The AL East Trio

Written by Josh W. | 18 July 2010

Earlier Greg wrote about the Tampa trio in Trenton. Today I'd like to talk about another trio, one that will play a large part in deciding future AL East races:

Phil Hughes, David Price, and Clay Buchholz

So far in their young careers, they have performed like this:

phil_hughes_comparison

Which one is the best now?

So far this season, the three have performed like this:

Hughes

Price

Buchholz

ERA

3.65

2.42

2.45

Looking only at ERA, Buchholz and Price seem to match up rather well. Yet, a step closer reveals a different story

	Hughes	Price	Buchholz
FIP	3.59	3.59	3.45

FIP suggests that these three have actually pitched very similarly, and that Price and Buchholz are due for some regresson.

With these three, an even more scrutinous lens seems necessary, so lets see what xFIP has to tell us:

	Hughes	Price	Buchholz
xFIP	3.96	3.95	4.26

Interesting. The real match up here seems to be between Hughes and Price, and not between Price and Buchholz as ERA showed.

Bucholz' ERA seems to be based largely on flukesy BABIP (.275 this year, compared to .303 career) and HR/FB (3.6% this year, compared to 10.5% career) figures. From this we can infer that Buchholz is much more of a low 4's pitcher.

Price also seems to be due for some regression. He has a very low BABIP, of .276. While is it true that he has a career .277 BABIP, it is unlikely this continues, unless Price is a truly exceptional pitcher. There's simply not enough data to conclude Price can limit BABIP to that extent, although I wouldn't be surprised if he did have some BABIP limiting skill. Price also has a very high strand rate of 80% and a lowish HR/FB rate.

Hughes' performance on the other hand seems rather sustainable. His BABIP, strand rate, and HR/FB are all in line with career figures.

Finishing thoughts:

Hughes and Price seem to match up quite well. Once you look past ERA, they have very similar overall talent levels. This is not to say that Buchholz is a bad pitcher, or even that far behind Price and Hughes. Clay is a good young pitcher, but for now, he's not quite on the same level as Hughes and Price.

I would have like to included these pitchers' innings eating ability, but then I realized that how many innings they throw per start likely has a lot to do with their respective teams' development approaches (at this point in their careers).