Dodgers-Giants Position-by-Position Comparison – Starting Pitching

The baseball season started today and Mike Krukow thinks Yasiel Puig is dumb for not pegging the Giants as their biggest rival. In San Luis Obispo, I’d say they are, though the two teams have not met in the playoffs since the Wild Card round started.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been going position by position and comparing what personnel the two teams have in preparation for the 2015 season. Let’s finish up this blasted series by comparing pitching staffs.

A quick note — I had this entire post written, clicked save, and it went away into the abyss. The second complete draft of something like this is always worse. That means worse than my usual posts. Consider this fair warning.

Some of the spots in a rotation — who is the third versus fourth starter, for example — are up for debate. I’m going to go in the order of ZiPS Projections for the Dodgers and Giants. Follow the two links in the last sentence if you want to see those projections. I’ll refer to them some in the text to follow.

Ace — Clayton Kershaw vs. Madison Bumgarner

Clayton Kershaw. The best pitcher on the planet. By Owen Main

Clayton Kershaw is, without a doubt, the best pitcher in baseball. He’s won three of the past four Cy Young Awards in the National League, including the past two.

Madision Bumgarner is coming off one of the greatest postseason pitching performances in recent memory. He has three World Series rings, which is two more than Kershaw.

Bumgarner is less than two years younger than the 27 year-old Kershaw, and both will surely have spectacular seasons. According the Fangraphs, Kershaw has been worth no less than 4.5 Wins Above Replacement for each of the past five seasons, including 7.0 last season.

Bumgarner has been worth three or more wins each of the past four seasons, including 4.1 last season — the second best season of his career.

Kershaw is the better pitcher of the two, but Giants fans won’t be rushing to trade places anytime soon. They believe Bumgarner has something Kershaw doesn’t come the post-season. According to the numbers and the whole of the past half-decade, I’ll take Kershaw all day.

Advantage: Dodgers

 Number Two — Zack Greinke vs. Jake Peavy

After Bumgarner, the Giants’ rotation gets really interesting. None of the other four truly stands-out. Peavy is a pitcher who has tormented the Dodgers for years. At the age of 33, Peavy is nearly a decade now from his truly dominant form, but last season he was good for 200-plus innings. His stuff isn’t what it used to be, but Giants fans would be happy with a stable and dependable pitcher that Peavy has been over the past few years. He’s not amazing, but he gives Bruce Bochy a chance to win whenever he steps on the mound.

ZiPS projects Peavy for about two wins about replacement in 2015.

Greinke would be an ace on most staffs. At the age of 31, his great performance over the past three years has been overshadowed by his left-handed teammate. ZiPS projects him for 3.7 WAR — basically splitting the difference between his last two seasons.

A few things I like especially about Greinke are his grittiness, athleticism, and quirkiness. He is the only Dodgers pitcher who has stood up for his hitters over the past few seasons, and it cost him time two years ago when Carlos Quentin broke his collar bone. Greinke can hit a little bit and was even the Gold Glove Award winner last year — the first such award of his career.

Greinke’s ceiling and floor for performance this year are higher than anyone on the Giants, save Bumgarner. He can opt-out of his contract after this season and sign an even bigger one too, so there’s definitely a little extra incentive for him to pitch really well this year.

The signing of Greinke can also be called Ned Colletti’s best signing as a General Manager. Greinke has been everything Dodger fans could have asked for, and then some.

Peavy would be a great fourth or fifth starter, but in the widest margin of this post, Greinke beats-out Peavy.

Advantage: Dodgers

Number Three – Hyun-jin Ryu vs. Tim Hudson

Things start to get interesting here. Much like Peavy, the 39 year-old Hudson isn’t exactly the pitcher he once was. Giants fans will tell me that he didn’t need to be that good to be a part of a championship rotation, and they’d be right. Things broke well for Hudson and the Giants last year and Hudson started 31 games. Even with a losing (9-13) record — the first losing season of Hudson’s career — he still gave the Giants value and stability in a pitcher they could depend on. While there are no indications of it other than his age, Giant fans hope this isn’t the season Hudson breaks-down completely.

Speaking of breaking-down, Hyun-jin Ryu, the Dodgers 28 year-old lefty from Korea, has started the season on the Disabled List.

Over the past few seasons, Ryu has quietly been a really really good pitcher. Greinke and Kershaw in front of him makes him not as flashy, but Ryu is a dependable, solid, and slightly overqualified number-three starter. Recently, I went down a Ryu YouTube rabbit hole. It was quite enjoyable.

Shoulder discomfort shut him down at the beginning of the season, but Ryu has generally been a workhorse when the Dodgers have needed it most over the past few years, going 28-15 over that span.

If Ryu wasn’t injured, this matchup would be a slam-dunk. Instead, a Giants fan could make an argument that having a dependable Hudson all season is better than say, half a season of Ryu (which would be a really bad scenario for the Dodgers in general). Hudson will probably have a solid, dependable year. Ryu though, will likely be much better when he does pitch.

Ryu has been solid for two years and even if he misses a month or up to even a few months, he still is a player I’d rather have than a 39 year-old Hudson.

Advantage: Dodgers

Number Four – Brandon McCarthy vs. Matt Cain

Health is always a huge question-mark with pitchers. The fourth and fifth starter positions for both the Dodgers and Giants will put health at a huge premium.

When healthy, Brandon McCarthy is a really good pitcher. In 2014, McCarthy started 30-plus games for the first time in his career (32 total), split between the Diamondbacks and Yankees. In exactly 200 innings, he put up a 4.05 ERA overall and a 2.89 ERA with the Yankees. Clearly, something clicked after his move to New York, and the Dodgers are hoping whatever it was can be sustainable throughout this season. McCarthy is also, immediately, the best twitter follow on the team (A.J. Ellis and Brett Anderson are both also, very good follows). The Dodgers seem pretty confident that he can stay healthy and effective evidenced by the four-year, $48 million contract they gave him this off season.

If McCarthy stays healthy, he’ll be exactly the kind of quality, middle of the rotation guy they need to be the kind of consistent team fans are hoping for.

Matt Cain used to be dominant. His statistics from 2007- 2010 (or even 2012) show a pretty great four or six-year run. After being good for 30-plus games per season for eight straight years, Cain’s body started to break down last season, when he only started 15 games, going 2-7. His WHIP, FIP, HR/9, and BB/9 all were at career-high levels. The Giants still went all Giants on everyone and won the World Series anyway, but the 30 year-old Cain is looking to bounce back this year and show at least some return to form going into his 30’s.

This one is really hard to call, so I’m going to take the coward’s way out and call this matchup a push. McCarthy is a little older, has less mileage, and probably is a little more injury prone. Cain’s numbers have declined over the past few seasons and now he’s starting to also fit into the “injury prone” category. Since the first draft of this post, Cain has been placed on the Disabled List to start the season.

In the end, I think Cain is still potentially likely to be more stable than McCarthy if he’s healthy, but McCarthy’s upside I see as higher, especially given his second half last season. Dodger fans might think I’m giving Cain too much credit here, but I’m comfortable calling this one just a straight-up push for now.

Advantage: Push

Brett Anderson could have a solid comeback season — if he can stay healthy. By Owen Main

Number Five – Brett Anderson vs. Tim Lincecum

While Matt Cain was making his ridiculous six-year run, Lincecum was going on a ridiculous run of his own. The Freak won the National League Cy Young Award in 2008 and 2009, led the league in strikeouts for three straight years, and was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 WAR over a four-year period. After starting 32-plus games per season for five years in a row, Lincecum started just 26 games last season, in his age-30 season.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, Lincecum has been worse than a replacement-level pitcher since 2011. Peripheral stats aside, Giants fans will tell me that Lincecum still got 33 starts for a World Series champion in 2012 and 26 for a World Series Champion in 2014.

By all accounts, Brett Anderson is really good — when he isn’t hurt. The former A’s lefty was good for Oakland in 2009 and 2010, but has only started 19 total games over the past three years. Anderson’s value to the Dodgers this season is probably going to be based on how many starts he’s actually able to make.

If the Dodgers even get 15-20 starts out of him, he could be really really useful. If his starts are in single digits and he gets hurt, then he’ll be less useful.

Advanced statistics aside and giving both guys some kind of benefit of the doubt, my question here is whether I would rather have an aging, less effective Lincecum for 25-30 starts, or whether Brett Anderson for (as ZIPS projects) 10 starts. While I like the argument about other guys also adding value after Anderson’s 10 or so starts for the Dodgers, I really think there is something to having a known entity on the mound. Lincecum has three World Series rings and two Cy Young Awards. He has been out there nearly every day for a lot of years and that, to me, is worth something over the course of the season, even if his skills are probably declining.

Hey, it’s the fifth starter, so literally ANYTHING could happen, but for now, I’m going to give Lincecum the nod, at least until I can see like 15 Brett Anderson starts.

Advantage: Giants

The Rest of the Story

Other Dodgers starters — Joe Wieland, Mike Bolsinger, Carlos Frias, Zach Lee, Julio Urias, Erik Bedard, Brandon Beachy

Other Giants starters – Ryan Vogelsong, Yusmeiro Petit, others?

The Dodgers definitely have the depth advantage here. They’ve picked up some “scrap-heap” guys in Bedard and Beachy — neither of whom have much risk associated and both of whom could give some spot starts. Joe Weiland is an interesting option, should Ryu stay on the Disabled List for long, or should any other Dodgers starter go there.

Zach Lee is another option the Dodgers have. A former top pick, Lee’s stock has slid some over the past year. But his pedigree is there, and he might have already been given a big Major League shot in some organizations. Frias is potentially a guy the Dodgers could use and I haven’t even mentioned Julio Urias, who probably still needs at least one more year in the minors.

As for the Giants, Vogelsong has already been called into action and will start the Giants’ second game today, with both Peavy and Cain going on the DL. He’s been serviceable, but not great since his hot start a few years ago. Petit is an interesting option and, given the collective age of the Giants’ starting staff, should also get an opportunity at some point this year to show what he’s made of.

There are lots of other pitchers on the Giants’ pipeline page, including former Cal Poly hurler Chase Johnson at #24, but I haven’t heard a whole lot about them. Maybe it’s because I’m not paying enough attention… .

That said, when it comes to organizational depth at the starting pitcher position, the Dodgers are in pretty darn good shape compared not only to the Giants, but to most other teams in baseball.

Advantage: Dodgers

Overall, the Dodgers have clear advantages in pitching outlook, but there’s a big caveat in the form of three trophies now sitting in San Francisco. Bruce Bochy is probably the best manager in baseball, and pitching staffs are affected by how they are utilized. It remains to be seen how the Dodgers protect, utilize, and try to get the most out of their guys this season. I’d rather be Don Mattingly with the Dodgers’ depth this season, but we know Bochy gets the most out of his guys.

What did I miss? Who did I miss? Why am I wrong? Add your comments below!