Chris Paddack Has Earned His Rotation Spot. Now, He Just Has to Prove He Can Keep It.

There's a disconnect between acceptable for a #5, and what a team might actually just have to suck it up and eat. There were 71 pitchers in MLB who went at least 150 innings starting last year. Of those, only 10 had ERA's above 4.50. Less than 1/2 of them were expected to start the year in an MLB rotation.

Mitch Spence a27 - 4.58 ERA, lost rotation job for the Athletics.
Brandon Pfaadt a26 - 4.71 ERA, (3.61 FIP) made Diamondbacks rotation
Austin Gomber a31 - 4.75 ERA, Rockies, shoulder injury, out.
Frankie Montas a32 - 4.84 ERA, 2 year $17MM contract for Reds. Lat injury, out.
Chris Flexen a30 - 4.95 ERA, MiLB contract with the Cubs.
Griffin Canning a29 - 5.19 ERA, 1yr $4.25MM deal with Mets, IL replacement depth #6 in DC
Miles Mikolas a36 - 5.35 ERA, Under 3yr contract at $18MM AAV
Patrick Corbin a34 - 5.62 ERA, 1yr $1.1MM contract starting year in AAA IL replacement depth.

Fans who believe 4.50 ERA is acceptable for a #5 aren't being realistic IMHO. 4.50 ERA is a fast ticket to the bullpen, the minors or totally out of MLB. Guys returning to the rotation from having an ERA at or above that breakpoint are pitching not because the team really wants them in the rotation, but because the team doesn't have any good options.

This is about where the break points for a pitcher to be competitive and keep their jobs in my opinion 
0.00-3.30 Ace 
3.31-3.60 #2 
3.61-3.90 #3
3.91-4.10 #4
4.11-4.30 #5

 

2 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

It strikes me that 71 pitchers should mostly be #1 and #2 starters. There must be 60 of them. I am not sure that group gives a picture of what should be expected from a number 5 starter.

Would the picture be different if instead you selected the top 150 pitchers selected by games started and then sorted by ERA? If you want to just look at a number 5 on competitive teams I suppose you could take the teams with the top 15 records and then select 75 pitchers based on starts from that group and sort by ERA.

It is possible that a number X starter isn’t well defined but let’s no do a tedious back and forth and then eventually realize that we have different definition of a number 1 or number 2 starter. For me if you are in the top 30 starters you are a number 1 starter. I don’t start filling the number 5 spots until I have some way of clearing out the first 120. You are welcome to let me know the flaws in that thinking but let’s not go back and forth.

 

Injuries. Did pitchers not pitch because they were hurt or because the team didn't want them on the mound. That's the distinction. If the pitcher was getting roughed up with a 4.50+ ERA, it's because the team wanted a better option/result.

1 hour ago, Cody Pirkl said:

The bar for a back end starting pitcher is pretty low. Go look at the depth charts for the Mets, Yankees, Astros etc. It's unrealistic to expect an entire rotation of top end starting pitchers. 

Paddack also allowed almost 1/3 of his total runs between two starts, which is exactly why it's worth looking at more just just ERA.

Paddack's history isn't just last year on the ERA. 2021 on... 5.04, 4.03, 5.40, 4.99. You might counter about oh, well he's injured all the time so the samples are small. That's not a good reason to add him to the rotation.

1 hour ago, Cody Pirkl said:

I just think this scale sets you up for disappointment. By these measures Pablo Lopez falls into the #4-5 starter range by last seasons measures. How often do MLB teams have a consensus back end starter put up a season on par with 2024 Pablo Lopez?

No, it sets people up for a reasonable expectation. First off, Lopez has never earned the "ace" moniker a lot of people around here assigned to him. So if you're using "ace" as a starting point for your vision of Lopez, it makes sense why you might be in disbelief Lopez could have such a rough year. IMHO, Lopez has been a back end #2 or top end #3 guy. Similar to a Berrios. Last year was a bad year for Lopez. I care about results, and Lopez was a mixed bag. The evaluation I use for a pitcher's performance generally includes ERA, something like FIP and percentage of starts 5.0+ IP with ERA 3.99 or less (I just call it QS2). If a guy has a few blow up games, but is otherwise highly effective, it can distort the ERA. I don't like FIP a lot for specific pitcher applications, but it can be helpful. What I really care about most is how often a pitcher goes out there and gives the team a start that puts the team in a good position to win the game. The meltdowns matter too, but often the meltdowns are a partial function of the manager and bullpen.

Lets compare three pitchers last year.
Lopez vs. Berrios vs. Gibson vs. Sears
ERA 4.08 vs. 3.60 vs. 4.24 vs. 4.38
FIP 3.65 vs. 4.72 vs. 4.42 vs. 4.71
QS2 59% vs. 67% vs. 50% vs. 53%
Lopez had a pretty nice FIP, but he put the Twins in a less than ideal spot in quite a few starts. That said, he was better than his ERA suggests on any given day with his overall 59% QS2 suggesting he's more on par with a #3ish starter. Lopez seems to always have a "shoulda woulda coulda" number a lot better than what actually happens. His ERAs are consistently much worse than his FIPs. It's not luck at this point. People would be a lot happier if they stopped setting expectations for Lopez based on his FIP.

Berrios gave up a lot of HR, but they did minimal damage when he allowed them. It was the highest HR rate since his rookie year so while the FIP was sky high, he also probably gave up more HRs than expected, period. When it came to his starts, 67% of the time he delivered at least 5.0 innings and had an ERA of 3.99 or less. Not ace territory, but consistent with that #2/3 range that his ERA matched. Toronto usually wins the game when Berrios pitches. Even in Berrios' down years. Like his disaster of a campaign in 2022 (5.23 ERA, 4.55 FIP, 53% QS2, Blue Jays winning percentage that year with Berrios? .718).

Kyle Gibson had results pretty consistent with Pablo Lopez. He had 2 fewer starts get that QS2 thumbs up than you'd expect for Lopez starting 30 games. Gibson is viewed as back end rotation arm.

JP Sears also had results pretty similar to Lopez. I'm not sure how you view JP Sears as a starter, but I'm going to go ahead and say nobody views the guy as a mid/upper rotation option.

Pablo Lopez's results last year were consistent with a lot of guys viewed as #3/4ish starters. They were not consistent with a pitcher you'd want at the front end of your rotation.

 

20 hours ago, Cody Pirkl said:

Kind of a lot to address here for me on mobile, so I'll just say this: I didn't only cite Paddack's ERA as the reason he's a worthy back end starting pitcher. I know you say you care about results, so none of this is likely meaningful, but Paddack pitched much better than his near 5.00 ERA he wound up with.

The projection systems agree by the way. Steamer projects a 4.15 ERA for him in 2025, while the worst projection for him is a 4.41. For many people, this means absolutely nothing, which is their prerogative. Many of his numbers last season point to him deserving much better results though, and the projection systems value that and see what he could provide with the skills he's shown while healthy. 

Yeah, on mobile it's pretty impossible so thanks for responding at all, haha.

Here is my full evaluation methodology for determining a player's rotational fit.
ERA, FIP, xFIP, QS, QS2, Streak (number of QS2 in a row)

ERA is king, but sometimes it's all luck so I use FIP/xFIP (especially compared to historical differences) to buffer it a bit. I look at quality starts, QS2, and the max number of QS2 in a row trying to identify anomaly. 

There are usually patterns which emerge. Even #2 rotation pitchers rarely put together more than 4-5 QS2's in a row where Ace pitchers typically do it week in and week out for an extended stretch during a season.

Pablo Lopez 4.08 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 3.36 xFIP. QS 53%, QS2 59%, Streak = 4
Overall, that's mid rotation area.

'21-24 GS Paddack 4.94 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 3.91 xFIP, QS 25% QS2,41%, Streak = 3 

Luis Castillo 3.64 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 3.82 xFIP, QS 60%, QS2 60%, Streak = 10
MacK. Core 3.90 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 3.87 xFIP, QS 34%, QS2 56%, Streak = 4
Chris Bassitt 4.16 ERA, 4.08 FIP, 4.28 xFIP, QS 39%, QS2 45%, Streak = 5
Kyle Gibson 4.24 ERA, 4.42 FIP, 4.19 xFIP, QS 43%, QS2 50%, Streak = 5
'22 Dylan Bundy 4.89 ERA, 4.66 FIP, 4.70 xFIP, QS 7%, QS2 45%, Streak = 4

Paddack has been poor to very poor by any real result I use. He rarely goes 6+ innings, he doesn't even give the team a good chance to win a ball game half of the time. His ERA is poor and he has 2 bad starts for every 1 good one. That's over 44 starts from 2021-2024. He honestly compares to 2022's Dylan Bundy pretty well, and that was Bundy's last year in a MLB team uniform.

Then there are the metrics used to evaluate what we think might happen for a pitcher. While TD articles have often painted Paddack as having upper rotation ceiling and stuff, he certainly doesn't strike guys out, and he does give up a lot of hits. The only thing that keeps Paddack even serviceable at the back end is he doesn't walk a lot of guys.

Paddack has been all hype since 2019. Lots of pitchers have a promising rookie campaign before turning into pumpkins. There's just not much to suggest to me Paddack has some sort of ceiling above "serviceable."

3 hours ago, Fatbat said:

Paddack has a career 4.38 ERA with just under 1 SO/inning (417/424) career whip of 1.19. 
The only knock on Paddack is the injuries. I will never understand the haters…

What does 2019 Paddack have to do with today Paddack? Let's get Stephen Strasburg out of retirement! Bet he'll be cheap! Career ERA 3.24, dude!!!