Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Diamondbacks Get Worse



Good news for Dodgers and most other NL West fans. The defending 2011 NL West Champion Arizona Diamondbacks have signed a bad pitcher. Joe Saunders signed a one year deal worth $6M. Saunders is barely a replacement level pitcher. His strikeout totals underwhelm. And by underwhelm, I mean they are really really bad. Over the past two years, Saunders has a K/9 of 4.81. Well, maybe he has a really low walk rate to partially make up for it. Hmmmm... his BB/9 over that same period of time is 2.84 which is hardly anything to write home about. Well, maybe he is incredibly talented at forcing hitters to hit the ball on the ground. A quick look shows a GB/FB of 1.23 over that same time period, also nothing special. Those are some pretty bad peripherals. Perhaps not Scott Kazmir bad, but when your top peripheral comparisons are the likes of Brad Bergesen, Mike Pelfrey and Livan Hernandez you are in pretty low territory. This looks like a panic move, the Diamondbacks would've been better off letting their herd of minor league aces fight for the last spot with a couple of low cost NRIs. Don't block them with Joe Saunders who doesn't miss too many starts. Here is the rest of the list (Top 25) of Joe Saunders comparables based on the K/9, BB/9 and GB/FB stats for starters over the 2010 and 2011 seasons.

RankNameK/9BB/9GB/FB
 Joe Saunders4.812.841.23
1Brad Bergesen4.562.791.2
2Mike Pelfrey4.9531.4
3Livan Hernandez4.952.561.07
4Dustin Moseley4.743.051.51
5Zach Duke5.232.661.5
6Rodrigo Lopez5.132.50.97
7Paul Maholm5.152.91.72
8Kyle Lohse5.32.471.13
9Bronson Arroyo4.972.260.99
10Jeremy Guthrie5.342.480.99
11Kyle Kendrick4.422.241.17
12Freddy Garcia5.472.650.98
13Brad Penny4.132.691.58
14Rick Porcello4.912.191.65
15Tim Wakefield5.492.750.82
16Joel Pineiro4.692.171.71
17Armando Galarraga4.953.540.8
18Fausto Carmona5.262.981.92
19Dave Bush5.43.360.94
20Mark Buehrle4.52.041.23
21Nick Blackburn4.172.761.8
22Tommy Hunter4.691.981.01
23Jeff Francis4.951.961.38
24Wade Davis5.573.20.87
25Ivan Nova5.453.171.82

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