FanPost

10 thoughts following the Kazmir and Maeda signings - Part 1


This has been an interesting offseason for the Dodgers on the pitching front. They missed on the biggest starting pitching free agents, signed Kazmir and Maeda innovating in the deal structures and traded for Chapman only to back-off the deal after a domestic incident emerged. But after all this activity, what is the situation of the team in the pitchers front in preparation for next season? What are the strategies that the team is following to build its roster? In trying to answer these questions I came up with 10 thoughts. Following are the first 5 of them:

1. There was an inevitable feeling of dissapointment once the Dodgers missed on Greinke and did not pursue Price. But the rotation is still set to be a strenght for the team in 2016. If we assume that Kershaw, Kazmir, Anderson and Wood deliver same fWARs than 2016, Maeda offers a #3/4 WAR of 2.0 and the rest of the starters (there are going to be some injuries along the way) contribute a meager 1.0 WAR (similar to last year) the starters as a group would provide an 18.3 WAR, very similar to last year's 18.0 which was good for 2nd in baseball behind the Cubs. Sure there should be some regression but you get the point. Basically solidyfing the back end of the starting staff and building starting depth should mostly offset the drop from Greinke to Kazmir at #2.

2. Kazmir is actually a reasonable #2 pitcher. Amongst starters that pitched at least 100 innings, last year Kazmir ranked 17th in ERA with 3.10 and 58th in fWAR with 2.4. He was also 50th in innings pitched with 183. If we take the last 3 years, amongst pitchers with 300+ innings he was 44th in ERA (3.54), 38th in fWAR (8.2) and even 48th in FIP (3.61). The stuff has held steady in this period so there are no major red lights. Because of that the key projection outlets have Kazmir delivering about a 3.55 and close to 3 WARs in 2016 in about 170 innings pitched as Eric very well documented. That's perfectly middle of the pack for a #2 these days: Kazmir would have ranked 45th in ERA and 38th in fWAR with those numbers in 2015. By the way in Kazmir the Dodgers are getting one of the best change-ups in the game, a pitch with a 224 / 262 / 314 slash line (70 WRC+). Kazmir's change-up has the best separation vs the FB in the major leagues: 15.3 mph as Jeff Sullivan from Fangraphs showed, well ahead of John Lamb who comes second at 13.7 mph. Also the change-up has driven the effectiveness of his fastball (a two seamer) by changing the timing of hitters. The FB has been good for .676 OPS well better than major league average.

3. I believe that there is upside in Kenta Maeda but is difficult to find a good comp for him. In his last 6 years in the Japan Central League Maeda has been impressive delivering an ERA between 2.60 and 1.81 every year. There are a few things that Maeda does specially well, mainly locating his pitches in the lower / outside corner of hitters (two seamer with arm side action to lefties and slider to righties), minimizing walks (at or below 2.0 walks per 9 innings pitched every one of the last 7 years), and keeping hitters off-balance with a low usage of his FB (about 40% of time), a high usage of the slider against righties and mixing his change-up against lefties. However as a smallish pitcher (listed at 6'0" and 154 lbs) with a heater that averages 89 to 90 mph, and someone who does not feature a splitter (which has been a trademark of some of the most successful Japanese pitchers) it is easy to understand some concerns on how his stuff will translate into the majors. He has been consistently projected as a #4 starter but his track record and outstanding ability to locate his pitches give him upside in my point of view.

4. There has been a lot of talk regarding the Dodgers left-handed heavy rotation being an issue. In my point of view this topic is overblown. Kershaw is an ace vs both left handed and right handed hitters. Kazmir (.656 career OPS vs righties and .744 vs lefties), Anderson (.693 vs righties and .732 vs lefties) and even Ryu (.644 vs righties and .707 vs lefties) all have at least some level of reverse splits. Also the signing of Maeda has helped bring some right handed balance to the line-up. That leaves Alex Wood as the only lefty that is significantly worse against righties. Daniel Brim in Dodgers Digest made a similar point using a much thorough way of modeling this issue (interestingly I wrote this before reading his piece but the conclusions are identical). In summary there is no reason to suspect that the Dodgers starting pitcher will not be effective vs opposite hand hitters.

5. The main risk for the Dodgers starting staff, beyond the always present risk of injury is fatigue and the possibility of a declining production by the end of the season. Kazmir's 2nd half ERA was 3.86 vs 2.49 in the first half. Brett Anderson had a similar drop from 3.17 to 4.48. Alex Wood drop was less dramatic (from 3.76 to 3.95) but he delivered an era of 4.52 in Sept/Oct while losing a full mph in his FB velo. Japanese pitchers are accustomed to throw just once a week so Maeda could also be a victim of end of season exhaustion. For a team that intends to not only make it to the post-season but eventually win it all, this risk is not a minor one. Maybe Urias, DeLeon or another prospect sould make an impact by the end of the year. Or maybe Ryu and McCarthy come back from injury and become difference makers in the second half. But most probably the Dodgers will have to define a plan to give some level of rest throughout the season to the starters not named Kershaw to keep them fresher so that they can contribute to their potential in the post-season.

This is a fan-written post that is in no way affiliated with or related to any of the authors or editors of True Blue LA. The opinions reflected in this post do not necessarily reflect those of True Blue LA, its authors or editors.