Becasue my Bill James handbook is my best freind...

The Giants are starting the season with three new starting pitchers from this time last year, and in my own ultra-simplified mind have separated it down thusly: Morris replaces Tomko, Cain replaces Williams and Wright replaces Rueter. Today I’m looking at Morris and Tomko.

Matt Morris: Morris comes from the Cardinals after a few if not disappointing at least mediocre seasons. He has had some injury problems, but still has pitched well over the last few seasons. In the last three years he’s averaged a 101 ERA+, so he’s been at least average. And if you listen to Tony LaRussa or MLB.com, the cool air should help him out. But his velocity has been dropping, evidenced by him throwing the 4^th lowest percentage of fastballs (43.7) and 5^th most curveballs (23.3) in the majors last year.

Brett Tomko: This says pretty much everything I know about Brett Tomko. As much as any statistic can tell you and how much I know he’s a better pitcher than this, watching someone give up 5 runs in the first inning to the Rockies, away from Coors, makes an impression. One I haven’t been able to shake, but I’ll try to put on my objective journalist hat (I have one in my other job). Bill James says Tomko had the 4th fastest average fastball in the majors last year, and threw 401 pitches faster than 95 mph. Everyone knows he has the tools. But between calls for sports physiologists he has never been able to put it all together, once upon a time, in a land far far away, on a dark and stormy night, etc…

Decision: Maybe I’m just done with Tomko (not saying he won’t figure it out in Chavez Ravine), but I’m happy with the Morris signing, strictly from a performance standpoint. Between 2 years/$8.7 mil vs. 3 years/$27 mil, especially for pitchers over 30, you take the former. But looking at the numbers, over the last three years Morris has a better ERA+ (101 to 94), K/BB (2.79 to 1.89) and WHIP (1.25 to 1.41). He gets more strikeouts and walks fewer batters, always a plus. And Tomko has huge right/left and home/away splits, which spells inconsistency to me. I think Tomko has the bigger upside, but Morris has the best chance of actually succeeding.