On John Smoltz

We've seen many of the starting pitching options for the Mariners evaporate over the last month. I've littered twitter with posts about how concerned I am about a team starting not one but two pitchers among Fister, Snell, Vargas, Olson, French, Petit, and/or Spring invitee surprises. Pennant winning teams don't start two league average or below pitchers. They just don't.

In my mind, this team needs another high quality arm as a #3 to move Rowland Smith back to the #4 slot and rotate in whoever you want to in that 5 hole. Barring some kind of trade, there's only a few interesting names left.

John Smoltz is one of them.

Many people bristle at the mention of Smoltz - his age (42), his injury history, his miserable experience in Boston. If you surveyed your average fan I'm sure most people would say that John Smoltz was a bad pitcher last year and he's washed up. And you know, maybe he is washed up.

But he wasn't a bad pitcher last year.

Let's break down his "two seasons" - the one with Boston and the one with St. Louis:

Boston: 2-5, 8.33 ERA. 4.95 FIP, 7.43 K/9, 1.8 HR/9 .343 BAA, .390 BABIP, 56.9 LOB%, 4.19 xFIP.

St. Louis: 1-3, 4.26 ERA. 2.73 FIP, 9.47 K/9, .71 HR/9, .329 BABIP, 66.2% LOB, 3.46 xFIP

Obviously, I bolded for effect - but in Boston, he was exceedingly unlucky. A near .400 BABIP is just stupid and the that he only stranded a tad better than half the runners who reached base (career rate is 73.6) seems like the Gods were just being mean. Maybe he came back too soon? His strikeout rate was down and he was giving up gopher balls like he was... I don't know, the gopher ball fairy. With that in mind, his xFIP was just 4.19 (which normalizes a home run rate - that being 1.8 HR/9 is likely not sustainable) suggesting that pitch after pitch, things just didn't roll, fly, zing, what have you - John's way.

For the Cards, he didn't win, but boy was he good. More than a strikeout per inning, more than cut his HR rate in half, 2.73 FIP was tops on a team that featured two CY Young candidates (yeah, yeah, I know sample size and all that - but still...).

Smoltz can still pitch. I don't know how many innings are in that arm, but if his price slips into the ridiculously low area, which it very well may, he's the kind of risk you take when you're trying to win a pennant. We all know how friendly pitching in Safeco can be - and that might be attractive to him.

Marcel, Chone, and "fans" over at Fangraphs all think he'll throw 100-120 innings, which is probably good for 16-20 starts. If he can even perform as the average between Boston and St. Louis, that's good for about 2-2.5 WAR.

$3 mil plus incentives makes a lot of sense to me.  This team, with the payroll that's left and the need for another bat needs lighting in a bottle and a little luck.  At his price, it's a good gamble that Smoltz can provide it.

Starter

Felix = yay
Cliff Lee = yay
Hyphen = uh, woo?

Then what?

Some very nice analysis over at Lookout Landing has the M's offense at about 40+ runs over last year's squad, which is just hoo-boy-dandy. But I continue to be real worried about who is going to toe the mound every 4th and 5th day.

Ryan Rowland-Smith is a lovely pitcher, but let's be honest with ourselves: if we can eek a 4.20 FIP out of the guy, we should be pretty happy. That's not bad, but when you have two giant TBA's behind him in the rotation, I'm not sure it's good enough.

If you can take a Doug Fister and replace him with a Bedard, Sheets, Wang, Myers, Davis, Smoltz, Pedro??? it allows Hyphen to become your #4 starter, and all of the AAAA guys can fight over the last spot in the rotation as they did pretty much all of last season (Vargas, Olson, French, Fister, Snell, etc.).

I doubt seriously that Smoltz or Pedro would sign here. Myers would have to come cheap because he's a health question and a major asshole. Wang, obvious health questions - but damn if his splitter/sinker wouldn't be well suited to this defensive-oriented team. Davis, kind of a Washburn prototype, just a tad better. Bedard and Sheets really emerge to me as the best investments due to their obvious upside(s).

Felix, Lee, Hyphen, Snell, Fister is not a rotation that will win the AL West with the offense we currently have. We need a guy to slot into that #3 hole.

Do it, Jack.