USA, Venezuela and D.R. WBC Roster Analysis part 1: Pitching

So the WBC is already upon us, and before the American part of the tournament starts I'm going to analyse the rosters for the 3 favorites: U.S., Venezuela and the D.R.

Starting Pitching

The U.S. is going with a traditional 4 starter rotation. Their pitching roster is composed of 4 starting pitchers and 10 relievers. They’ll be using a starter per game and 2 or 3 relievers after that. This is a pretty risky approach for the first two rounds of the tournament because of the pitch count restrictions –they might have to use the bullpen too much-, but given their talent depth and the talent of their opposition for the first two rounds, it might not be a big deal.

Venezuela is going with a more starting pitcher-intense rotation. Their roster has 9 starters and 5 relievers. The Venezuelan approach seems to be to use 2 or 3 starters per game and maybe a reliever or two, and keep everybody’s pitch count low - an “All Star Game” strategy. This also seems to be a pretty risky strategy since a lot of the Venezuelan starters (Zambrano and Garcia come to mind immediately) are the kind of pitchers who need to throw a few innings before they really start to warm up.

The Dominicans, with the least-proven staff are taking a more conservative approach. They are taking 7 starting pitchers and 6 relievers. The strategy will be, as confirmed by coach Manny Acta, two starters, a setup man and a closer per game.

The pitching rosters look like this:

USA

	NRA	#P/IP	Age
Roger Clemens	2.32	15.2	43
Dontrelle Willis	3.25	15.1	24
Jake Peavy	3.43	15.6	24
Al Leiter	5.79	20.0	40
Average	3.70	16.5	33

VENEZUELA

	NRA	#P/IP	Age
Johan Santana	2.89	14.4	27
Kelvim Escobar	3.20	15.0	29
Carlos Zambrano	3.47	15.9	24
Carlos Silva	3.72	12.2	26
Freddy Garcia	3.75	14.9	30
Gustavo Chacin	3.80	16.0	25
Victor Zambrano	4.58	16.8	30
Tony Armas	5.18	17.7	27
Carlos Hernandez	6.32	18.4	25
Average	4.10	15.7	27

DOMINICAN REP.

	NRA	#P/IP	Age
Jorge Sosa	2.85	16.2	28
Robinson Tejeda	3.63	17.2	23
Bartolo Colon	3.73	14.6	32
Miguel Batista	4.30	16.4	35
Daniel Cabrera	4.94	17.8	24
Odalis Perez	4.98	15.1	28
Francisco Liriano	5.27	15.4	22
Average	4.24	16.1	27

NRA are Normalized Runs Allowed (taken from baseball prospectus).

#P/IP is pitches per innings pitched.

Both statistics are taken for the last major league season the players pitched in.

The US’s starting pitching is the best in runs allowed and, ignoring Al Leiter’s influence on the average, in pitches per inning. The DR ranks at the bottom in runs allowed and pitches per inning (again, ignoring Al Leiter’s weight on the US average) but, remarkably, not as far from Venezuela as would have been expected.

A caveat for those reading: NRA should not be taken as a measure of the quality of the pitcher. Ie: Jorge Sosa is not as good as Johan Santana, but in his last season Sosa allowed about as many Runs as Santana on average. A more complete picture is seen if you combine NRA and pitch counts: on average Sosa needed to throw about 2 more pitches than Santana to get out of innings (about 14% more pitches).

Now turning to the Bullpens:

USA

	NRA	#P/IP	Age
Huston Street	2.00	15.2	22
Dan Wheeler	2.30	14.8	28
Mike Timlin	2.48	14.6	39
Todd Jones	2.60	14.1	37
Joe Nathan	2.71	16.4	31
Brian Fuentes	2.73	18.0	30
Brad Lidge	2.73	16.1	29
Chad Cordero	3.11	16.3	23
Scot Shields	3.25	16.5	30
Gary Majewski	3.53	16.5	26
Average	2.74	15.9	30

VENEZUELA

	NRA	#P/IP	Age
Francisco Rodriguez	2.73	16.5	24
Rafael Betancourt	3.17	15.3	30
Giovanni Carrara	4.28	16.6	37
Jeremi Gonzalez	5.74	18.2	31
Jorge Julio	5.99	16.1	27
Average	4.38	16.5	30

DOMINCAN REP.

	NRA	#P/IP	Age
Fernando Rodney	2.88	17.6	28
Salomon Torres	3.23	15.0	33
Eude Brito	3.57	16.5	27
Julian Tavarez	3.82	15.5	32
Damaso Marte	3.86	20.0	31
Duaner Sanchez	4.08	15.4	26
Average	3.57	16.7	30

Again the US has the better numbers. But this time the D.R. is considerably better than Venezuela in runs allowed and only slightly behind in pitches per inning.

In summary:

The US is solid everywhere (except for Al Leiter, but he’ll probably pitch against South Africa and the 2^nd placed team in the Asian pool), and they rightfully should be the favorites to win it all.

Venezuela has a stacked rotation, but besides the big name guys like Santana, Zambrano, Garcia and Escobar the other starters aren’t too imposing and the bullpen outside of K-Rod is more than just hittable. So when those guys aren’t pitching, Venezuela could get hit pretty badly (especially with guys like Jorge Julio, Jeremi Gonzalez and Tony Armas).

The D.R. overall has a very average rotation with a current ace in Colon, who can be very inconsistent, and a couple of future aces in Cabrera and Liriano that haven’t proven themselves in big league competition. The rest are solid –but not great- starters like Batista, Sosa and Perez that can do the job against average MLB lineups. The bullpen is solid, with a lot of above average major league relievers.

In the next post I’ll be taking a look at each teams’ lineups.