A Matter of Time?

By: Peter Bernstein

Dusty Baker is frequently accused of ruining Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. The guilty verdict is not so obvious. Wood has a long history of arm troubles that predates Baker. As for Prior, there’s no doubt Baker rode his best pitcher heavily in 2003. But if the team had managed to win it all, few Cub fans would care if Prior never threw another pitch again.

Perhaps that’s why Sox fans don’t seem too concerned with how much Ozzie Guillen relies on his starting pitchers. Maybe they should be. A comparison of Baker’s and Guillen’s use of their starters reveals more similarities than differences.

First, both the 2003 Cubs and 2005-06 White Sox were built around starting pitching, so it is to be expected that the starters would be heavily used.

The Cubs four main starters in 2003 (Prior, Wood, Zambrano, and Clement), all pitched over 200 innings during the regular season. Adding in their playoff totals, and the four Cubs starters combined for 912 innings pitched, led by Wood’s 239.

The four main starters for the 2005 White Sox (Buehrle, Garcia, Contreras, and Garland) combined to pitch 982 regular and post-season innings, with Buehrle throwing 260 innings and all of the four going over 235.

But a more-telling metric might be to quantify pitches thrown, a better measure of the actual strain on a hurler’s arm.

Wood threw by far the most pitches (4,008) but Buehrle and Garcia threw as many as Prior and Zambrano, with Contreras and Garland not far behind. Overall, the four Sox starters threw almost as many pitches under Guillen in 2005 as the four Cubs starters did under Baker in 2003.

Put another way, the 2003 Cubs averaged 104 pitches per start, while the 2005 Sox averaged 102 pitchers per start. As for the 2006 Sox starters, they are averaging 104 pitches per start, the same as the “overworked” 2003 Cubs staff.

Does any of this matter?

At first glance, no. The White Sox starters certainly didn’t seem tired at the end of 2005, and so far in 2006, the Sox have the second best record in baseball. But success has a way of covering up things people would rather not see. Whether it is a result of their heavy use or not, the White Sox starters earned run averages have been heading up as the season has progressed.

In April and May, the five Sox starters (adding in Javier Vazquez) combined for an ERA of 3.90. Since the start of June, that has ballooned to 5.54, which puts the White Sox staff on par with the Kansas City Royals. (Thankfully, this is perhaps the only area where the two teams could be mentioned in the same sentence.)

For the time being, the Sox pitching problems haven’t cost them much in the win column. From June 1 through July 4 the team has gone 21-10. And yet those victories have mainly come from the offensive side, as the White Sox have been averaging 6.65 runs per game over that stretch. For the year, Garcia, Vazquez, and Garland have a combined record of 25-12, but they also have a combined earned run average of 5.15. In fact, of the 45 AL starters who qualify for the ERA statistic, the White Sox have the 31st (Garcia 4.72), 38th (Vazquez 5.15) and 40th (Garland 5.60) ranked pitchers.

The 2005 White Sox featured the league’s best pitching but were around the league average in runs scored. The 2006 team essentially reverses that mix thus far, with the league’s best offense paired with a pitching staff that ranks sixth in the league (and getting worse) in ERA. This year’s White Sox model looks less like their World Championship team and more like the high-scoring 2005 Red Sox.

And we all know what happened to them when they ran into a better pitching team in the playoffs.

Good, or at least consistent starting pitching can be a wonder-drug for a manager. It stops losing streaks, overcomes hitting slumps, and protects thin bullpens. But like many drugs, the lines between use, overuse, and abuse are often blurry. Dusty Baker no doubt felt his use of the Cubs starters in 2003 was under control, but now he finds himself “Jones-ing” for good pitching. The lack of it will likely cost him his job sooner rather than later.

Ozzie Guillen may fare better. His starters are older than Baker’s were, and they may be better able to handle the workload. But with three months to go before the real season begins, Guillen should carefully observe the fate of the other Chicago manager who rode his starting pitching as far as he could.

Guillen may not have a choice on whether to ride what have been steady, durable arms, but the perspective never hurts.

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Peter Bernstein teaches Economics at DePaul University and is a regular contributor to the Chicago Sports Review. His essay on steroids in baseball is appearing in the NY Times magazine, Front Page. Reach him at pbernstein@rcfecon.com.

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