The Sad State Of Starting Pitching

Bronson Arroyo just signed a 2-year, $25 million dollar extension with the Cincinnati Reds. Earlier this week, the Reds also gave Aaron Harang a 4-year, $36.5 million dollar deal. So essentially, these two righties will make a combined $71 million dollars over the next 4 years, or an average of about $9 million per guy, per year, until 2010.

Wow.

I don't know what's more outrageous, that, or this quote from Reds owner Bob Castellini.

"Many baseball people agree that with Bronson and Aaron Harang, the top of our rotation is as strong as any in baseball."

By "many baseball people," I think Bob Castellini means Bronson Arroyo, Aaron Harang, and himself.

Let's break this down. Yes, Arroyo had a good year last year, at least on paper. He threw 240 innings, he made 35 starts, he had a 3.29 ERA, and he had 184 K's. But let's not forget a lot of that was fueled by his first 12 starts. On June 19th, he was 9-3 with a 2.47 ERA and 80 K's (or 6.7 per start) and well on his way to starting the All-Star Game.

Then the real Arroyo emerged. In his last 23 starts, he went 5-8 with a 3.93 ERA and 105 K's, or 4.6 per start. Those numbers are much closer to his career averages as a starter (12-9, 3.91 ERA, 4.4 K's per start, the last three years). Essentially, Arroyo's a decent number 3 or 4 starter on a good team (like he was in Boston in 2004), not one of the anchors of a staff.

I take less issue with Harang, but I still take some issue. He too enjoyed a very solid 2006. He posted career bests in wins (16), innings pitched (234), starts (35), complete games (6), K's (216), and ERA (3.76). But his pre-2006 showing hardly screams that he's a lock to do it again. In his career, he's 4 games over .500 with a 4.28 ERA. Before last season, he'd never won more than 11 games, and never come close to 200 K's. On the plus side, Harang has gotten significantly better in each of his 3 years with the Reds. And if he does it again in 2007, he and the Reds will have made me look stupid. I'll believe it when I see it though.

Just as a side note, it's probably worth exploring their less-than-admirable performances in the post-season. In 10 games including 2 starts in 5 series, Arroyo is 3-2 with a 7.41 ERA, 1.65 WHIP, 9 BB and 20 K in 17 IP. Harang is 0-0 with a 0.00 ERA, 0.00 WHIP, 0 BB and 0K and 0 IP. In other words, he has no playoff experience.

As for the "one-of-the-best-front-of-the-rotations-in-baseball" thing, I also beg to differ. I would take the starters in Arizona (Webb and The Big Unit), Boston (Schilling, Beckett or Matsuzaka), Detroit (Rogers, Bonderman or Verlander), Houston (Oswalt and Jennings), either of the L.A.'s (Schmidt, Penny or Lowe...and Lackey, Escobar or Colon), Minnesota (Santana and whoever, Boof Bonser, Kent Hrbek, Prince, Jesse Ventura, take your pick), New York (Mussina, Wang or Pettitte), Philadelphia (Myers and Garcia), San Diego (Peavy and Young), San Francisco (Zito and Cain), AND Tornoto (Halladay and Burnett) before the Reds front two. In other words, Cincinnati has the 13th best #1 and 2 starters out of anyone in baseball. That's worth $71 million bucks, don't you think?

Now look, if they have a repeat of 2006 in 2007, then yes, maybe they've hit their late 20's, figured out how to pitch, and the Reds have just solidified the front of their rotation for the next three years. All I'm saying is it's just as likely that they both had the best years of their careers last year, the Reds took the bait, and they cashed in.

Note to Bob Castellini... Just because you pay them like number one starters, doesn't mean they are number one starters, yet.