Ho-Lee Cow!

Cliff Lee

Apparently I wasn’t the only one caught off guard by the Cliff Lee signing in Philadelphia.  As Phil Rizzuto would have said, “holy cow”!

So the question needs to be asked, is this the best one-two pitching combination ever with Halladay and Lee?  The answer, at least until next October, is no.  Baseball, as I’ve bored you with before is rich in history and you don’t have to go back far too far to find pitching tandems that had crazy seasons. 

I won’t take you to the time machine and expound upon the exploits of Schoolboy Rowe and Tommy Bridges, but instead look quickly at some more recent dynamic duos. 

The real dynamic duo

Team	Pitcher	Year	Combined Record	Season Result	% of team wins
Arizona	Schilling, Johnson	2001	43-12	Won World Series	46.7%
Arizona	Schilling, Johnson	2002	47-12	Won division	50.5%
Atlanta	Glavine, Maddux	1993	42-16	Lost World Series	40.4%
Detroit	Coleman, Lolich	1971	45-23	2nd Place	49.4%
Houston	Hampton, Lima	1999	43-14	Won Division	44.3%
Yankees	Figueroa, Guidry	1978	45-12	Won World Series	45.0%
Oakland	Hunter, Blue	1973	45-14	Won World Series	46.4%
Oakland	Stewart, Welch	1990	49-17	Lost World Series	47.6%
	Lee, Halladay	2008-2010	36-9

The last line is the combined average of Lee & Halladay’s last three years.  Anyone reading this doesn’t need any lessons on Halladay’s stats so I won’t bother.  The thing to remember about Lee however is that he isn’t nearly the winner that Halladay is.  This may come as a bit of surprise to some of you but Lee has only been above 14 wins twice in his career.  He had 22 wins in ’08 which relegated Halladay to second in the Cy Young voting that year; and he had 18 wins in ’05.  Other than that, 14 is his max. 

So why is this signing a big deal?  In my opinion there are three reasons. 

1)       Halladay for sure tops Lee in Wins and ERA (by about ½ a run).  Where they are really close to even is in losses and innings pitched.  Historically, there aren’t a lot of pitchers like these guys.  Guys that just don’t lose or experience losing streaks.  They have ‘no-decision’ streaks from time to time, but because they both work deep into games they are often around long enough for the offense to catch up.  Think Seaver or Pedro.   Even in seasons where they don’t win big, the loss totals are still low.   

2)      As much as having Lee in your rotation is fabulous, having Lee in September and October when the games really count is incredible.  Lee is 7-2 with a 2.13 ERA in his post season career with 3 complete games in 10 starts.  Add that to Halladay’s 2-1 record and 2.45 ERA AND 3 complete games in 3 career starts and you have one rested bull pen!

3)      Having an ace behind your ace is an advantage that can’t be taken lightly.  Ask Smoltz or Glavine or Avery or Millwood.  For the 1^st time in four years Lee will never have to face the best pitcher on another team.  Halladay will always get the Linecum, Jiminez, Arroyo, Dempster and Garland starts.  Lee will get (on average) pitchers that he should be able to dominate. 

Bob Welch and Barry Bonds never tested positive for Steroids

I don’t expect anything different out of Halladay this year.  He’ll be between 18-22 wins and 6-10 losses.  It’s who he is.  Lee on the other hand could pull a Bob Welch.  Welch was a good pitcher with Dodgers over 10 years.  He was a combined 115-86.  His numbers actually looked a lot like Cliff Lee’s.  He topped out at 16 wins, only had one losing season in 10 years.  Then he was the center piece of a sever player, three team deal and ended up with Oakland.  He pitched behind Oakland’s bona fide number one pitcher Dave Stewart starting in 1988. 

Stewart was coming off of a 20-9 season in which he finished 3^rd in the Cy Young voting.  Welch was 15-9 in his final year in LA.  Over the next two years Steward would go 21-12 and 21-9.  Welch would go 17-9 and 17-8.  I’m sure that Dave Duncan (pitching coach) was a factor.  Also, Oakland had some pharmaceutical aids that were known to help players too.  But pitching behind a guy like Stewart who never missed starts and was the unquestioned number one, was probably the biggest single reason for his dramatic improvement.  In their third season together, Stewart would have another Stewart year going 22-11; Welch went a staggering 27-6.  It certainly didn’t hurt that the entirely American League only had 4 teams over .500 that year and it also didn’t hurt that Welch never had to worry about facing anyone else’s ace. 

Jayson Werth

 Oops...This is Jayson Worth

Lee could have one of those stupid win years.   If Lee and Halladay combined for 50 wins I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.  I wonder now if Jayson Werth would like to undo his deal with the Nationals. 

As much as this 1-2 punch has the potential to be ridiculous, the 1-2-3-4 punch could be legend.  The only two staffs that I can think of that compare are:  Baltimore 1971 and Atlanta 1998.  Its tough and rare to go 4 deep.  Philly now has Cole Hamels who was a number 2 starter as the fourth man in the rotation.  Roy Oswalt who was a legit number one in Houston is now the third starter in Philly.  Wow.

Team	Year	Pitcher	Record	ERA
Baltimore	1971	Mike Cuellar	20-9	3.08
	1971	Pat Dobson	20-8	2.90
	1971	Jim Palmer	20-9	2.68
	1971	Dave McNally	21-5	2.68
Total			81-31	50 over 500
Atlanta	1993	Greg Maddux	20-10	2.36
	1993	Tom Glavine	22-6	3.20
	1993	Steve Avery	18-6	2.94
	1993	John Smoltz	15-11	3.62
Total			75-33	42 over 500
Phillies	2010	Roy Halladay	17-9	2.44
	2010	Cliff Lee	16-9	3.08
	2010	Roy Oswalt	16-9	2.76
	2010	Cole Hamels	14-10	3.06
Total			63-37	26 over 500

While 26 games over (based on pitchers average win totals) may not look too impressive, remember that everyone, save Halladay, will be pitching against vastly inferior competition than they are accustomed to. 

Justin Verlander

So how much will the level of competition matter?  I think it will matter tons!  If you have a C.C Sabathia Vs. Justin Verlander matchup, you’re probably thinking it would be a good game.  Sabathia Vs Armando Galarraga?  Now you’d have to bet on a Yankee win. 

Starting pitchers in the National League don’t generally get as many wins their AL brethren.  Mostly that is due to the much talked about and highly overrated pinch hitting and over-managing that takes place. 

Last year in the NL the second winningest pitcher on each team averaged 11.5 wins.   Lee and his historical average of 16 wins, will be pitching against guys who can reasonably expect to be around 11 or 12 wins for the year.  How many of those would come against a guy like Lee?

Oswalt, (16 wins as well) will be pitching against 3^rd starters how last year in the NL averaged a whooping 9.5 wins over 162 games. 

Heidi Hamels

The differential gets crazy with Hamels.  Number four starters in the NL got roughly half of Hamels win total for last year at 7.4 for the season.

This staff could be one of the best ever; however December projections rarely pan out.  The good news is that there is only one knuckle-head on the staff and I’m sure the vets will be more than able to keep Hamels under wrap. 

Prediction:  90 wins from the Phillies rotation without knowing who the 5^th starter is.