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Lookout Landing broke down rotation spots by TRA+ in 2008 (http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/9/23/618821/rotation-slots-in-reality).  I assume those numbers are still relevant.  TRA+ is available at http://statcorner.com.

1 -- 2 BARRIER: 118 tRA+
2 -- 3 BARRIER: 106 tRA+
3 -- 4 BARRIER: 95 tRA+
4 -- 5 BARRIER: 86 tRA+

One thing that is very important to note about these figures is that to be useful you need to account for a presumed number of innings pitched. For example, the way that the author of this article figured out these tRA+ figures is by ranking all starters by quality, and then using inning thresholds to determine the cutoff. For #1 starters, he presumed 200 IP, so the top 6000 IP of performance was used to determine the quality of a #1 starter. But since he (and anyone else who does a study like this, the seminal one being Sackmann's, which the author of this article references) presumes innings totals, you have to list the innings totals as part of what makes a #1 starter. If a starter can maintain a 106 tRA+ but you can't count on him for 192 IP, he is not truly a #2 starter.

So to flesh out the data that Matt provided, the cutoffs for each rotation spot are:
#1 = 118 tRA+ 200 IP
#2 = 106 tRA+ 192 IP
#3 = 95 tRA+ 183 IP
#4 = 86 tRA+ 175 IP
#5 = anything worse

When you look at it that way, it's not so easy to be a #3 starter! What ends up happening is that teams try to find guys who are much better than average, knowing that they're probably not going to go a whole season without injuries to their pitchers. But by the same token, this is a big part of the reason that guys like Duke and Maholm are valuable - especially Maholm. You can count on them for 180+ IP, which even with mediocre performances makes them very valuable. Over the past four years, Maholm has thrown 739.1 innings with tRA+s of 99, 107, 107, and 82. If you guess that he'll throw 25 more innings or so this year, that's an average of about 188 IP and a tRA of 95-100. That makes him a #3 starter easily. Duke is neither as good nor as reliable; he's pitched 642.2 innings with tRA+s of 77, 98, 104, and 74. If you figure 20 more IP for him this year, that's about 165 IP and a 85-95 tRA+. That's around the border of a 4/5 starter - good enough quality to be a #4, but not quite the innings.

Compare that to someone like Jorge de la Rosa, whose name has been tossed out there by a few people as someone who would be an upgrade for the rotation. He's thrown 533.1 innings with tRA+s of 82, 114, 117, and 106. Obviously, that's much better quality than Duke or Maholm, but far less durability. Figuring another 25 IP this season, and it's about 140 IP with a tRA+ of 105-115. If you wanted to be generous, you could bump the innings total up to 150 to account for the fact that he pitched out of the 'pen a bit in 2007-08. But anyway, that's #2 starter quality with #5 starter durability. One way to compare that to what Maholm does is to add in another 40 IP of replacement level starting pitching to even things out, since when de la Rosa can't start, his team has to use it's Karstenses and McCutchenses in his place. Replacement level tRA+ is about 75, so with de la Rosa plus a replacement you'd get about 190 IP with a 95-100 tRA+, or basically exactly what you'd get from Maholm.

Um, so I guess I just wanted to point out that it's very important to factor durability into your assessments of starting pitchers, and then I had fun playing around with the numbers. Hope some of you found this interesting.

I would have to throw this evaluation method out from the start.  First it doesn't account for context.  We can only count on 180+ innings from Duke and Maholm because their are almost no other options.  When the entire staff is bad, someone still has to pitch.  That's how Duke and Maholm get their innings.  Second, any evaluation method that shows Duke and Maholm as threes or having value is clearly a highly flawed system.  As we saw in another thread, Duke and by extension his twins, Maholm are not good.

While I have my issues with WAR, it does seem to capture the quality of this year's staff.  Using the WAR standard, this year's rotation is nothing but 5th starters and worse.

http://www.fangraphs.com/winss.aspx?team=Pirates&pos=all&stats=pit&qual=0&type=6&season=2010&month=0

I'll be on ESPN 1430 in Altoona tomorrow around 5:45 PM to discuss Pirates prospects and Altoona Curve baseball with Corey Giger. Can also be heard on AM 1450 in State College.  I'll have a link to a web stream at some point tomorrow.

Cool.  Hopefully you don't have a high, squeeky voice or something, LOL.   

    If you did not hear,the Dodgers called up John Lindsey who had spent 16 seasons in the minors without making the majors. Great story of perseverance 

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100906&content_id=14378532&notebook_id=14382300&vkey=notebook_la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la


   He made his ML debut today in the top of the 8th inning with 1 out,2 runners on and the Dodgers trailing the Padres 4-0. Must've been an amazing moment for him to hear his name called over the loud speaker as he began his walk towards home plate. In fact Bud Black the Padres manager wanted to come out to shake his hand I guess....oh wait,he's bringing in the righty from the bullpen and Andre Ethier grabbed a helmet and bat in the dugout. Good job John Lindsey,hit the showers,you've waited 16 years and 1571 minor league games to have your major league debut consist of:

J. Lindsey hit for S. Podsednik 
- L. Gregerson relieved J. Thatcher 
- A. Ethier hit for J. Lindsey 


  But hey,he's now in the baseball encyclopedia right between Moonlight Graham's 1 inning on defense with no plays and Larry Yount getting injured during him warmup pitches for his ML debut and never making the majors again

With 20+ games left, I'm sure Torre will get him in a meaningless game. And with the Dodgers record...most of their remaining games are meaningless. Like the 4 this weekend with Houston.

Oh, by the way, the much, much easier way to judge this is by looking at WAR projections, since WAR factors in both quality and quantity. So, if you look at the updated CHONE projections - http://baseballprojection.com/2010/august2010p.htm - you can see that de la Rosa projects as a 2.5 WAR pitcher - a neutral ERA of 4.05 but only 139 IP. Maholm projects to have a worse neutral ERA (4.31) but still be a roughly equivalent pitcher (2.8 WAR) because of greater durability/dependability (186 IP). Just by doing a quick scan-test, I'd guess the chart would be something like:

#1 starter = 4+ WAR
#2 = 3-4 WAR
#3 = 2.5-3 WAR
#4 = 2-2.5 WAR
#5 = 1.5-2 WAR

That's just a quick estimate, though. Maybe tomorrow I'll sort through and figure it out for real. By that chart, the Pirates have one #3 (Maholm), one 4/5 (Duke), and a bunch of garbage, though CHONE is still projecting McDonald as a reliever instead of a starter.

edit: Those projections for Maholm and de la Rosa, by the way, are not projections of what they're final stat-lines for the season will be. They are projections of true talent for a full ML season.

    If you did not hear,the Dodgers called up John Lindsey who had spent 16 seasons in the minors without making the majors. Great story of perseverance 

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100906&content_id=14378532&notebook_id=14382300&vkey=notebook_la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la


   He made his ML debut today in the top of the 8th inning with 1 out,2 runners on and the Dodgers trailing the Padres 4-0. Must've been an amazing moment for him to hear his name called over the loud speaker as he began his walk towards home plate. In fact Bud Black the Padres manager wanted to come out to shake his hand I guess....oh wait,he's bringing in the righty from the bullpen and Andre Ethier grabbed a helmet and bat in the dugout. Good job John Lindsey,hit the showers,you've waited 16 years and 1571 minor league games to have your major league debut consist of:

J. Lindsey hit for S. Podsednik 
- L. Gregerson relieved J. Thatcher 
- A. Ethier hit for J. Lindsey 


  But hey,he's now in the baseball encyclopedia right between Moonlight Graham's 1 inning on defense with no plays and Larry Yount getting injured during him warmup pitches for his ML debut and never making the majors again

Lookout Landing broke down rotation spots by TRA+ in 2008 (http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/9/23/618821/rotation-slots-in-reality).  I assume those numbers are still relevant.  TRA+ is available at http://statcorner.com.

1 -- 2 BARRIER: 118 tRA+
2 -- 3 BARRIER: 106 tRA+
3 -- 4 BARRIER: 95 tRA+
4 -- 5 BARRIER: 86 tRA+

One thing that is very important to note about these figures is that to be useful you need to account for a presumed number of innings pitched. For example, the way that the author of this article figured out these tRA+ figures is by ranking all starters by quality, and then using inning thresholds to determine the cutoff. For #1 starters, he presumed 200 IP, so the top 6000 IP of performance was used to determine the quality of a #1 starter. But since he (and anyone else who does a study like this, the seminal one being Sackmann's, which the author of this article references) presumes innings totals, you have to list the innings totals as part of what makes a #1 starter. If a starter can maintain a 106 tRA+ but you can't count on him for 192 IP, he is not truly a #2 starter.

So to flesh out the data that Matt provided, the cutoffs for each rotation spot are:
#1 = 118 tRA+ 200 IP
#2 = 106 tRA+ 192 IP
#3 = 95 tRA+ 183 IP
#4 = 86 tRA+ 175 IP
#5 = anything worse

When you look at it that way, it's not so easy to be a #3 starter! What ends up happening is that teams try to find guys who are much better than average, knowing that they're probably not going to go a whole season without injuries to their pitchers. But by the same token, this is a big part of the reason that guys like Duke and Maholm are valuable - especially Maholm. You can count on them for 180+ IP, which even with mediocre performances makes them very valuable. Over the past four years, Maholm has thrown 739.1 innings with tRA+s of 99, 107, 107, and 82. If you guess that he'll throw 25 more innings or so this year, that's an average of about 188 IP and a tRA of 95-100. That makes him a #3 starter easily. Duke is neither as good nor as reliable; he's pitched 642.2 innings with tRA+s of 77, 98, 104, and 74. If you figure 20 more IP for him this year, that's about 165 IP and a 85-95 tRA+. That's around the border of a 4/5 starter - good enough quality to be a #4, but not quite the innings.

Compare that to someone like Jorge de la Rosa, whose name has been tossed out there by a few people as someone who would be an upgrade for the rotation. He's thrown 533.1 innings with tRA+s of 82, 114, 117, and 106. Obviously, that's much better quality than Duke or Maholm, but far less durability. Figuring another 25 IP this season, and it's about 140 IP with a tRA+ of 105-115. If you wanted to be generous, you could bump the innings total up to 150 to account for the fact that he pitched out of the 'pen a bit in 2007-08. But anyway, that's #2 starter quality with #5 starter durability. One way to compare that to what Maholm does is to add in another 40 IP of replacement level starting pitching to even things out, since when de la Rosa can't start, his team has to use it's Karstenses and McCutchenses in his place. Replacement level tRA+ is about 75, so with de la Rosa plus a replacement you'd get about 190 IP with a 95-100 tRA+, or basically exactly what you'd get from Maholm.

Um, so I guess I just wanted to point out that it's very important to factor durability into your assessments of starting pitchers, and then I had fun playing around with the numbers. Hope some of you found this interesting.

I'll be on ESPN 1430 in Altoona tomorrow around 5:45 PM to discuss Pirates prospects and Altoona Curve baseball with Corey Giger. Can also be heard on AM 1450 in State College.  I'll have a link to a web stream at some point tomorrow.

    Very cool Tim!

I'll be on ESPN 1430 in Altoona tomorrow around 5:45 PM to discuss Pirates prospects and Altoona Curve baseball with Corey Giger. Can also be heard on AM 1450 in State College.  I'll have a link to a web stream at some point tomorrow.

I don't think Tim should be permitted to go to Game 2.... 

   I second that!  The Pirates have a better chance of winning on the nights Tim goes to a minor league game

Last year I was going to go to game one of the Lynchburg playoffs, and had car issues.  They lost that game.  I went to games 2 and 5 of the first round, and all three games in the championship series.  They won all five games.  My playoff record is now 5-1 after tonight.

[AS A RULE]

As a way of agreeing with DBS . . .

The almost exclusive focus by fans on the free agent market as the answer for all of a team's ills (and I'm not just talking about the Pirates) has left me more and more dumbfounded over the years.  There's a reason Marvin Miller was terrified the owners would listen to Charlie Finley and make all the players FAs every year.  That would have depressed salaries and kept them in line with performance.  Miller wanted a system that inflated salaries and divorced them from performance, so a player could get paid a princely salary for sucking for years.

Just look at the market in virtually any year.  There are typically about two to five players who can truly make a difference.  Usually, the Yankees and one or two out of the Angels, Mets, Red Sox and one or two other teams get all of them.  That leaves 80% of the teams fighting over a relative handful of second-tier players, each of whom has maybe a one in ten to twenty chance of making a real difference for the team that signs him.  A market like that AS A RULE drastically overvalues those players.  Once in a blue moon a team hits the jackpot, but in the long run looking to that market to fill your needs CAN'T succeed.  It's the exact equivalent of stuffing quarters into slot machines.  The house has stacked the odds so that only the lucky one out of many thousands can win.

And it's not only the low supply forcing prices way over the players' values.  There's also the problem of timing.  The average player hits free agency for the first time just when his performance is starting to decline.  He's going to be in the 28-31 age range, so if he's not already headed downhill, he will be typically within one to two years.  Since even the second tier players get 3-4 years (although the economy is changing that some), again the signing team almost as a rule is getting a 2-3 year albatross.

Unless you're the Yankees or a couple other teams, you CAN'T win at this game.  It's not possible.

One of the many reasons that I believe the Pirates should go with cheap, probably crappy young pitchers.  They are better than expensive, probably crappy free agent pitchers.

You're right.  The way this stuff sorts itself out every year, is that the high end guys go first and set the top end limit.  The rest have their salaries based on a downward sliding scale based on the top end.  The result is that teams almost always end up over paying for a mediocre to crap pitcher or two.

If the Pirates must get starting pitching, trade for it.  At least the pitcher's salary wasn't inflated this year.