Originally Posted by
Hondo
Well if that isn't a horrible way to look at how many wins were possibly added to the Brewers record.
According to http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/112441674.html
The additions of Greinke and Marcum will give Roenicke many options as to how to align his starting rotation. The general thinking is that Greinke, Gallardo and Marcum will line up in some fashion as the top three, with left-handers Randy Wolf and Chris Narveson at the bottom of pack.
I will try and look at this in terms of win projects based off the last season, while taking into account what was replaced. Brewers starters accounted for a record of 52-56. Of the three brewers expected to to stay in the rotation, they went a combined 12-9 + 13-12 + 14-7 = 39-28. So if we go by saying how many wins were "added" to the team. Then you could replace the other 2 spots in the rotation, which went a combined 13-28 with the combined record of Greinke and Marcum which was 10-14 and 13-8 respectively which is 23-22, effectively "adding" 10 wins only assuming they are replacing the bottom 2 pitchers in the rotation.
Even this is not a satisfactory way to access what was added to the starting rotation of the brewers lineup, since so many things factor into win numbers than just the starting pitcher. Also, don't even bother quoting how many wins Saito "adds" to the Brewers, because if wins aren't a good way to gauge the impact a starting pitcher has, then wins for a reliever are about 10 times as useless as that. We will just count Saito as one good addition to a very bad bullpen.
It better to look at it in terms of runs allowed, although that is not ideal because there are still a lot of factors that go into it but it is easy to analyze, and we will look at the stats with only respect to last year. The Brewers starters accounted for a 4.65 ERA, in 921 innings. When you consider the contributions from the three starters expected to remain in the Brewers rotation, the other 2 spots in the rotation accounted for 69 starts, 352 IP, and a 5.21 ERA. When you put Marcum and Greinke into this rotation, along with the remaining starts left over using these average stats for the "6th starter spot" for any spots starts needed due to injury, the team ERA goes down to 4.17 and would have ranked tied for 16th with the Twins and Red Sox. For reference the Reds starting pitchers ERA was 4.05 (13th) last season and the Cardinals was 3.50 (2nd).
Numbers:
Code:
2010 Wolf Gallar Narve Other Grein Marc Spot Starts NewRotation
starts 162 34 31 28 69 33 31 5 162
IP 921 216 185 168 352 220 195 26 1010
ERA 4.65 4.17 3.84 4.99 5.21 4.17 3.64 5.21 4.17
For next season I would predict Marcum staying consistent in his ERA around 3.5-4.00, and I would possibly predict Greinke somewhere in the 4.00 range +/- .5 since I don't want to look at how much more hitters friendly the NL central is compared to the AL central. So, based off this limited evaluation of what the Brewers are replacing, you will probably see them run about middle of the pack in terms of runs allowed, maybe slightly better depending on injuries and performance of the rotation, since there is a big dropoff when it comes to what replaces any of those startes since the Brewers lack the depth that the Reds have in the starting rotation.
