Arizona A Good Bet To Improve In 2011

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Arizona will bounce back in 2011

With a little less bad luck, the D-backs will be among baseball's most improved teams



By Howard Megdal
Special to ESPN Insider
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By all measures, the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks were an utter disaster. They finished with a record of 65-97, the third-worst in all of baseball. Manager A.J. Hinch got fired midway through the season, and general manager Josh Byrnes also got the ax, even with five years remaining on his contract.
And while changes were clearly necessary from a public relations standpoint, a bounce-back season in 2011 probably would have happened whether new manager Kirk Gibson and new GM Kevin Towers came on the scene or not. Even below-average luck in Arizona's bullpen should pull the team within hailing distance of .500, and it is easy to see Arizona's path to a winning season ahead.

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Let's start with the baseline. The Diamondbacks finished at 65-97, but their Pythagorean expected win-loss record was a slightly better 69-93, based on runs scored and runs allowed. But why was this mark so poor? Yes, Arizona ranked 15th in runs scored -- middle of the pack, though that is less impressive, given their hitter-friendly ballpark -- but the pitching, particularly the bullpen, performed at a shocking level of incompetence.


Last season, Arizona's bullpen ERA was 5.74. To put that into context, the Chicago Cubs ranked 29th in all of baseball in bullpen ERA -- and Chicago's mark was 4.72, more than a full run better than Arizona's. No team has put up a worse bullpen ERA since 2007, when the Tampa Bay Rays checked in at 6.16 and the Baltimore Orioles posted a mark of 5.75. And no National League bullpen posted a worse ERA than Arizona's 2010 unit did since well before bullpens were used as frequently as they are today. The Colorado Rockies, for reference, never produced a worse bullpen ERA during the height of pre-humidor Coors Field.


But while the ERA is historically unsightly, the components going into the ERA were merely garden-variety bad. Arizona's bullpen xFIP was 4.86 -- still worst in the league, but within hailing distance of the Detroit Tigers' 4.68 and Kansas City Royals' 4.55. Merely by replacing the ERAs of Arizona's returning relievers with their 2010 expected ERAs would knock 43 runs off of their runs allowed total from 2010, bringing their expected win-loss record to 73-89. That's an eight-win improvement over their actual record and four wins above their expected record -- without any changes whatsoever.


Of course, Arizona actually did make some changes as well (after all, it's hard to get fans excited over the winter with a dramatic news conference detailing how the team was unlucky). J.J. Putz stands as the biggest addition to the bullpen, and his 2.83 ERA in 54 innings last season was remarkably close to his xFIP of 2.87. Putz, if he throws the same number of innings in 2011, would be a dramatic improvement over the departed Blaine Boyer, who threw 57 innings with a 4.26 ERA in 2010 -- an xFIP of 4.60, one of the few Arizona pitchers to outperform expected ERA. That exchange alone slices another 10 runs off of Arizona's runs allowed, meaning their expected win-loss record improves to 74-88.

Clearly, they'll need some other improvements. Daniel Hernandez (4.31 ERA in 79.1 innings in 2010), acquired this winter from Baltimore in the Mark Reynolds trade, will need to provide quality innings to replace those provided by Jordan Norberto (5.82 ERA in 20 innings), Cesar Valdez (7.65 ERA in 20 innings), Leo Rosales (7.16 ERA in 16.1 innings) and Bobby Howry (10.67 ERA in 14.1 innings). If Hernandez can repeat that 2010 performance while taking on that quartet's forgettable innings, it knocks another 26 runs off of Arizona's runs allowed, bringing their expected win-loss record to 77-85.


And while it is unreasonable to expect Daniel Hudson to put up the 1.69 ERA he managed in 11 starts after coming over in the Edwin Jackson trade last July, Hudson is projected to post an ERA of 3.56 in 2011, according to Dan Szymborski's ZiPS. Replace the combined totals of Edwin Jackson and Hudson from 2010 with that Hudson season, and another 20 runs come off Arizona's runs allowed, bringing their expected win-loss record to 79-83.


So while Kevin Towers stood pat with his pitching -- indeed, his big acquisition other than Putz was starter Zach Duke, a recent spring training casualty -- it will be his hitting that determines if Arizona will finish above or below that break-even mark. A full season from Miguel Montero would go a long way toward making that happen, with a healthy Russell Branyan likely assuring it. ZiPS also likes Justin Upton to significantly improve upon his 2010 campaign, though Kelly Johnson is a likely candidate to regress.


It won't matter, though: It is extremely unlikely that Arizona will suffer through the horrific performances -- and horrific luck -- that it did last season, particularly from the bullpen. Towers is smart enough to know he'd get credit for a turnaround the moment he entered his new office, even if the law of averages had a lot to do with it.
 

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