Watching Two Geriatrics Bludgeon Each Other to Death with Pillows

Really, a contest between Kirk Rueter and Jamey Wright is not a battle for the ages. But onec again I'm back with Part II of my look at the Giants three new starting pitchers, compared with the man who had his spot on opening day last year. Yesterday I looked at Matt Morris and Brett Tomko, and tomorrow I'm moving to Matt Cain and Jerome Williams.

For Tomko and Morris it was a pretty straight-forward look at which one was most likely to outperform the other this year based on numbers from the last few years. In the next two cases it isn’t that easy. One, Matt Cain has very small major league sample size so a lot will be based on minor league performance, while Rueter has since retired and has no chance of outperforming Wright (except in theory!).

In this case I decided to see if Wright can give us what some form of Rueter Level Performance, based on a three-year average. I used 2003-2005 for both players. I thought about using 2002 for Rueter, but in the end I felt that since it was an above average year (117 ERA+), it would be comparing Wright against a standard no one is expecting him to reach.

Jamey Wright: It’s hard to look at Wright’s stats since he spent the last two years in the Siberia of MLB, Coors Field. He also only has 44 starts and 275.1 IP over the last three years. Still, what I’m seeing isn’t great. Of all pitchers with at least 200 IP since 2003, has the 13th worst BB/9 (4.48). Over that same time, Rueter walked 23 more batter than Wright, in 169 more innings. And taken with how much ever salt you choose, the 2006 Bill James Handbook projects he stays right around 4.5 BB/9 this year, and lists him as a high injury probability. On the positive, his K/9 isn’t bad (5.26, better than Tomko) and his HR/9 (1.01) is pretty good considering he’s been pitching at Coors.

Kirk Rueter: Woody finally decided it was time to retire to the shed, and will be depriving baseball of his crazy ears and incredibly low strikeout rates. So low that, from 2003 to 2005, only Nate Cornejo has a lower K/9 rate (and according to baseball-reference.com, Wright's worth as a human being is $5 dollars higher than Cornejo, $15 to $10. Always good to know) . Over the same time frame Rueter had a 0.76 K/BB rate, so every inning he threw he was more likely to walk a batter than strike him out. But he also gave up only 0.95 HR/9 and somehow managed to be a winning pitcher for the Giants. And we all thank him for it.

Decision: Since 2003, Wright and Rueter have had very similar WHIPs (1.61 and 1.54) and ERAs (4.97 and 4.96, eerie). If Wright can cut down on his walks a little (how many pitchers have had that said about them this off-season? I would love to see that stat) he could be a serviceable fifth starter, and at least put in a decent VRLP (Value over Rueter Level Performance). His low HR/9 and his high K/9 give him good rates for two of the three true outcomes. And as long as he keeps every ground ball on the left side and every fly ball to center, maybe everything else will fall into place. Wright definitely doesn’t have a huge upside, but considering the difference between Wright and Tomko recently has been about a walk and a half, I think he could be worth what they’re paying him. As long as he keep the Giants in a few games while giving the front four some rest, he’ll do his job, though the list of players I wouldn't mind seeing instead of Wright is pretty long. But that's another discussion...