Late Innings

I know that after today’s effort by the Phillies pushing out C.C. Sabathia and the Milwaukee Brewers out of the postseason, a number of teams expected to bid on Sabathia come November expressed heavy sighs of relief for two reasons:

1. The NLDS ended in four games, not five, when Sabathia would have been trotted out in Game Five of the Series.
2. The Brewers won’t advance into the NLCS to face the Dodgers, with by that point having Sabthia throwing around 265 innings.

Sabathia only threw under four innings in game two of the series, and ends up with around 257 innings for the season. Sabathia has been used heavily the past two years, and is expected to land a contract in the six years, 150MM ballpark. In regards to the teams expected to open the checkbook for him (e.g. the Yankees), from an excellent piece today on RotoWorld by Matthew Pouliot, something to consider about the ace:

Including the postseason, Sabathia has thrown 513 innings over two years, the highest total since Randy Johnson in 2001-02. Johnson threw just 114 innings the following season. Mark Buehrle, the last AL pitcher to go over 500 innings in a two-year span in 2004-05, saw his ERA jump from 3.12 to 4.99 in 2006. Livan Hernandez also topped 500 innings in 2004-05. His ERA jumped from 3.98 in 2005 to 4.83 ERA in 2006 and hasn’t come back down since.

Personally I’m not a fan of starting pitcher abuse. I love watching young pitchers like Tim Lincecum throw, however I cringe in horror when their management (e.g. Bruce Bochy) have them throw 227 innings in a year (Matt Cain is equally abused.) Some pitchers who were abused in 2007 pitched well in 2008, for instance Roy Halladay (20-11, 2.78). Others like Aaron Harrang (6-17, 4.78) did not.

Any ways, for those fantasy owners out there… judging on our lessons learned in 2007… if it’s the fourth round and Sabathia and Lincecum are still on the board would you draft them? Personally no, I’d take a solid hitter. I’m curious to see what their numbers will be like in 2009, and wouldn’t risk anything better than a sixth round pick on these two arms. Of course I could be completely wrong here, but we’re starting to see the risk in spending high picks on drafting expensive starting pitching.