The glut of starting pitching about to hit the market is going to open up some opportunities for a lot of teams if they are willing to be patient. Maybe even the Braves.
I'd like for this thread to discuss what kind of pitchers might be worth looking at. Let's try first to do this without naming a particular pitcher. Let's talk about the considerations the Braves (and any team for that matter) might want to use to rank the pitchers. After we've discussed the principles, we can then move on to particular pitchers who will be on the market.
For me it is about finding the best bang for the buck. So here are some general principles:
1) Look for someone who might have had an off season in 2015 relative to his baseline of recent years.
2) Look for someone whose performance might have been hurt by the ballpark/division/league he was playing in. At the same time, try to avoid (or at least take into account) those whose performances might have been helped by playing environment.
3) Look for a pitcher whose peripherals (walk and strikeout rates) held up better in 2015 than other stats such as ERA or wins. In particular, don't give too much weight to their 2015 HR/flyball ratio.
4) Avoid pitchers with a significant downward trend in velocity.
5) Give bonus points to ground ball pitchers on the assumption that our infield defense will continue to be a strength over the next few years.
6) Also give bonus points for ability to pitch deep into games. I would like someone who has gone 200 or more innings in at least two of the past three years.
7) A strikeout to walk ratio of at least 2 to 1 in recent years is something I would also look for.
Thoughts on the above? What else?
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Originally Posted by nsacpi
