As the Los Angeles Dodgers were in the process of rebounding from an interesting and disappoint offseason, they were labeled as having the best starting rotation in the National League.
Wait, what?
Better than the New York Mets (Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Zack Wheeler and Bartolo Colon)?
And better than the Washington Nationals (Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Tanner Roark and Joe Ross)?
Must be a typo, right?
Well, not really. And the reason is rather simple: while fans are drawn to the top two or three names on a list, what often makes one rotation great and another average at the end of the season are those who fall beyond the No. 1 and 2 spots.
Last season Dodgers starters threw 979.1 innings, but of those, only 455.1 came from Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.
Yes, the Dodgers had the two best pitchers in baseball in 2015, but 50 percent of the team’s innings came from other starters — a lot of other starters.
Los Angeles sent 16 different pitchers to the mound as a starter last season, which was an MLB-high. This list included the likes of Scott Baker (two starts), David Huff (one start), Joe Wieland (one start) and Ian Thomas (one start), among others.
While the aforementioned names were called on for a spot start, the Dodgers’ season largely rested on the shoulders of Mike Bolsinger (21 starts) and Carlos Frias (13 starts), who combined to fill the shoes of a full-time starter.
While this seemed to be a serviceable combination, relying once more on Bolsinger and Frias for 34 starts is best avoided. Which is precisely where it seems the offseason plan came in.
CONTINUE READING: Dodgers’ Offseason Plan Valued Quantity Over Quality
Yes, the Dodgers missed out on Zack Greinke and all of the other top-line starters who were free agents, but while they whiffed (better word: passed) on high-end quality, they’ve more than made up for it in quantity.
Reverting back to the “best rotation in the NL” claim, it can be explained easily: more innings from good pitchers are comparable (from a value perspective) to less innings from a great pitcher.
To illustrate, ask yourself this question, would you rather get 222.2 innings from Greinke and 139 innings from Frias, Mat Latos, Thomas, Juan Nicasio, Zach Lee, Brandon Beachy, Yimi Garcia, Wieland, Huff and Scott Baker or 180 innings each from Scott Kazmir and Kenta Maeda?
While Greinke allowed just 41 earned runs in his share of those innings, the rest combined to allow 89 earned runs in two-thirds of the innings — good for a 5.77 ERA.
Now, this isn’t to say that signing Greinke (in theory) wouldn’t have been a good idea. It’s more that there are other ways of reaching or, in this case, getting close, to the type of production that one elite pitcher can get you.
In signing two pitchers instead of one, it gives the Dodgers opening day starting rotation of something like Clayton Kershaw, Kazmir, Maeda, Brett Anderson and Alex Wood. As NEIFI Analytics summed it up:
#Dodgers 2-5 spots sum up to exact same RAR as #Dbacks and #Giants. Now consider the 1-spot.
— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) December 30, 2015
That tweet was just over one week prior to the news that Maeda had been signed to an eight-year contract was made official. Should a pitcher get injured, the Dodgers have Hyun-Jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy eventually returning from injury.
Both conceivably could serve as the club’s No. 2 and 3 starter, respectively. Additionally, the Dodgers still have Bolsinger, and prospects Jharel Cotton, Jose De Leon, Frankie Montas and Julio Urias all waiting in the wings.
To frame this optimistically, the Dodgers have the best No. 1 starting pitcher in baseball, one of the best groups two through five, and arguably the best depth from the six spot and beyond.
So, no, Los Angeles doesn’t have the best 1-2 combination in baseball anymore, but for just north of $70 million less and with three more total contract years, it’s appears they’ll manage just fine.