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Friday, September 8
Who's had the best and worst luck?

By Keith Woolner
Special to ESPN.com

Editor's note: The team of writers from the Baseball Prospectus (tm) will be writing twice a week for ESPN.com. You can check out more of their work at their web site at baseballprospectus.com.

When a pitcher has an unusually poor or unusually good win/loss record compared to his ERA, we often look to his run support -- how many runs his team scored in the games he started. Often, we find that a pitcher's teammates did remarkably well or badly in the games he pitched, and we usually attribute this to luck. But do some pitchers have the deck stacked against them?

Certainly, at the beginning of the season, teams align their rotations to have their best pitchers start on Opening Day, and for a while the rotations will be in sync, with aces facing aces and so on. But as the season progresses, off days, rainouts and other factors make the matchups more randomized. Or so it's been assumed.

Are there pitchers who get unlucky in facing off against tough opposing pitchers time after time, while other pitchers get a disproportionate share of patsies? And does this relate to the amount of run support provided by his teammates over the course of a season?

To investigate this, I used a concept I call the Composite Opposing Pitcher (COP). Simply put, every time a pitcher plays a given opponent, we take the average start for that opposing starter and add it to the pitcher's composite opposing pitcher totals. Over the course of a season, the COP totals reflect the quality of opposition the pitcher faced during the year.

Let's look at a simple example. Take Jake Westbrook, who started two games for the Yankees in June. On June 17, he opposed Cal Eldred of the White Sox. On June 22, he faced off against Ramon Martinez of the Red Sox. Westbrook's COP will be comprised of the average starts for Eldred and Martinez.

Eldred had started 19 games, throwing 108 2/3 innings and allowing 60 runs, thus averaging about 5.7 innings and 3.16 runs per start. We do the same for hits allowed, walks, strikeouts and earned runs (all stats in this article are through games of September 3):

GS           IP    H     R   ER   BB   SO
19         108.6  101   60   56   58   93
Per Start   5.72  5.32 3.16 2.95 3.05 4.89

We repeat the process on Ramon Martinez:

GS           IP    H     R   ER   BB   SO
22         105.0  117   73   68   59   73
Per Start   4.77  5.32 3.32 3.09 2.68 3.32

Note that these aren't the actual totals that Eldred and Martinez posted in the games they pitched against Westbrook. In those particular games, Eldred went five innings, giving up eight hits and three runs, while Martinez threw 6 2/3 innings, allowing just two runs on four hits. Rather, what we are using is the seasonal per-start averages each pitcher posted, or what you could have expected from each pitcher on any given day.

Adding up the per start totals, we get the Composite Opposing Pitcher for Westbrook:

GS           IP     H     R    ER    BB    SO   ERA  RA	
Eldred      5.72  5.32  3.16  2.95  3.05  4.89
Martinez    4.77  5.32  3.32  3.09  2.68  3.32		
COP Total  10.49 10.64  6.48  6.04  5.73  8.21	5.18 5.56

Westbrook's COP had a slightly worse runs allowed average (RA) than the AL mark of 5.38, meaning that on average, he faced an easier opposing pitcher than the league standard.

Using this metric, I've rated all starting pitchers with more than 100 innings pitched (pitchers who started for more than one team have entries for each team) in increasing order by the RA of their Composite Opposing Pitcher (toughest COP appears first) for each league:

American League toughest opponents

PITCHER        TEAM  G   ERA   RA   Pitcher W-L	
Steve Woodard   Cle  7  4.43  4.81    1- 2	
Steve Trachsel  TB  23  4.56  4.91    6-10	
Chris Carpenter Tor 23  4.65  4.96    9-11	
Mac Suzuki      KC  24  4.63  5.01    8- 7	
Esteban Loaiza  Tor  9  4.70  5.02    8-10	
Roger Clemens   NYY 26  4.57  5.03   11- 6	
Brad Radke      Min 29  4.58  5.03   10-14	
Jeff Suppan     KC  28  4.64  5.05    7- 8	
Albie Lopez     TB  18  4.66  5.08   11- 9	
Denny Neagle    NYY 10  4.75  5.11    5- 4		
Mike Mussina    Bal 29  4.72  5.12    8-13	
Bryan Rekar     TB  22  4.85  5.12    5- 9	
Dave Burba      Cle 26  4.74  5.15   12- 6		
Paul Abbott     Sea 22  4.80  5.15    9- 5	
Kenny Rogers    Tex 29  4.83  5.16   11-13

American League easiest opponents

PITCHER        TEAM  G   ERA   RA   Pitcher W-L
Jay Witasick    KC  14  5.90  6.42    3- 8
Willie Blair    Det 17  5.87  6.37   10- 4
Rolando Arrojo  Bos  7  5.51  6.08    4- 2		
Jose Mercedes   Bal 14  5.48  6.07   11- 5
Jason Johnson   Bal 13  5.40  5.91    1- 9
Joe Mays        Min 25  5.29  5.87    6-14
Tim Hudson      Oak 27  5.45  5.83   15- 6
David Cone      NYY 25  5.40  5.82    4-11
John Halama     Sea 25  5.34  5.82   11- 8
Andy Pettitte   NYY 26  5.24  5.78   17 -7
Ramon Martinez  Bos 22  5.38  5.77    9 -6
Mark Mulder     Oak 25  5.30  5.70    8-10
Aaron Sele      Sea 28  5.23  5.67   13-10
Pedro Martinez  Bos 24  5.22  5.66   16 -4
Jeff Weaver     Det 25  5.10  5.65    9-12

National League toughest opponents

PITCHER        TEAM  G   ERA   RA   Pitcher W-L
Steve Woodard   Mil 11  4.01  4.50    1- 7	
Bruce Chen      Phi 10  4.37  4.67    2- 2	
Rolando Arrojo  Col 19  4.22  4.68    5- 9		
Randy Wolf      Phi 27  4.35  4.71   10- 7		
Jose Lima       Hou 28  4.39  4.73    7-15	
Kris Benson     Pit 27  4.33  4.73    9-11
Kevin Tapani    Chc 29	4.33  4.74    8-12
K. Bottenfield  Phi  6  4.15  4.75    1- 2
Ismael Valdes   Chc 12  4.47  4.78    2- 4		
Jeff D'Amico    Mil 18  4.49  4.82   11- 5		
Ryan Dempster   Fla 28  4.47  4.84   12- 9	
Brian Bohanon   Col 21  4.52  4.84    8 -9		
Masato Yoshii   Col 27  4.38  4.85    5-14
Curt Schilling  Phi 16  4.57  4.90    6- 6		
Reid Cornelius  Fla 18  4.46  4.92    3 -8

National League easiest opponents

PITCHER        TEAM  G   ERA   RA   Pitcher W-L
Jason Bere      Mil 20  5.14  5.84    6- 7
Denny Neagle    Cin 18  5.26  5.74    8- 2
Shane Reynolds  Hou 22  5.10  5.66    7- 8
Shawn Estes     SF  25  5.13  5.58   14- 4
Brian Meadows   SD  22  5.09  5.58    7 -8
Steve Parris    Cin 28  5.09  5.57   10-14
Ismael Valdes   LA   7  5.01  5.57    0- 3
Todd Ritchie    Pit 26  5.25  5.56    8- 7
Matt Clement    SD  29  5.03  5.56   12-14 
Ron Villone     Cin 20  5.07  5.48    9- 8
Scott Elarton   Hou 25  5.02  5.45   16- 5 
John Burkett    Atl 18  5.03  5.45    8- 6
Curt Schilling  Ari  8  4.89  5.45    4- 5
Darren Dreifort LA  26  4.92  5.43   10- 8
Brian Anderson  Ari 27  4.93  5.39   10- 5

Poor Steve Woodard. After escaping the National League having faced the toughest COP of any NL pitcher, he's already pacing the AL after seven starts. It's like he's facing Kevin Millwood or Gil Heredia every time out, while someone like Willie Blair gets to face Pat Rapp or Mike Thurman.

In all, Woodard faced Al Leiter, Tom Glavine, Darryl Kile, Shane Reynolds, Carl Pavano (twice), Freddy Garcia, Rick Helling, Rick Ankiel, Ryan Dempster, and Barry Zito for 11 of his 18 starts. The only pitcher with an ERA above 5.50 that Woodard faced was Anaheim's Seth Etherton, and in seven of his starts he faced a pitcher with a sub-4.00 ERA.

In contrast, Blair hasn't faced any starter with an ERA below 4.00, and he got to oppose Jaime Navarro twice. Blair has had a total of seven starts against pitchers with ERAs above 6.00. He has squared off against the likes of Jose Lima, Jamie Moyer, Darren Oliver, Ben Ford, Esteban Yan, and Clayton Andrews. Only Andy Pettitte, Brad Radke, Jimmy Anderson, Jose Mercedes, Kevin Appier and Kenny Rogers had ERAs below 4.60.

There's a fairly wide range between the hardest and easiest COPs, with some fortunate pitchers facing opposition that posts an RA 25-30 percent higher than the star-crossed hurlers. Even teammates can have radically different COPs. Roger Clemens has the fourth-toughest COP of any AL pitcher (10+ starts) with a COP RA of 5.03, while David Cone (5.82) and Andy Pettitte (5.78) are both in top 10 for easiest COP. Cone has squared off with opposing pitchers who were, on average, 15 percent worse than Clemens' opponents.

Two questions immediately come to mind when considering the list of Composite Opposing Pitchers. First, do star pitchers tend to face better opponents more often because the opposing manager juggles his rotation to pit ace against ace? Second, does a pitcher's COP profile have a measurable effect on the amount of support he gets from his teammates?

To answer the first question, I compared each pitcher's RA with his COP's RA, and looked at the correlation coefficient between the two. To explain the significance of this number in simple terms, when the correlation coefficient is near zero, there's no relationship between the two sets of values. As it approaches 1.0, there's a stronger and stronger relationship between the two sets of values.

For a pitcher's RA and his COP's RA, the correlation was only 0.16, meaning there is a very small relationship between how good a pitcher is and how good his Composite Opposing Pitcher is. If managers are trying to get those matchups, they aren't succeeding. Of course, with rotations more or less fixed save for the occasional off day, this isn't too surprising, nor is it obvious that it should be a strategic concern.

For the second question, I looked at a pitcher's run support (total number of runs scored in games started by the pitcher) and his COP's RA. Theoretically, if a pitcher is facing better opponents, his teammates should not do as well scoring runs in those games. For example, the Yankees scored 7.31 runs per game for Andy Pettitte and only 4.88 runs per game for Roger Clemens, and as we've seen, Clemens typically faced a much tougher opponent.

The correlation between a pitcher's run support and his COP's RA was 0.38, indicating a decent relationship between the quality of opponent a pitcher faces and the amount of run support he can expect. However, the offense is not off the hook yet. A correlation of 0.38 isn't all that great, and it still leaves plenty of room for hitters having more than their share of off days for certain pitchers. About 15 percent of the variation in run support is related to the differences in quality of Composite Opposing Pitchers. The rest has to do with which pitchers are lucky enough to throw on the days when the bats are hot.

Of course, a pitcher has no control over his COP, so this can be considered "luck" as well. But it is a different, quantifiable kind of luck that we can break out from other factors, and see if a pitcher faced more than his share of aces, or had it easy by going up against No. 5 starters. And after perusing the lists above, maybe you can agree that Steve Woodard deserves a break.

Keith Woolner may be reached at kwoolner@baseballprospectus.com.


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