I think Arroyo will have a better 2011 than Carpenter, although a lot label Carpenter a legit #1. Carpenter just eclipsed 200 inn for the 4th time in his career. So far he's only followed up a 200+ inn season successfully once. Maybe it's a little circumstantial, but for a 13 year vet pitcher, to only have one successful follow up to a full workload once. The other thing that stuck out last year is for a #1 type, Carpenter sure gave up a lot of unearned runs, maybe it's his defense, or some of his emotion. If you compare the runs they gave up, Arroyo was very close last year.
I also think there was home cooking in St L, by the official scorer, to make their starters ERA's look lower. There top 7 starters combined for 55 unearned runs 21 on the road, while 34 at home. Conversely the Reds top 7 combined for 29 unearned runs 18 on the road, while only 11 at home. Maybe it's a coincidence, but for the staffs to give up about the same amount of road unearned runs, but a 3:1 difference at each team's home park, I think is fairly substantial. I always used to think Atlanta's starters had generous scoring to boost stats in the 90s, and St Louis strikes me as being that way as well now. Just a small ERA boost can make a pitching coach look good.
Player Inn ER R ERA RA UR H UR A
Chris Carpenter 235.00 84 99 3.22 3.79 4 11
Adam Wainwrigh230.33 62 68 2.42 2.66 5 1
Jaime Garcia 163.33 49 64 2.7 3.53 11 4
Jeff Suppan 101.00 57 61 5.06 5.44 3 1
Kyle Lohse 92.00 67 75 6.55 7.34 6 2
Jake Westbrook 75.00 29 31 3.48 3.72 0 2
Brad Penny 55.67 20 25 3.23 4.04 5 0
952.33 368 423 3.48 4.00 34 21
Bronson Arroyo 215.67 93 95 3.88 3.96 2 0
Johnny Cueto 185.67 75 79 3.64 3.83 2 2
Mike Leake 138.33 65 77 4.23 5.01 2 10
Aaron Harang 111.33 66 71 5.32 5.74 5 0
Homer Bailey 109.00 54 55 4.46 4.54 0 1
Travis Wood 102.67 40 45 3.51 3.94 0 5
Edinson Volquez 62.67 30 30 4.31 4.31 0 0
925.33 423 452 4.11 4.40 11 18
