Written by Greg Fertel | 21 July 2009

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After Chien-Ming Wang's setback last night, it seems that this is a lost season for him. With this bit of news, I think that the Yankees should reconsider keeping Phil Hughes in the bullpen and using Sergio Mitre as their fifth starter.

Hughes has been great in the bullpen, with an ERA coming in under 1.00, but can that really continue? Mariano Rivera is widely known as the greatest modern era reliever of all time and his career ERA stands at 2.28. Going forward, I find it hard to project that Hughes will perform at an ERA better than 2.28, even given his dominance thus far out of the bullpen.

At Hughes current pace as a reliever, it looks like he would pitch around 30 more innings this season. Right now, a replacement level relief pitcher would be expected to pitch to a 5.02 ERA.

So for the remainder of the season, this is what I would expect from Hughes and a replacement level reliever:

Phil Hughes: 30 IP, 7.2 ER

Replacement Level reliever: 30 IP, 16.7 ER

That is a difference of 9.5 runs, which is almost 1 win, but the replacement level pitcher would not be seeing as much action as Hughes would. If we lower the replacement level reliever's innings pitched to 20 innings pitched, the replacement level reliever would allow only 11.5 ER. Now we have a difference of only 4.3 runs, or half of a win.

Another problem with this projection is that the Yankees would not be replacing Hughes with a replacement level reliever, they would be replacing him with Sergio Mitre or Damaso Marte when he returns.

Using his ZiPS rest of season projection, Marte projects to have a 4.00 ERA. In 20 innings, he would allow 8.9 ER. That is a difference of 1.7 earned runs, which is pretty insignificant.  

Now, onto the starting rotation part of the equation: Via RLYW, an average of Sergio Mitre's projections show a projected ERA of 4.68. I'll use that number, but it sounds pretty optimistic to me, considering Mitre's career ERA is 5.36, he hasn't pitched in the majors since '07, and he is moving from the NL to the toughest division in baseball, the AL East.

I project that the Yankees need a fifth starter around 12 times for the rest of the season. In Mitre's only season of starting full time, which was also his best season, he averaged 5.5 innings per start. That would result in Mitre pitching 66 innings the rest of the season. With Hughes transitioning to the rotation and building up arm strength, I would expect him to average around 5.5 IP for the remainder of the season in the rotation as well. With Hughes major improvements before being placed in the bullpen and since pitching out of the bullpen, a reasonable projection for him would be to have around a 4.25 ERA going forward as a starter.

As I said before, I thought that Mitre's projection was quite optimistic, so here is a chart using his career line as well to project his ERA going forward:

Name	Innings Pitched	Earned Runs	ERA
Phil Hughes (proj)	66	31	4.25
Phil Hughes (career)	66	34	4.65
Sergio Mitre (proj)	66	34	4.68
Sergio Mitre (career)	66	39	5.36

 

Using their projections, the difference is only 3 runs, which is much less of a difference than I expected when I began writing this post. I would expect Mitre to pitch closer to his career line than his projection, but given his strong start in AAA, I am not one to argue with the computers projecting him.

Using these projections, the Yankees would net only a 1.3 run gain by moving Hughes back to the rotation. That is nearly insignificant. However, there is a wild card to this argument: Innings.

While the move would only net the Yankees 1.3 runs this season (remember, I'm also projecting Hughes to pitch to the level of the greatest reliever of this generation), it would give Hughes more starting experience and innings pitched. If Hughes stays in the bullpen and does pitch 30 innings the rest of the way, he will end the season with 105.1 innings pitched. If that is all Hughes finishes with, the Yankees will be forced to limit his innings to 140-150 innings again next season. If he finished the year in the rotation, he would end up with 141.1 innings, which would allow him to pitch nearly 180 innings in 2010, and then have no innings limits after this.

I think that running a good team is all about balancing this seasons needs with future needs. Judging by these projections, I definitely think that the Yankees should move Hughes into the rotation instead of Mitre. For this season, it looks like it would gain the Yankees only a run, but for next season, it could gain them a whole win. I don't see the downside to moving Hughes to the rotation; I think the Yanks have plenty of options to replace him in the pen (Mitre, Marte, Melancon, Albaladejo) so they wouldn't lose much there. What they would be doing is preparing Hughes for his future as a starter and making the team slightly better this season.

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