Beat Those Pinatas No Longer

AN prides itself as being full of knowledgible fans. There is a difference between a knowledgable fan and a "homer". A homer would think his starting SS is the best player at his position in all of baseball even when all the evidence says otherwise. (Think Yankee fans who claim that Jeter is a great defender.) A knowledgible fan looks at his starting SS and goes " You @#%#$!! Crosby! Take your .229 batting average and go home you worthles... Holy Shit! He hit a 2 out single to drive in two! Yes! Yes! I love you Crosby! I love you! Yes...! But you've still been a disappointment this year."

Kendall and Loaiza have been, to date, disappointments. A great month of baseball does not change that. A knowledgible appreciates the past month but realizes that the overall truth of the matter hasn't changed much.

One great month of baseball does not make up for 3-4 months of mediocrity (or worse) from Kendall and Loaiza.

Loaiza makes $5 million in salary this season ($6 million in 07, $7 million in 08 plus a team option in 09), but he also receives a $1 million bonus every year. That bumps his total 2006 salary to $6 million.

That's $18 million out of a $62 million payroll. That's more than a quarter but less than a third.

Let's talk Loaiza's numbers, and we'll just discuss his post-DL contributions. A Quality Start is considered 6 IP and 3 ER or fewer. When you think about it, that's not really that great of a pitching performance from a SP. (That's a guy with a 4.50 ERA and his team would need 2-3 relief pitchers to finish up the game.) But it gives us a baseline to judge Loaiza's performance.

Now, I'm perfectly willing to concede that his last three starts have been wonderful. Before his August 13th showing against the D'Rays Loaiza had managed 12 starts since returning from the DL, and the A's had gone 8-4 during that stretch. The question is how much did Loaiza contribute to those wins? For example, if a pitcher gives up 9 ER in a game but walks away with a victory, you'd be hard pressed to give the guy much credit for the team win.

Therefore we must acknowledge that a team can sometimes win in spite of its starting pitcher. So before you start to tout winning percentages when defending Loaiza, let's figure out how much credit Loaiza deserves for the team's 8-4 mark during his starts from June 8th through August 7th.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/playerGameLog?categoryId=85408

Using Quality Starts (QS) as a baseline, we see that Loaiza failed to pitch 6 full innings in 7 of his 12 starts during the selected timeframe. The A's went 4-3 during that stretch and I have a hard time giving Loaiza much credit for those victories. He gave up 4, 3, 4 & 2 ER in those 4 wins, never once managing more than 5.1 IP.

The A's went 4-1 when Loaiza managed at least 6IP. He gave up 1 ER in 7 IP in his first start back, 3 ER in 6 IP in his next start, 4 ER in 9 IP vs the Giants and 4 ER in 6.2 IP vs the Rangers. Now, the 10 runs the A's scored vs. SF was the overwhelming factor in that victory but I'll give Loaiza full credit for a QS because I'm willing to accept the extra run in exchange for a full 9 innings worked. I'm not willing to be so generous for his performance vs. the Rangers. The game was in Oakland and he gave up 10 hits and a walk in 6.2 IP. I'll only give partial credit to the SP for that win.

So of the 8 wins the A's managed in this time frame, Loaiza was a significant factor in 3 (maybe 4) of the victories.

That's not very impressive. We probably could have gotten that kind of performance from Saarloos or Halsey. The guy isn't Benitez, but the A's went 8-4 in spite of the guy from June 8 through August 7th. His recent three game run has been impressive, but it doesn't warrant putting away the beating stick just yet.

He is still a valid pinata.