Murphy: On Kevin Correia

Pi Press reporter Brian Murphy interviews Kevin Correia and gets his side of the story, but also isn't afraid to interject Twins fans concerns:

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Pittsburgh banished Correia to the bullpen in August to make room for a prospect. He was chased after less than six innings in 27 of his 32 starts. Among NL starters, his ratio of 4.68 strikeouts per nine innings ranked 45th, with a groundball rate of 51.2 percent.

In other words, Correia pitches to contact and trusts his defense to make plays behind him.

"I hate pitch to contact," he said. "I'm not trying to have anybody hit anything I throw."

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http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_22610767/minnesota-twins-kevin-correia-focused-wins-not-style

My favorite quote of this writeup:

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"This guy (Correia) has a proven track record. He knows how to pitch," manager Ron Gardenhire said.

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Emphasis, mine. And I just hope I am not the only one who sees a disconnect between Correia's "proven track record" and "knowing how to pitch".

1st off... Correia didn't make 32 starts... He made 27 starts... He reached at least 6 innings in 19 of those starts.

2nd... Correia... Wasn't banished to the bullpen for a prospect... Wandy Rodriquez was the one who banished him and prior to that he was part of a rotation that was in contention for the NL Central and he was back into the rotation after 4 starts were given to someone else.

Kevin Correia wasn't my first choice but do we really need to negatively mis represent what actually happened in 2012.

Yeah that is pretty bad. He meant "appearances," and "7 innings."

Earlier this off season with discussion on starting pitchers often assigning a number to a pitcher. I began to wonder what performance can be expected from a number 3 (or 1, 2, 4, 5) pitcher.

I took the last three years taking the top 150 (30 x 5) pitcher per year. I sorted them by ERA-. While not a predictive measure, it is descriptive of performance and normalizes for park, league and year. I found that the median pitcher had an ERA- of 101-102 meaning he was about 1-2% worse than league average. This was not surprising as relievers have better ERAs and the best starters pitch more innings. The number 3 starters (ranked 61-90) had ERA- ranges of 94-109.

So a pitcher with a 109 ERA- was a borderline number 3 pitcher. A pitcher with an ERA 9% worse than league average.

What add to this thread?

Kevin Correia landed in the 90th slot last year according to data from his starts. He ranked ahead of 60 starting pitchers. His performance according to ERA- was that of a borderline number 3 starter.

I know that his predictive stats tell a different story. His FIP- and xFIP- put him in the mid number 4 range. I know that his performance in previous years did not rank as high.

My purpose wasn't to project player performance. It was just to describe what kind of performance can be expected from a number X starter. I was surprised to find that if I want to know what performance to expect from a border line number three starter, I can look to Kevin Correia's performance in 2012.

Correia's ERA- over the last 3 years is 129.

158th of all SPs in that timeframe (min 200 IP)

Fangraphs has him as 6th highest (not good) of 128 pitchers (qualified) in ERA- at 127 for 2010-12. At #1 and #2, Nick Blackburn and Jason Marquis....

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Originally Posted by Willihammer

Correia's ERA- over the last 3 years is 129.

158th of all SPs in that timeframe (min 200 IP)

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While that 129 does not predict how he will pitch this year, it is descriptive of a performance in the middle of the number 5s. It isn't hard to find data to support that Correia will be a well below average starting pitcher.

I commented because I was surprised to find anything that pointed to something other than a number 5 pitcher.

When the Twins signed him, they must see the 2011 all star and borderline number 3 starter. On those terms, they found a bargain. It is hard to look at the metrics and see what the Twins see.

It is possible that he will put together a few good months, get lucky with the BABIP and perform like a number 3 starter. At that point, the Twins can trade him. It is also possible that he will pitch like Marquis. Most likely he will land somewhere in between, working hard and performing at a level 25-30 percent off league average while taking the ball every 5th day.

I've been critical of Correia all offseason, but that article was terrible. As mentioned above, several facts were wrong and Murphy's resentment for the signing was not presented very well. Leave the subjectivity to clowns like us, make your point with (accurate) facts and (accurate) stats not with inflamatory words like banished and chased.

Go ahead and say the Twins overpaid, but please explain to the average fan WHY it was considered an overpay, and perhaps cite an expert who agrees with the premise, all of them do. We need the local media to hold our teams accountable, but it needs to be done professionally and the derision probably needs to be aimed more toward the front office than it does toward the actual player who has little control over his physical limitations.

That being said, it's hard not to do a hatchet job on a guy who says, "I hate pitch to contact, I'm not trying to have anybody hit anything I throw" but produces some of the worst strikeout numbers in the leauge. He left that meatball hanging there for anyone to crush.

On the plus side, it does sound like Correia has a chip on his shoulder, probably due to nattering nabobs of negativity like us. It could serve him well.

TR is a cheap skate. He will never pay a good player if he can get a deal on an injured or undervalued "deal". Forget about the prospects too because he will let them go as soon as they deserve a big pay check and can leave. Billy Smith was the worst GM in history not named Mchale but he was at least not cheap like TR. No matter what anyone thinks of the over blown player salaries, they are what they are. Terry either needs to evolve or get out of the job. The problem is no longer the Pohlad family. The kids will spend money to have a winner but they will not just spend money to spend money. We need an aggressive GM like Billy Smith with the baseball mind of Terry Ryan to show the Pohlad's what their best return on their investment will be.

Side note, am I the only one that was shocked by TR saying that he was looking forward to seeing the kid we traded Span for from the Nationals A level affiliate? He said that he made the deal based on what the scouts told him and did not look at any film or see him pitch live. He has to realize how rare a quality proven Major League CFer is that can leadoff. I thought the value of TR is that he can see minor league talent and see who the best bets are. If we just take guys based on where Baseball America or some scout ranks them, then I can do his job. If we have to put up with his cheapness, I was hoping that he at least could find us some diamonds in the rough like the trade that got him Nathan, Bonzer and Liriano for Priezinski. I am starting to feel that he was just lucky on that one and had some scouts tell him to take those guys. These trades that gave away our two best major league CFers (and both #1 draft picks too) on the depth charts for these prospects I would have done a heck of a lot of research on these kids and find tape of them singing in the Kindergarten spring play if I had to before pulling the trigger on this deal. I know this is a seperate point but I am just getting more and more worried that our GM is in way over his head AGAIN!

I think we should give the kid Correia a chance to pitch first before we complain to much. He might be the best we have.

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Originally Posted by RodneyKline

TR is a cheap skate. He will never pay a good player if he can get a deal on an injured or undervalued "deal". Forget about the prospects too because he will let them go as soon as they deserve a big pay check and can leave. Billy Smith was the worst GM in history not named Mchale but he was at least not cheap like TR. No matter what anyone thinks of the over blown player salaries, they are what they are. Terry either needs to evolve or get out of the job. The problem is no longer the Pohlad family. The kids will spend money to have a winner but they will not just spend money to spend money. We need an aggressive GM like Billy Smith with the baseball mind of Terry Ryan to show the Pohlad's what their best return on their investment will be.


Side note, am I the only one that was shocked by TR saying that he was looking forward to seeing the kid we traded Span for from the Nationals A level affiliate? He said that he made the deal based on what the scouts told him and did not look at any film or see him pitch live. He has to realize how rare a quality proven Major League CFer is that can leadoff. I thought the value of TR is that he can see minor league talent and see who the best bets are. If we just take guys based on where Baseball America or some scout ranks them, then I can do his job. If we have to put up with his cheapness, I was hoping that he at least could find us some diamonds in the rough like the trade that got him Nathan, Bonzer and Liriano for Priezinski. I am starting to feel that he was just lucky on that one and had some scouts tell him to take those guys. These trades that gave away our two best major league CFers (and both #1 draft picks too) on the depth charts for these prospects I would have done a heck of a lot of research on these kids and find tape of them singing in the Kindergarten spring play if I had to before pulling the trigger on this deal. I know this is a seperate point but I am just getting more and more worried that our GM is in way over his head AGAIN!

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This post is all kinds of awesome.

What exactly is the rationale behind using ERA- as a tool over ERA+? I ask because up until recently, I had never seen ERA- used. Is it just corrected to reflect the higher ERA-, the worse it is?

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Originally Posted by edavis0308

What exactly is the rationale behind using ERA- as a tool over ERA+? I ask because up until recently, I had never seen ERA- used. Is it just corrected to reflect the higher ERA-, the worse it is?

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Fangraphs uses ERA- to go along with their FIP- and xFIP-.

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/ind.../era-fip-xfip/

Intuitively it makes more sense (lower ERA is better), as well as the minus version correcting the calculation flaws that exist in the plus version.

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Originally Posted by Riverbrian

1st off... Correia didn't make 32 starts... He made 27 starts... He reached at least 6 innings in 19 of those starts.

2nd... Correia... Wasn't banished to the bullpen for a prospect... Wandy Rodriquez was the one who banished him and prior to that he was part of a rotation that was in contention for the NL Central and he was back into the rotation after 4 starts were given to someone else.

Kevin Correia wasn't my first choice but do we really need to negatively mis represent what actually happened in 2012.

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When Wandy Rodriguez is brought into your rotation, he doesn't replace the #1 or #2 starter. He replaces the #5 starter, in this case, Correia.

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Originally Posted by edavis0308

What exactly is the rationale behind using ERA- as a tool over ERA+? I ask because up until recently, I had never seen ERA- used. Is it just corrected to reflect the higher ERA-, the worse it is?

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Beside what Snepp said, there is also a battle for stats between a lot of the websites out there so everyone wants to use their own stats to market their site. Baseball reference and fangraphs have their own versions of WAR, baseball prospectus has VORP, I believe.

Thanks guys.