Andrew Friedman inherited a pretty good starting rotation when he agreed to run the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was weak at the back end, sure, but having Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu at the top more than made up for that.
But then again, why settle for “pretty good” when you can aim for “great?”
If you’re just now joining us, the Dodgers’ rotation has gotten quite the face lift in the last week. They entered last week’s winter meetings needing only one starter to round out their rotation but have proceeded to ditch an incumbent and make two additions instead.
Gone is Dan Haren, as the veteran right-hander was shipped to the Miami Marlins as part of a seven-player trade headlined by speedy second baseman Dee Gordon. In are Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson, who have both signed as free agents.
As ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick reported, McCarthy and the Dodgers finalized a four-year, $48 million contract on Monday. According to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney, Anderson has agreed to a one-year deal that will guarantee him $10 million with another $4 million available through incentives.
The big knock on these deals is that the Dodgers have committed a lot of money to two fragile players.
McCarthy, a 31-year-old right-hander, had never pitched more than 170.2 innings before hitting 200 in 2014. Anderson, a 26-year-old left-hander, has pitched a total of 206.1 innings over the last four seasons and hasn’t even made it to 45 innings in either of the last two.
With Anderson in particular, it’s OK if your first thought was that the Dodgers were betting on converting him into a reliever. But Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times clarified that’s not the case:
The phrase “reclamation project” comes to mind in talking about Anderson. But as far as such things go, he’s a good one.
Though Anderson has had all sorts of injuries since 2010, it’s a silver lining that it hasn’t been arm and shoulder injuries slowing him down recently. Tommy John surgery sidelined him for most of 2011 and 2012, but it’s foot, finger and back injuries that have done the trick in the last two seasons.
If the injury bug leaves Anderson alone, the Dodgers stand to get a southpaw with good control (2.42 career BB/9) whose main specialty is keeping the ball on the ground. Per FanGraphs, his 61.9 ground-ball percentage over the last two seasons is seventh highest among pitchers with at least 80 innings.
As it happens, getting ground balls is also one of McCarthy’s specialties. Only 10 qualified starters have logged a ground-ball rate over 50 percent since the start of 2013, and he’s one of them.
McCarthy’s more than a one-trick pony, though. He’s an excellent control artist, as his 1.45 walks-per-nine-inning rate over the last two seasons puts him among the elites. He’s also coming off a career-best strikeout rate.
That was an offshoot of a big velocity increase, which is the kind of thing that looks fluky on a guy McCarthy’s age. But it’s possible that both McCarthy’s extra velocity and newfound durability were the results of an offseason in which he was able to focus on working out instead of on rehabbing from injury.
If you’re looking for an accurate depiction of McCarthy’s potential, don’t look at the 5.01 ERA he had with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2014. Focus instead on the 2.89 ERA he had with the New York Yankees. He really can be that good.
So in Anderson, the Dodgers have a worthwhile reclamation project who could turn out to be a lot better than a No. 5 starter if he stays healthy. And though McCarthy will only be a No. 4 in their rotation, he could be a No. 3 or a No. 2 for plenty of other teams.
The back end of the Dodgers rotation thus looks a lot stronger than it did the last time we saw it. By the end of 2014, it consisted of a homer-prone merchant of “meh” in Haren and a rotating cast of schmoes who were filling in for the injured (and since retired) Josh Beckett.
Want to know how good the Dodgers rotation can be now that it’s been upgraded with McCarthy and Anderson?
How about the best in baseball?
If we’re being honest, that’s a notion that really shouldn’t be catching anyone off guard.
This is, after all, a rotation that wouldn’t let the homer-happy Haren and a series of hapless Beckett stand-ins keep it from posting a 3.20 ERA that was second best in all of baseball. More than anything, that goes to show just how good Kershaw, Greinke and Ryu were at the top.
So do these numbers in particular:
Kershaw’s numbers serve as a reminder of why he won by the National League Cy Young and MVP awards. Though his season ended on a sour note in October, on a start-to-start basis he enjoyed one of the most dominant regular seasons of all time.
Then there’s Greinke, who was a top-15 pitcher by ERA and a top-20 pitcher by WAR. And though Ryu’s 3.38 ERA and 3.5 WAR don’t look as good, it’s worth noting that his WAR was good enough to put him just 0.1 off Madison Bumgarner’s pace.
Exactly what made this trio so good isn’t hard to discern if you focus on the important stuff. They limited walks and home runs and picked up strikeouts and ground balls as well or better than the average starter, which is a pretty good way to get ahead in life.
These three will once again be leading the charge in 2015, and there’s no reason to expect them to regress. Factor in how they should get some solid support from McCarthy and Anderson, and it makes sense that FanGraphs would have Dodgers starters projected for more WAR than anyone else’s.
That’s a projection based on the talent of said starters. But if we take a moment to consider the talent around them, it’s surprisingly reasonable to think that the Dodgers could have the majors’ most effective starting rotation by far in 2015.
The Dodgers rotation isn’t the only thing Friedman has upgraded in the last week. In jettisoning right fielder Matt Kemp and adding shortstop Jimmy Rollins, second baseman Howie Kendrick and Yasmani Grandal behind the plate, the team’s entire run-prevention unit has gotten a boost.
As Friedman explained to Hernandez: “I’d be OK if we scored 200 runs next year if we allowed 100, just going to a crazy example.”
Though that probably is too crazy of an example, don’t be surprised if the Dodgers come closer to allowing only 100 runs than any other team.
The Kemp trade was addition by subtraction on defense, as the Dodgers no longer have to worry about having arguably the league’s worst defender in the outfield every day. Rollins and Kendrick, meanwhile, are two strong defenders taking the place of two weak defenders in Hanley Ramirez and Gordon.
As for Grandal, his talent is maximizing his pitchers’ production. He does that by making sure they get strikes, as Mark Simon of ESPN.com explains here:
Grandal rated best in the majors at getting strikes called when he should. Umpires called 89 percent of the pitches he caught in the strike zone as strikes, six percentage points above the major-league average.
Grandal also got called strikes on 10 percent of pitches that the Pitch F/X tracking system deemed to be out of the strike zone. That ranked eighth-best among the 40 catchers who caught the most pitches last season.
In all, it’s going to be very hard to score runs against the Dodgers in 2015. A starting rotation that was guaranteed to be good thanks to Kershaw, Greinke and Ryu now has the potential to be great thanks to the additions of McCarthy and Anderson, as well as all the new pieces that will help elevate the rotation.
Though many things have changed for the Dodgers this winter, one thing that hasn’t is that this is still a club with World Series aspirations. Friedman has built a team designed to make good on those aspirations by making life a living hell for opposing offenses.
The defensive upgrades will help, but it will be up to the Dodgers’ starting rotation to lead the way. With the most dominant pitcher in the world anchoring a deep collection of talent, it should be up to the task.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.
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