There was as best I can tell at least 24 free agents signed this past off season as MLB Starters. Among them was NY Mets starter Chris Capuano. Below is a breakdown to see how Capuano has fared against those other 23 signings.
1st here are the 24 free agent starters that signed this past off season.
- Cliff Lee, PHI
- Carl Pavano, MIN
- Hiroki Kuroda, LAD
- Jeff Francis, KCR
- Kevin Correia, PIT
- Jake Westbrook, STL
- Chris Capuano, NYM
- Brad Penny, DET
- Javier Vazquez, FLA
- Aaron Harang, SDP
- Bartolo Colon, NYY
- Freddy Garcia, NYY
- Dustin Moseley, SDP
- Erik Bedard, SEA
- Bruce Chen, KCR
- Jorge de la Rosa, COL
- Jon Garland, LAD
- Andrew Miller, BOS
- Chien-Ming Wang, WSN
- Chris Young, NYM
- Mark Hendrickson, BAL
- Brandon Webb, TEX
- Justin Duchscherer, BAL
- Ryan Rowland-Smith, HOU
Among the 24 that have at least 100 innings pitched Capuano has the 11th best (but at 4.71 “best” is not an accurate description for that poor ERA) ERA.
- Cliff Lee – 2.82/ERA
- Hiroki Kuroda – 2.88/ERA
- Freddy Garcia – 3.16/ERA
- Dustin Moseley – 3.30/ERA
- Erik Bedard – 3.44/ERA
- Bartolo Colon – 3.54/ERA
- Aaron Harang – 3.96/ERA
- Carl Pavano – 4.52/ERA
- Javier Vazquez – 4.67/ERA
- Jake Westbrook – 4.70/ERA
- Chris Capuano – 4.71/ERA
Among the 24 in innings pitched Capuano ranks 7th.
- Cliff Lee – 179.0/IP
- Carl Pavano – 167.1/IP
- Hiroki Kuroda – 159.1/IP
- Jeff Francis – 156.1/IP
- Kevin Correia – 154.0/IP
- Jake Westbrook – 149.1/IP
- Chris Capuano – 145.1/IP
Among the 24 starters 11 have an equal or greater amount of Quality Starts.
- Hiroki Kuroda – 18/QS
- Cliff Lee – 18/QS
- Freddy Garcia – 14/QS
- Carl Pavano – 14/QS
- Kevin Correia – 13/QS
- Jeff Francis – 13/QS
- Aaron Harang – 13/QS
- Javier Vazquez – 12/QS
- Chris Capuano – 11/QS
- Bartolo Colon – 11/QS
- Brad Penny – 11/QS
- Jake Westbrook – 11/QS
Among the 24 Capuano has the 5th best strikeout to walk ratio.
- Cliff Lee – 5.11/SO/BB
- Bartolo Colon – 3.15/SO/BB
- Erik Bedard – 3.06/SO/BB
- Hiroki Kuroda – 2.93/SO/BB
- Chris Capuano – 2.80/SO/BB
Among the 24 that have at least 100 innings pitched Capuano has the 9th best WHIP.
- Cliff Lee - 1.073/WHIP
- Erik Bedard - 1.193/WHIP
- Hiroki Kuroda - 1.211/WHIP
- Bartolo Colon - 1.259/WHIP
- Dustin Moseley - 1.275/WHIP
- Freddy Garcia - 1.308/WHIP
- Javier Vazquez - 1.365/WHIP
- Carl Pavano - 1.369/WHIP
- Chris Capuano - 1.383/WHIP
Now in his 1st 17 starts this year Capuano has gone at least 6 innings in 12 of them and at least 5 innings in the remaining 2 with 10 quality starts over that stretch. His last 7 starts have not fared nearly as well.
Over his last 7 starts Capuano has gone at least 6 innings in 5 of them and at least 5 innings in the remaining 2 but has just 1 quality start and is pitching to a 6.12/ERA during that span by far his worst stretch of the season.
Speculation is that his arm may be spent since the last time he pitched as many innings or has started as many games as he currently has this season was way back in 2007 where he had 25/starts over 150/IP.
If this trend of bad starts continues remains to be seen but while acknowledging his recent stretch of starts have been bad. Capuano’s season as a whole up to now has not been what some may describe as terrible in my opinion all things considered.
Click here to view chart full screen.
*Note: Statistics used are as of August 22, 2011 at 09:39:55 AM
courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
**Note: Salaries used are courtesy of USA Today.
13 comments
Anonymous
8/23/2011-11:29am at 11:29 am (UTC -4)
nice analysis. Too bad they did not have anyone in the minors knocking on the door to push him to the pen once he started to (seemingly) hit the wall. Quite possible that he is just wearing out, but if that is the case, he needs to be done career wise as a SP!
and many, garcia and Colon pitching well? I hate the yankees. those guys were toast coming into this season, and they pull this crap off?
But, this chart does tend to support the idea that quality costs money, since if you look at the guys easily seperated from the pack (Lee and Karuka), they are also the only 8 figure guys. and other than the Yankee duo, there are a couple of cheap guys with good ERAs, but they were cheap due to being huge injury risks!
So bedard or Webb? crapshoot.
Anonymous
8/23/2011-11:31am at 11:31 am (UTC -4)
Quality work, yet again, sir.
Anonymous
8/23/2011-11:34am at 11:34 am (UTC -4)
In the spirit of avoid the FA shat heap, harvey’s line from last night:
RHP Matt Harvey: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K
He is starting to look close to ready. Still a long shot, but if he dominates the rest of this year (not much to it of course), and lights it up in the spring, starting in the rotation out of ST is not out of the question. And if not, he could be up early in the year.
And expect wheeler starting out in Bingo next year, so he could easily be on the same trajectory, just 1 year later!
Anonymous
8/23/2011-12:02pm at 12:02 pm (UTC -4)
wheeler was excellent the night before, as well.
and i knew we should have signed cliff lee last offseason!
Anonymous
8/23/2011-1:51pm at 1:51 pm (UTC -4)
I’ll be happy if in a couple years harvey and wheeler are up and dealing, and Neise has settled into a solid 2/3 type (say his petite ceiling).
Mets have to catch a break sometime, right? Right?
MetsFan4Decades
8/23/2011-2:11pm at 2:11 pm (UTC -4)
I’ve been thinking the Mets are due for catching a break now since end of 2006…
Wheeler and Harvey to the starting rotation and Mejia as closer?
MetsFan4Decades
8/23/2011-1:17pm at 1:17 pm (UTC -4)
Nice analysis – and a little surprising. I wouldn’t have expected to see Capuano in the middle of this pack.
It’s looking more and more like he just cannot handle 30 games starts per season as a SP. It will be interesting to see what they do this off season with that starting rotation and BP.
Anonymous
8/23/2011-1:37pm at 1:37 pm (UTC -4)
at least they got a lot of work out of him. A bunch of guys broke down early like Young, or never really got started like Webb.
Anonymous
8/23/2011-2:18pm at 2:18 pm (UTC -4)
they did get a lot of work out of him, and now they are starting to pay for it!
Anonymous
8/23/2011-2:00pm at 2:00 pm (UTC -4)
Capuano has allowed 4 ER in 6 of his last 7 starts, and is wilting along with the rest of the team. All of these stats are very nice, but not all that meaningful. He’s a mediocre pitcher, an innings eater for a bad team, and nothing more.
He’s just like Gee, Niese, Dickey, Pagan, Thole, Parnell, and almost this entire team—borderline players exposed by late in the season, and just good enough for fourth place.
Alderson needs to clean house, and really clean house.
MetsFan4Decades
8/23/2011-2:13pm at 2:13 pm (UTC -4)
Agree about overhauling the pitching, especially the BP.
I wouldn’t categorize Capuano as an innings eater though. Has he ever got past 5-6 innings? Even if he had a good outing through the order twice he always seemed to get hit hard third time through. Probably better suited for the BP. Just not sure I want to see him in our BP…..
Anonymous
8/23/2011-2:25pm at 2:25 pm (UTC -4)
Good point.
I guess that with the way I view this terrible, wafer-thin team right now, even a guy who can simply go out every time and throw 5-6 innings without giving up 10 runs or getting hurt is somewhat valuable for this disaster area of a team.
Paul J. Festa
8/23/2011-2:33pm at 2:33 pm (UTC -4)
For the money, not a bad pickup. I didn’t expect even this many innings out of Cap this year.