What we give up

The Marlins officially gave up VandenHurk today, but it seems as if they had given up on Hurk for some time now.

Following a solid 82-inning performance in 2009 during which VandenHurk showed a changed approach and significantly better control than in previous seasons, the Marlins still passed him up for the fifth rotation spot. Despite a lack of great options at the fifth starter position, the Marlins decided to acquire an outside option in (what appears now to be a washed-up) veteran Nate Robertson rather than hand the position to one of the incumbent players. Of the incumbents, both VandenHurk and Andrew Miller were the oldest, and thus the most likely to be given up on by the Fish.

The Orioles should get an interesting pitcher, however. Hurk still has his fly ball/home run issues, but could have significantly improved his previous control problems by moving to the slider. The O’s have a stacked future rotation lined up, led by the trio of Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, and Jake Arrieta. However, VandenHurk still has plenty of service time remaining (five years of service time) and may be worth a gamble in return for a one-shot reliever signed in the offseason.

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On the same day, a few other Marlins bloggers and I were discussing the more ideal solution to this problem on Twitter: free Rick VandenHurk.

The guys at Marlin Diehards and I all agree that, rather than tossing up innings of importance to a meaningless middle reliever like Veras, those innings should go to someone with a potential future on the team in VandenHurk. I’ve already discussed the topic of moving Hurk to the bullpen here before, and I think this would be a good way to get him into the majors and pitching against big league hitters. When the Marlins had better options in the bullpen, the team could afford to let VandenHurk stew in the minors, but the promotion of Veras to the big leagues (along with the recent callups of Houser and Alejandro Sanabia) means that the Marlins are indeed out of options.

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Here are the basic shapes of the aging curves for all pitchers, using the delta method, corrected for survivor bias:

As I said, linear weights against is flat until age 26 (maybe a slight curve upward from 21-23 – it is hard to tell as the sample sizes are small and of course you have large selective sampling for young players that get a second year in MLB) and then a sharp, almost linear curve downward to the tune of around .2 runs a year.

K’s go down a little from 21-23 and then gradually go up until age 29 or so. After that, they drop precipitously – around .2 per game per year.

Walks go down from age 21 to 29, around .08 per game per year. After that, they go up .035 per game per year.

HR per BIP go up from the get go, .055 per game per year.

BABIP goes down slightly from 21-24 and then goes up after that, .005 per year.

MGL’s study starts at age 21, which means it always begins with pitchers who reached the majors at that age. Essentially, the lesson of the study (about which MGL did not go into too much detail, though I’m sure he will eventually) is that, contrary to what most of us would like to believe, pitchers generally do not improve as they age, even when they are young. We’d all like to think that having a young pitcher who is not quite a stud yet could mean that in a year or two he’ll be leading the league in strikeouts, but indeed the vast majority of pitchers “are who they are” beginning at age 21!

Given the caveats of the study (which you can read about in the link), that cannot bode well for the younger Marlins’ starters.

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Fist off, we did not give up a whole lot. John said that Jay Voss was unlikely to crack the big league roster anytime soon, and it’s never a good sign to see a pitcher start off as a starter and get transitioned into a relief role in High-A, especially for a lefty. But what about the concerns of Robertson being bad? Certainly those are legitimate given his recent struggles and his already mediocre track record.

Well, yeah, if you’re concerned about that, you are paying attention to the right things. But let me alleviate your concerns. What’s the worst Nate Robertson could possibly do?

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The question will be how many more wins the remaining three starters in the rotation may be able to provide. Among Anibal Sanchez, Chris Volstad, and Clay Hensley, the team would really like to see a two-win season. Let’s take a look at the projection systems and see what they expect.

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