Part 3: Ross Ohlendorf - Click Here
Part 4: Paul Maholm - Click Here
Part 5: Kevin Correia - Click Here
Part 6: Charlie Morton - Click Here
Part 7: Wrap-up - Click Here
In the 2nd installment of my "Early Expectations - Pittsburgh Pirates Rotation" series, the focus is on James McDonald.
Not too many things went right for the Pirates pitching staff in 2010, but the acquisition of McDonald proved to be a bright spot.
The Pirates got McDonald along with Andrew Lambo in a July trade that sent Octavio Dotel to the Dodgers, and he wasted no time making an impact on the team. He struck out the first 4 batters he faced as a Pirate in a dominating performance at home in his Pirates debut. Here's McDonald's 2010 Pirates numbers:
Those numbers are solid across the board. The 3.52 ERA is very impressive as is, but the 2.91 FIP makes it even more so. Also, he was the only Pirates pitcher to have a strike out rate (K/9) better than the league average. He also did a good job at keeping his walks down. 3.4 isn't a great number, but good enough when you're striking out batters at the rate he was. One thing you have to keep in mind through all of this is that McDonald made only 11 starts, so it's a small sample size.
No one really expected him to be that dominant, but it wasn't a total fluke either, because he used to be a top prospect in the Dodgers system. To further prove that point, let's take a look at McDonald's pitch f/x's for the entire 2010 season:
McDonald has good velocity on his fastball, good break on his curveball, and a pretty slow, deceiving changeup that he used really well as a Pirate last year. The major league average whiff rate for a curveball is 10.45%, and the average whiff rate for a changeup is 12.13%, so McDonald was well above average for both of those pitches. This, among other things found in these charts, show that McDonald had a plus-curveball and a plus-changeup last year. However, in 2009, that same thing could not be said. His whiff rates were significantly lower in 2009 (8.2% on the curveball and 8.4% on the changeup), and his location was also worse. This is probably attributed to the simple fact that McDonald was improving with more playing time and maturity, but that big of a jump in whiff rate seems a little fluky. I don't think McDonald will put up whiff numbers in the 14's for his curve and change, but it should still be pretty safely above league average.
So what should we expect from James McDonald in 2011? Well, he is a 26 year old with good stuff and former top prospect status, so history tells us that he should keep getting better. However, I don't expect him to put up another 2.91 FIP. I think the small sample size can be misleading, and he was certainly helped by the fact that batters didn't have a lot of tape on him as a starting pitcher. Stuff wise, I think he performed near his peak in his brief time with the Pirates in 2010. Hopefully I am wrong when I say that and he gets better next year, but it's unlikely.
McDonald has good stuff and good control, which should result in another high strikeout rate in 2011. There's no reason that his control can't improve even more, and the fact that he has job security as a starter this year should help him improve his walk rates as well. McDonald will still suffer from the Pirates bad infield play, but he will not be affected as much as the other pitchers because he will be striking out more batters. He'll go into the season as the Pirates #1 starter, and I expect him to finish the season as that as well. He wouldn't be the #1 starter on many other teams, but I'd say that his 2011 season will be good enough to make him an average #2 and a good #3 for most teams.
2011 Prediction: 3.60 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 8.2 K/9, 3.1 BB/9