows even more clearly how remarkable the Phillies rotation was last season.  Keep in mind here that Roy Oswalt's numbers are split evenly between the 4 and 5 slots.

Below is the NL East xWAR by Slot Table.

	1	2	3	4	5
Braves	3.58	3.69	3.03	2.38	1.52
Marlins	4.30	3.42	3.15	1.72	-1.82
Mets	3.56	2.94	2.01	0.92	0.55
Nationals	4.53	2.47	1.87	0.99	0.23
Phillies	7.29	6.32	5.03	3.65	1.69