Pitching: Halladay and Lee

As always, pitchers were the dominant focus of the offseason. Sure, you had the Jason Bay saga - the Mets will like him and the Red Sox won't miss him, but more on that another day - but I'd say that guys like John Lackey, Justin Verlander, Tim Lincecum, Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, and Cliff Lee were the biggest stories. Lackey signed with my Red Sox for $82.5 million over five years. Verlander and the Tigers agreed to an $80m/5yr contract extension. Lincecum, probably worried about his Karma, chickened out of an arbitration hearing he surely would have won, and settled for a $23m/2yr deal with the Giants. Lee and Halladay were involved in the big trade that sent Halladay to Philly and shipped Lee off to join Hernandez in Seattle. Hernandez, for his part, was also signed to a five-year deal worth about $80m.

(I'm not quite sure what's up with the similarity of the deals, as I don't think anybody would seriously suggest that Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, and John Lackey - or A.J. Burnett, if we stretch back a year - are interchangeable. Maybe there's a Big Name Pitcher Contract template, and all the general managers are just too lazy to change the figures.)

In this first blog entry, I'd like to talk about the biggest deal of them all: the Halladay-Lee Trade. In the minds of some, it was a lateral move - exchanging one ace for another ace. In the minds of others, it was a step backwards - exchanging a proven postseason star for an older pitcher with no playoff experience and some past injuries. In my mind, however, the Phillies made a championship-caliber move. Any time you're in the hunt for a title and you have an opportunity to upgrade your rotation by even a little bit, you have to do it, and Halladay is a better pitcher than Lee (and most every other pitcher in baseball) by a fairly sizable margin. The Phillies came awfully close to winning the World Series last year, and they're a better team with Halladay than with Lee. Certainly they'd be better with both of them than with only one, but we have to assume that the Phillies felt they couldn't make that happen, and it's not unreasonable to give the defending National League Champions the benefit of a doubt.

Let's dismiss the criticisms against Halladay first. He's only about 15 months older than Lee. Given the state of modern training, that's practically nothing when you're talking about guys in their early 30s. He also hasn't had injury problems since 2005, and that's despite leading the league in complete games three straight years and finishing in the top four in innings pitched four straight years. Halladay is no more an injury risk than any other player. He's even a lesser risk than Lee, given recent reports about bone spurs in the Southpaw Lee's push-off leg. While the bone spurs aren't major in and of themselves, they can be a persistent problem no matter how good your surgeon is, and better pitchers than Lee have been ended by foot pain. See: Dean, Dizzy.

Sometimes people forget just how good Halladay really is. I know I do. Here in Boston, you hear far more about (the admittedly promising) Clay Buchholz than you do about the former Toronto ace. Much like Arizona's Dan Haren - a guy who has to be in the Major's best pitcher discussion, by the way - Halladay has simply put up superb numbers for mediocre teams in some random corner of the continent. Halladay's got fantastic complete game and shutout figures, and his winning percentage of .661 is incredible for anyone, let alone someone on at most the third-best team in his division. Let's focus in on WHIP, and see what it has to say. Walks+Hits/Innings Pitched (WHIP) is a great number to look at since pitchers have a great deal of control over their walk rates and over how much good contact batters make. It isn't perfect, but if you ranked pitchers strictly by WHIP, you'd get much closer to an accurate pecking order than you would by looking at traditional metrics such as ERA or strikeouts. It's also an easy number to scale. The best pitchers have whips in the 1.0-1.1 range. The league average is about 1.4. Since 2003, Halladay has either led or been second in the American League in WHIP four times, all while pitching in this decade's toughest division. He was also on pace to lead the league in 2005 before getting hurt.

Then there's the consistency factor. The former Indian is only two years removed from a 5-8 record and a WHIP over 1.5, while Halladay has essentially been the same pitcher since 2001. Comparing their careers year-by-year, it's interesting to note that Halladay has always finished with a better WHIP than Lee. Yes, that includes Cliff Lee's Cy Young year. (That was a prize he undoubtedly deserved, though I'd say it would have been just as fair for Halladay, the runner-up, to win.) In fact, Halladay's career WHIP of 1.198 is less than a tenth of a point behind Cliff Lee's best season. Neither guy has been a strikeout king, but Halladay has been top 5 three times, while Lee has only been top 10 once. When you look at any of their rates (hits, walks, home runs, strikeouts, strikeouts-to-walks), Halladay has a clear advantage. Really, no matter what metric you use in direct comparison, Halladay has peaked higher, and his averages are as good as Lee's best.

Now let's criticize Cliff Lee. Not really because he deserves it; mostly because I liked looking up the stats. His full season WHIP ranked thirtieth in the Majors. 30th. As in worse than 29 other guys. I don't believe in strict guidelines, but a good rule of thumb is that when a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher named Ross Ohlendorf is ranked five places ahead of you, you aren't better than one of the decade's elite pitchers. Don't get me wrong. I'd love for my team to have him. I certainly think Seattle has one of the deadliest one-two combinations in baseball ... but there really shouldn't be any doubt about whether Lee is playing the part of Koufax or the part of Drysdale.

It seems pretty clear to me that of the two, Halladay is the better option. While Lee pitched great in the postseason, we have to remember that only a year prior, Cole Hamels was the Fall Classic star. The terrible October he had in '09 should serve as a warning to all those who put too much stock in short series performances. I mean that not as a criticism of Hamels - he's only 26 and he's had several fine seasons and just one pretty unlucky one. I simply don't think we should anoint Lee as the Prince of Big Games and Heir to the Throne of Schilling when his entire career has been a textbook example of inconsistency. Halladay's career has been one of steady excellence, and there's no reason to think that he'll suddenly lose his stuff when he takes the mound during the playoffs.

From a more broad perspective, the Phillies made a good decision. Halladay is simply better than Lee, and that was one of the few opportunities they had to improve. They already had an excellent lineup - I'm not a big Ryan Howard fan, but only seven men have ever had more 45 home run seasons, and the guy is only 30 - that can probably go toe-to-toe with the mighty Yankees. Their only deficiency was third-base, and they solved that with the Polanco signing. Their bullpen is suspect, but relief pitchers aren't exactly predictable even in the best of circumstances, and it's not like you're going to find a single team in baseball that would feel comfortable trading away a good reliever. If they hadn't pulled the trigger to replace Lee with the superior Halladay, they'd have just treaded water.

The Phillies are good enough to win the National League East even without Halladay. Hanley Ramirez is versatile, but I don't think he can throw 200 innings. Jason Bay is a pretty good slugger, but he won't keep the Mets' rotation healthy. Atlanta is the most serious threat - I really like Tommy Hanson and Brian McCann - but the Phillies have simply too much firepower, and they've got enough depth in the starting rotation to stave off the Braves' largely uninspiring regulars. But winning the division isn't the point. It's all about the World Series. They weren't good enough to win it last year, and unless they wanted to pin their hopes on Placido Polanco, they had an obligation to improve when the opportunity presented itself. If I'm a Phillies fan, I've got to be happy with the team's attitude.