Liriano and inefficiency (part one)

It doesn’t mean it’s all on the defense, but it’s a pretty strong argument that the defense was particularly cruel to Liriano. Although I can’t think of any reason that would continue even with the same defenders. They may continue to be bad in the corners, but their badness should be equal-opportunity, not concentrated on Liriano.

Or we could just leave Span there, as he’s already a good defensive CF and get someone who isn’t a butcher in the corners.

1. I think Myjah’s points about Liriano’s performance last season are valid to a point. An ace should not only have great stuff, but use it with great effect. Frankie pitches as well as anyone, but hasn’t necessarily sustained it throughout a full season (191 IP isn’t bad, though). I can agree with the skepticism (that’s how I roll). But to be fair I will point out that Liriano’s IP from last year probably are skewed by the fact that he threw something over 220 total innings last year (counting winter ball). My guess is that including these innings in his total (or even a discounted number of them if you want to suggest the winter league hitters are not as tough to get out, on average, as MLB hitters) would place him much closer to the top of the first list on her post.

2. I disagree with Eric’s conclusion that because pitching is hard and sports are hard, Liriano (or all other pitchers, or all other athletes) have worked hard to get where they are. Some people, notwithstanding high baseball IQs and years of hard work, will never be good enough to play in MLB. Conversely there are others, in baseball and other sports, who are gifted with certain talents and abilities, but don’t use them to their full potential and will never work hard enough to get there. David Wells didn’t strike me as a guy who worked out a lot. John Kruk.

My take: I’m not ready to call Liriano an ace until he puts up back-to-back strong seasons, and he shows us some fire and competitive spirit that gives us faith he won’t knuckle under in pressure situations (note, he may have it and just not show it, but if I don’t see it I can’t just assume it’s there). I’m also not prepared to say that Liriano doesn’t try hard, but it is a red flag when a player with an injury history shows up to camp admitting he didn’t do his arm exercises over the winter. Maybe he felt he needed a break from the heavy workload in 2010? He came back from TJ and he clearly worked out (he bulked up) while he was rehabbing. I do get Myjah’s concern, though.

For me, the jury’s still out.

Gardy is strict with pitch counts. It really has nothing to do with Liriano.

You say that it is a list of pitchers who CAN throw more pitches. I say that it’s a list of pitchers who DID throw more pitchers. If pitchers decided when they came out of games, then that would be a different story.

Overall, there are two points here, and you’re getting them mixed up.

When I say efficiency, I’m talking about how efficient he is with his pitches. This has nothing to do with how many innings he threw, or even how many pitches he threw per game. Just how efficient he was. Overall, from the first list, he is pretty efficient. More so than many pitchers who are thought of as aces.

The second point is that its not necessarily the pitchers fault how many innings/pitches he throws per start. Like I said, Gardy is strict with pitch counts. Jim Leyland, for example is much more lenient. That does not make Justin Verlander a better pitcher, or more efficient that Liriano.

It would be different if Gardy was only strict with Liriano. That is not the case. In general, he is strict. Whether or not this is a good thing or not is not the point.

The last point, and the one you don’t seem to acknowledge, is that he does go fairly deep into games, and is within one out of just about everyone else. Your arguments, and others I’ve heard, make it seem like he’s constantly leaving early, when other teams aces are pitching 7+ every start. That just isn’t the case. Yes, there are a lot of great pitchers who pitched further into games than Liriano did. My point is that that one extra out that many of them got is close to meaningless. Yes, they pitched further on average, but its close enough that it doesn’t really matter.

As far as them performing better, well that’s an argument for a different day. I don’t believe most of them did perform better, because I don’t believe ERA is a good way to measure pitcher performance. If Liriano threw the exact same pitches, to the exact same batters, but Carl Crawford was playing left instead of Delmon, his ERA would have almost certainly dropped. Same performance, different ERA. There is no perfect performance measure for pitchers, but I like looking at the ones that separate the performance of the pitcher from the performance of his defense.