Starter v. Reliever Splits

To my knowledge, team splits in the minors are not easy to come by if at all, and I wanted to go inside the team pitching stats a little bit. The last two days, I tried to separate teams' starters and relievers stats to see how rotations and bullpens stack up. It wasn't as easy as just looking at as starter/as reliever splits. I tried to account for special circumstances that I'll talk about right now. All stats are prior to the games on 7/14.

A start is defined as:
1. Being the first pitcher of the game for a team
2. Being the first pitcher out of the bullpen following a rehabbing major leaguer, unless that pitcher is typically a reliever

Basically, I wanted to throw out innings thrown by major leaguers that could skew stats. Although I will admit that I made a mistake with High Desert that I couldn't correct. Their reliever stats look a little worse than I should because I threw out Ryan Feierabend's innings from the totals, but his hits, runs, etc. remain. For that I apologize.

. Team W L S IP ERA WHIP H/9 HR/9 BB/9 K/9 . Lake Elsinore 36 21 0 437.1 3.97 1.37 9.5 0.6 2.9 7.5 . San Jose 29 23 0 476.1 4.25 1.35 9.5 1 2.7 7 . High Desert 30 21 0 452.2 4.49 1.36 10.1 1 2.1 6.9 . Modesto 31 29 0 491 4.67 1.49 10.5 0.6 2.9 7.4 . Inland Empire 22 39 0 472 4.71 1.48 9.3 0.6 4 7.2 . Visalia 27 28 0 464 4.73 1.47 9.9 0.7 3.3 7.3 . Rancho Cucamonga 32 32 0 489.1 4.82 1.48 10.1 1 3.2 6.9 . Bakersfield 24 31 0 484.1 4.91 1.49 10.1 1 3.3 7.1 . Stockton 22 36 0 443 5.32 1.59 10.9 1.1 3.4 8 . Lancaster 19 37 0 450 5.46 1.57 11.2 0.9 3 6.2

Here is the table of starters sorted by ERA. Lake Elsinore has the best rotation which really isn't a surprise if you look at the overall pitching stats. Their K:BB ratio is one of the best in the league, and compared to some other rotations, they don't give up many hits either. The odd thing about Lake Elsinore's rotation is they're last in starters innings pitched, and that's likely due to them playing it safe with some of their younger arms and limiting innings in the second half.

San Jose and High Desert are in the next tier of very good starting pitching. The Mavericks being that high is surprising due to their home environment. Their key this season has obviously been their control, with a BB/9 far better than anyone else's. Their WHIP is actually better than Lake Elsinore's, and I'd guess that the inflated home run total at their stadium is the cause of their ERA being so much higher. With three All Star starters, San Jose is right where they should be.

The interesting thing is only Lake Elsinore and San Jose are better than the league average ERA, 4.47. It shows how much better the bullpens have been. Modesto leads the league in innings by starters which isn't a surprise since they've had the same five guys all year, and two of them are very good.

. Team W L S IP ERA WHIP H/9 HR/9 BB/9 K/9 . Bakersfield 17 17 25 283.1 3.34 1.35 7.8 0.6 4.4 8.4 . Lake Elsinore 19 13 34 354.1 3.43 1.27 8.9 0.5 2.5 7.7 . Rancho Cucamonga 18 7 22 301.2 3.55 1.28 7.7 0.6 3.8 9.6 . San Jose 21 16 25 311.1 3.76 1.28 8 0.7 3.5 8 . Visalia 21 13 24 324.2 3.88 1.51 9.8 0.6 3.7 8.9 . Stockton 18 13 18 341.1 4.17 1.42 8.4 0.7 4.5 8.8 . Modesto 13 14 24 306.1 4.34 1.41 8.8 0.9 3.8 8.9 . Inland Empire 11 12 16 278.2 4.49 1.57 9.9 0.5 4.2 8 . Lancaster 13 20 13 328 4.75 1.49 9.7 1.2 3.7 7.4 . High Desert 18 19 19 308.2 5.92 1.64 12.3 1.2 2.5 7.2

Like I said earlier, High Desert's numbers are inaccurate due to an error by me, but it's still clear that their bullpen has struggled this year. They're not consistently closing games, and it's a shame because the starting pitching has been great and obviously they're always going to score a lot of runs. Inland Empire and Lancaster are the only other two bullpens below the league average.

Bakersfield's bullpen currently leads bullpens in ERA, and that's a bit of a surprise. Their WHIP indicates maybe they shouldn't, but they've still clearly been a very good unit so far. Besides Inland Empire, they're the least worked bullpen in the league. Lake Elsinore has also had a great bullpen, led by saves leader Brad Brach. They get a solid amount of strikeouts, but the big thing is they limit baserunners. Rancho Cucamonga leads relievers in K/9.