Randy Johnson Retires
Randy Johnson announced his retirement today. There are thousands upon thousands of words that could, and should, be written about Randy Johnson. His career numbers are remarkable. The mark he left on the fan bases of Seattle and Arizona, huge. I don’t have the time or skill to do justice to either.
Instead, I just wanted to point that, personal reasons Randy might have aside, there’s little baseball reason for Johnson to be retiring at this point. The average Major League pitcher allows about 6% of his non-ground balls to go for a home run. Last season, Randy had twice that amount on his way to a 1.78 HR/9. That such an extraordinary rate was a completely new phenomenon for Johnson suggests that going forward, regression back toward league average would be reasonable to expect. Granted, it might have been the case of him simply not having Major League skill anymore, but given that none of Randy’s other stats struggled, I deem that unlikely.
The fastball velocity dipped a bit more, as to be expected as he ages, but his swinging strike rates didn’t dip and his batted ball rates actually improved a touch. Aside from the obvious health concerns impacting him in 2010, and they should not be trivialized, I am hard pressed to find a reason why he would not have continued to be useful as a starting pitcher.
Randy’s xFIP was 3.79 last season. His regressed tRA was above average. He was a four-win player as recently as 2008. If he was healthy, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to look forward to three wins or so. He’d also be 46 years old for most of the season. That he was as good of a pitcher as he was, and likely could be, at that age, is flabbergasting. It’s too bad that his health, or motivation, or whatever has pushed him to retirement, because, who knows, he might have held on into his 50s in a relief role should he have wanted one.
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Earlier today, it was reported that Big Unit is retiring. My question is why.
Johnson reached the superfluous 300 win benchmark last season with the Giants, all but solidifying his resume for the Hall of Fame. Johnson achieved this feat while posting a gruesome 4.88 ERA (96 IP) and spending half the season on the DL. Perhaps, at age 46, it makes some sense for Johnson to retire. He is all but guaranteed a Hall of Fame spot; he is comfortably rich ($100.2 million in salary from 2002-2008); he has a family; he is aging and injury prone.
However, there are two great reasons for Randy Johnson to keep playing. First and foremost, Johnson has 4,875 career strikeouts and is a stone’s throw away from the 5,000 K plateau (a feat so far only accomplished by Nolan Ryan). Secondly, and most importantly, Randy Johnson is still very good at pitching.
Put the 4.88 ERA and 1.33 WHIP out of your mind. Look below the surface. Sure, Johnson’s strikeout rate slipped to 8.04 per nine, his lowest mark since 1990, and sure, Johnson HR/9 spiked to 1.78, despite the move from Chase Field to AT&T Park. However, Big Unit’s peripherals remain strong, even if he has not been effective as he was a decade ago. Big Unit’s 8.04 K/9 rate ranks well above the MLB average of 6.59 per nine, Johnson’s walk rate (2.91 BB/9 last season) is solid (MLB average is 3.46), and his GB% spiked by five points last season (45.4% GB%, 1.28 GB/FB ratio).
So why the poor season? It was not the BABIP (.297 last season, .303 career) or the LOB% (72.5% last season, 71.9% MLB average). Rather, Johnson’s bad luck came in the form of long balls. Despite the fact that Johnson moved to a home run suppressing park this season and that Johnson burned the most worms he had since 2002, Big Unit’s HR/9 rate soared. His 19.2% HR/FB mark was the second highest the majors amongst all pitchers who tossed 90+ innings in 2009. Randy Johnson’s 3.79 xFIP* (a metric that analyzes a pitcher’s defense-neutral pitching ability based on strikeouts, walks and xHR’s [adjusted to a league average HR/FB ratio based on a pitcher’s FB%) last season paints a much more optimistic picture of what Randy Johnson is still capable of than his ERA.
*xFIP clearly has its limitations, as a league average HR/FB rate does not account for park dimensions. However, it is a better predictor of future success for a pitcher than FIP or, god forbid, ERA. The theory behind xFIP is that pitchers have some control over how the batter will make contact with the ball (thereby inducing GBs and FBs), but that once the ball is out of the pitcher’s hand, he has no control over where the ball lands, the defensive positioning or ability of the fielders, or even how strong of contact the hitter will make with his offering (and thereby how far the ball will travel).
Plain and simple, Randy Johnson is still very good. He is not the 1993-2004 Big Unit we will all remember, but he is still a quality #2/#3 guy. It is quite surprising to me that Johnson is not at all interested in reaching the mythical 5,000 K plateau. Whereas many pitchers (relatively speaking) before him have reached the 300 win mark, only one other has even touched the plane of 5,000 strikeouts. At 8 K/9, Johnson would only have to toss 141 innings to reach the 5,000 strikeout mark in 2010. If his innings were to be managed properly (a la Rich Harden), Johnson could surely stay health enough to attain this achievement.
After 22 seasons of effective pitching, Johnson retires atop his game. He’s not the best of the best anymore (that reign has been passed on to teammate Tim Lincecum), but his career did not fizzle out. Randy Johnson will go down as not only one of the best pitchers of his generation, but as one of the best pitchers of all time. He has achieved more than almost everyone else and is guaranted as a first round Hall of Famer. Still, it’s a shame he just won’t get this one last achievement.
http://gameofinches.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-is-randy-johnson-retiring.html
Oops, didn’t mean to toss the whole article in…
Regardless, I think we’re on the same page here. Johnson is still a very good pitcher and if you disagree you are wrong (or probably named Dayton Moore)
There’s two things I think are being forgotten in the knee jerk reaction of “why retire”? First, it’s quite possible that RJs 46 year old body simply can’t hold up over the course of a season and he knows it. He’s been a little prone to injury for quite a few years now, having been injury prone myself for the last 6 years of my playing days, I can attest to the weariness of constantly battling at 60% with a handful of Advil in my stomach. This is obviously speculation, only those close to Johnson (and the Giants) could know how his baseball health is.
The second point that I would suggest is that most pitchers aren’t very familiar with peripherals. Johnson could be looking at a ballooning ERA and remembering he got shelled via the longball without being remotely aware that his FIP and tRA are palatable.
Makes sense in terms of Johnson thinking he’snot as good as he actually is; however, that 125 Ks to 5000 is still there..
Why retire? He is 46, has been in the league for longer than some of his teammates have been alive, has been battling injuries, and has what is colloquially referred to as “butt loads of money”. The guy can pitch, sure, but most people can continue to do their jobs competently at the time they retire.
I believe that last year he injured his rotator cuff and while he came back as a reliever he didn’t pitch too well. He may not have been fully recovered from that injury especially since shoulder injuries can certainly be tricky. With such injury risk to look forward to, the Big Unit may have decided that he wouldn’t be able to crack 5000 ks. This would be especially true if he was being used as a reliever.
Also this isn’t exactly quantifiable but over the past few years the Big Unit has seemed less motivated to pitch. I remember some mlb.com article quoting him saying basically that he no longer heaped so much pressure on himself and that he was just enjoying the game. This past year pitching for another team besides his hometown Diamondbacks may have caused him to miss home a lot.
He decided to go out when he could be effective and valuable in a limited role but calculated his chances of being injury-free to be slim and realized that spending time at home may be more enjoyable.
In any case if he feels the need to compete midseason he can always pull a Pedro Anyway we salute you Randy Johnson
In what world is he not an automatic 1st ballot HoFer?
He’s done everything that a pitcher can do in baseball. Greatest LHP since Carlton. Top 5 ever.
not this world. he’ll go in on the first ballot easily. what’s the issue?
The article my MVPDavidEckstein called him “all but certain” is all. Johnson was an incredible pitcher in his prime…all but unhittable. Its a shame he got absolutely no run support in AZ for several years in a row as he could have easily pushed the 30 win mark a couple times otherwise. He was that dominant.
My only complaint against him is that he overshadowed Schilling several times. If Johnson hadn’t been around, Schill probably has 2 CY of his own.
No run support? 30 wins? In arguably his best season (2002) he started 35 games and the D-Backs were 6 in the all baseball in runs scored. To win 30 games would have required an 85 winning percent.
Actually its worth noting the D-Backs were far and away the best offense in the NL that year.
Rickey wasn’t a unanimous choice. The voters for the Hall are weird and often have their own agendas and arbitrary requirements, which in some cases clearly include never voting a player in on the first ballot. I don’t think there are enough of those (or enough who have some other obtuse objection to Johnson) to prevent him from getting in on the first ballot, but you never know. He is one of the few where there should be no question, but with the Hall voters there’s always some question. So it’s “all but certain” but we can’t say it’s certain.
Regarding The Big Unit and 30 wins… didn’t John Kruk make that asinine prediction when he became a Yankee?
Then again, it’s not the first time Randy Johnson has made John Kruk look stupid…
Classic.
Krukie says the darndest things
I said “push” 30 wins, not actually get there.
Example:
For 2002, he went 24-5 (team record of 29-6 in his starts) with 30 QS out of 35 as well as 1 4 ER performance in a 7 inning effort. He could have very easily gotten to 27-29 wins that year with better run support as he always pitched very deep into games and kept his team in almost every game.
2001: 29 QS including 5 no decision where he went at least 7 innings and gave up 2 or less runs. Another season where with better run support he would have gotten more than 25 wins instead of the 21 he ended up with.
Johnson got terrible run support several years in his career. Do you not remember that?
The DBacks for whatever reason didn’t produce for him while they had tons of runs for their other starters. It was a running joke on ESPN.
Whether or not “Quality Starts” are actually quality starts is debatable–A pitcher could pitch all Quality Starts in a season and end up with a 4.50 ERA, which is not exactly impressive. Further, pitchers usually win around 60% of QSs, so given 30 QSs Johnson should have expected 16 or 17 wins. Given that the D-Backs had a good offense, you can probably bump that up to 20 something.
Even the best offenses have off days.
Most of his “quality starts” were of the 7-8 IP, 2-3 ER variety, not your average 4.50 ERA.
Go look at his game logs and you’ll see that he got screwed several times.
If we all use this argument for Blyleven, why not Johnson?
Somebody in St. Louis should talk him into coming back. Put him on a team with John Smoltz and have Duncan work him into a 2-seam and you have the most ridiculous bullpen ever.
Yeah…he’s got so much left to prove. I mean he’s never won a Fireman trophy yet, right?
Seriously though, that would be fun to watch. I think he’ll be the last 300 game winner for a long time…maybe ever.
“Ever” is a mighty long time.
Let’s just say “For the foreseeable future.” There really isn’t a pitcher currently active that has a solid chance at 300.
Halladay has an outside shot. He’s at 148 and he’s going into his Age 33 season. So if he stays healthy and productive through his Age 40 season, he could do it. Of course, he’d have to average 19 wins a year for the next 8 years. If he pitches well into his 40s, there’s a better shot.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/W_active.shtml
Looking at the active wins totals, there aren’t really any guys that stand out as having really good shots…that’s all I’m getting at.
Sabathia’s got a shot too probably:
136 wins through Age 28.
Jamie Moyer (ugh) has an outside shot if he wants to pitch forever. Four more years of 10 wins per year gets him to 298. I think that would really cheapen the number 300 (which is pretty arbitrary as is). It’s possible we could see 500 Home runs and 300 wins no longer be an automatic in to the HOF in that case.
Just to project with a huge amount of chance for being way wrong, Felix Hernandez could be an interesting case. He’ll be just about 24 at the beginning of this year and he’s got 58 wins. With an average of 15 per year (which may be a bit conservative), he could get to 300 in 16 years, at the age of 40. I’d put $10000 down on that not happening, but you never know.
Sabathia needs 11 years of 15 wins to get there, which is probably somewhat more likely, as he’d be 39 or 40.
I love Jamie Moyer but he just had his 3rd surgery of the off-season, he turned 47 in November and its borderline that he’ll even play next year.
King Felix might have a shot if he stays healthy. The ability is certainly there. If he could get a few 20+ win seasons in a row he’d have a better shot.
I think the best two right now are Sabathia and then Halladay.
I suppose it’s better to leave early than to hang on for too long.
As far as the Ks he probably doesn’t care unless there was a decent shot at catching Ryan.
Many great athletes are insulted and embarrassed to continue playing at a level that is beneath what they are accustomed to.
I would also say that a pitcher likely contributes to the HR rate, unless they are (unlikely) giving up gopher balls on “pitcher’s pitches” at an alarming rate.
Randy is one of the most “intense” pitchers out there. It has to feel a little ridiculous to him to still have that “intense mentality” with stuff that is quite a bit below the “prime Randy Johnson”.
The ONLY reason Unit should play in 2010 is if he feels his performance would have a MAJOR impact on the Ginats making a serious title run. Just playing to “pad the stats” isn’t likely worth it to a player that has been truly GREAT over his career.
You think RJ wants to pitch another season with league average hitters taking him deep? I’m SURE he feels that is absolutely humiliating.
We likely view it differently, but we’ve never been one of the all-time greats of baseball.
I’m glad someone brought up run support. How many wins would he have gotten if he had run support? In no way should anyone judge a starting pitcher by wins, they dont have much control over that. U go 8 inn. give up 1 run and lose or go 5 inn. give up 5 runs but win with support. My point is that with run support Randy could have looked even better than he was. If you dont look at wins he is probably the most dominating pitcher of all time considering who he had to face in his career. It’s to bad that he is retiring but, it would’ve been cool to see him get K# 5,000.
Who knows how much pain he’s been pitching through the last few years. I mean his back his a disaster and now he’s been getting arm and leg issues. At 46, when you’re arguably (see other thread) the greatest LHP of all time, is there really a reason to keep going?
I remember many games watching him where he’d go 7 or 8 innings, give up 1-2 runs or even none and end up with the loss or a no-decision.
his 2004 run support was lol bad, 16-14 record with a 2.30 FIP, 2.89 tRA, 10.6 K/9 and 1.61 BB/9
Great info!