Post by sharksrog on Dec 31, 2012 17:30:58 GMT -5
The Giants had the 6th-best pitching in the National League in 2012. How should they fare in 2013?
Starting rotation -- The present Big 3 of Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong should see minimal if any decline.
New 4th starter and former two-time Cy Young Awarfd winner Tim Lincecum should improve by close to a run and a half from his inexplicable 5.18 ERA of last season.
Fifth starter Barry Zito will likely see a regression of between half and a full run.
Let's call Tim's improvement 1.25 runs and Barry's decline 0.75 runs. That would mean a conbined improvement of 0.10 runs among all five Giants starters.
Bullpen: With the exception of the now-departed Clay Hensley and former closer Santiago Casilla, the Giants' primary relievers seem likely to decline.
Sergio Romo's 1.79 ERA seems likely to rise a little, as he faces added pressure and perhaps increased innings as the new closer. His career ERA is 2.20.
Jeremy Affeldt's 2.70 ERA seems likely to rise. His career ERA in four seasons with the Giants is 2.73, but he will be 34 years old this coming season. At least a slight increase wouldn't be surprising.
Javier Lopez's 2.50 ERA was in the range of his 2.42 career mark with the Giants, but his WHIP leaped to 1.42, and he will turn 35. An increase seems likely.
Casilla's 2.84 ERA was well above his 2.21 career mark with the Giants. With a somewhat lesser role this season, he could well seee his ERA drop a bit.
Although his end-of-spring training acquisition for just Chris Stewart was heralded here, for most, George Kontos came from nowhere to post a 2.70 ERA in a variety of roles. He seems unlikely to repeat.
With a 2.55 ERA in a little less than two months after being claimed on waivers from the Royals, Jose Mijares was a factor that added another southpaw arm for Bruce Bochy to use in his lefty-righty bullpen creativity. Mijares will likely regress a little, but he should be a nice improvement over Clay Hensley's 4.62.
No one else in the bullpen pitched a lot of innings, and with Heath Hembree on the horizon, the Giants should achieve a bit of an improvement in their bullpen depth.
Overall, a slight step back for the bullpen could be expected. With Romo, Affeldt, Kontos and Lopez likely to decline, with potential improvement from Santiago, and with more innings from Mijares and Hembree, a regression of perhaps 0.20 runs in the bullpen might be expected -- the same as the improvement of the starters.
Since the starters pitch roughly twice as many innings as the bullpen, we might expect the team ERA to remain about the same as in 2012.
Each season is different, of course, but barring an important injury, there seems little reason for the pitching staff to fall apart. An improvement to somewhere between the staff ERA of 3.20 in 2011 and last season's 3.68 seems more likely.
But all in all, the staff appears to have more depth than at the start of last season, but also has several pitchers coming off very good seasons. On balance, it seems hard to predict a big move in either direction, and the overall expectation may be that the team ERA will be little-changed.
What we saw in 2012 is what we might get -- although the pieces are likely to respond in a different way.
By the way, most of the increase in the Giants' ERA in 2012 came from Lincecum -- as could much of any improvement in 2013.
Starting rotation -- The present Big 3 of Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong should see minimal if any decline.
New 4th starter and former two-time Cy Young Awarfd winner Tim Lincecum should improve by close to a run and a half from his inexplicable 5.18 ERA of last season.
Fifth starter Barry Zito will likely see a regression of between half and a full run.
Let's call Tim's improvement 1.25 runs and Barry's decline 0.75 runs. That would mean a conbined improvement of 0.10 runs among all five Giants starters.
Bullpen: With the exception of the now-departed Clay Hensley and former closer Santiago Casilla, the Giants' primary relievers seem likely to decline.
Sergio Romo's 1.79 ERA seems likely to rise a little, as he faces added pressure and perhaps increased innings as the new closer. His career ERA is 2.20.
Jeremy Affeldt's 2.70 ERA seems likely to rise. His career ERA in four seasons with the Giants is 2.73, but he will be 34 years old this coming season. At least a slight increase wouldn't be surprising.
Javier Lopez's 2.50 ERA was in the range of his 2.42 career mark with the Giants, but his WHIP leaped to 1.42, and he will turn 35. An increase seems likely.
Casilla's 2.84 ERA was well above his 2.21 career mark with the Giants. With a somewhat lesser role this season, he could well seee his ERA drop a bit.
Although his end-of-spring training acquisition for just Chris Stewart was heralded here, for most, George Kontos came from nowhere to post a 2.70 ERA in a variety of roles. He seems unlikely to repeat.
With a 2.55 ERA in a little less than two months after being claimed on waivers from the Royals, Jose Mijares was a factor that added another southpaw arm for Bruce Bochy to use in his lefty-righty bullpen creativity. Mijares will likely regress a little, but he should be a nice improvement over Clay Hensley's 4.62.
No one else in the bullpen pitched a lot of innings, and with Heath Hembree on the horizon, the Giants should achieve a bit of an improvement in their bullpen depth.
Overall, a slight step back for the bullpen could be expected. With Romo, Affeldt, Kontos and Lopez likely to decline, with potential improvement from Santiago, and with more innings from Mijares and Hembree, a regression of perhaps 0.20 runs in the bullpen might be expected -- the same as the improvement of the starters.
Since the starters pitch roughly twice as many innings as the bullpen, we might expect the team ERA to remain about the same as in 2012.
Each season is different, of course, but barring an important injury, there seems little reason for the pitching staff to fall apart. An improvement to somewhere between the staff ERA of 3.20 in 2011 and last season's 3.68 seems more likely.
But all in all, the staff appears to have more depth than at the start of last season, but also has several pitchers coming off very good seasons. On balance, it seems hard to predict a big move in either direction, and the overall expectation may be that the team ERA will be little-changed.
What we saw in 2012 is what we might get -- although the pieces are likely to respond in a different way.
By the way, most of the increase in the Giants' ERA in 2012 came from Lincecum -- as could much of any improvement in 2013.