Plan on Lannan’s ERA Rising
The Washington Nationals’ pitching staff is essentially in disarray. While bailouts have become commonplace in the nation’s capital, the Nats’ rotation might need government assistance more than all other corporate entities combined. Washington’s starting corps could be considered a toxic asset; when a rapidly descending Scott Olsen may very well be your club’s best hope at cultivating an ace, something is seriously wrong.
While Washington’s compilation of semi-prospects and retreads posted a combined 4.97 starters’ ERA in 2008, there was one home-grown bright spot. John Lannan, a little-known 11th round selection out of Siena College in 2005, pieced together a solid rookie season. Lannan went from “that guy who broke Chase Utley‘s hand” to one of the more effective young starters in the NL, posting a 3.91 ERA in 182 innings of work.
Never known for his overpowering stuff, Lannan mixed in five different offerings to opposing batters. He supplemented his soft 87.5 MPH fastball (thrown 60.1% of the time) with a 80.3 MPH slider (15.5%), 74.5 MPH curveball (12.4%), 80.9 MPH changeup (10.6%) and the occasional 86.5 MPH cutter (1.3%).
So, Lannan is a five-pitch lefty with a good rookie season under his belt. He should only get better, right? Well, not so fast.
Lannan did a very good job of keeping the ball on the ground (54.2 GB%), but his peripheral stats (5.79 K/9, 3.56 BB/9) do not match up with his ERA. On top of a mild K rate and ordinary control, Lannan benefitted from a .273 BABIP (11th-lowest among qualified starters).
He experienced unusually poor luck on flyballs (his HR/FB% of 15.2 was 3-4% higher than average), but we can use Expected Fielding Independent ERA (XFIP) from The Hardball Times to better gauge Lannan’s abilities. XFIP uses strikeouts, walks and a normalized HR/FB rate (rooting out Lannan’s poor luck on flyballs) to give us a more accurate account of a pitcher’s controllable skills. Lannan’s XFIP was 4.47. That’s actually slightly below the NL average ERA of 4.43 for starting pitchers.
One might look at John Lannan and see a 24 year-old southpaw who just posted a sub-4 ERA season, and therefore might expect better things in 2009. However, Lannan’s finesse style and just average ability to paint the corners (his career minor league BB/9 is 3.51) portend to a good deal of regression in 2009. Lannan could use his eclectic repertoire and groundball tendencies to post an ERA somewhere in the mid-four’s, but he’s more mid-rotation material than future ace.
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Nice piece, David.
In your opinion, is Lannan a significant factor as a back-of-the-rotation pitcher in 14-team fantasy leagues this year, or is one better off going a different route (i.e. Maholm, Purcey, Galarraga, etc.)?
We’re almost halfway through the season, and Lannan’s numbers seem to continue the trend downwards instead of regressing. True, he’s now getting 1 less K to his already low rate, his BABIP is even lower and his strand rate is higher, but he’s still the extreme GB pitcher he was last year.
Some people figure Chris Young to be an exception to the rule about suppressing BABIP. While we can’t say the same thing about Lannan yet, is there any way that he might make a bid to the the 2nd SP to be able to do it, or is there a piece that I’m not seeing?
As the season draws to a close, Lannan’s numbers are almost identical to last years:
2008: ERA 3.91 FIP 4.79 BABIP .273
2009: ERA 3.93 FIP 4.76 BABIP .278
Considering how terrible the Nationals defense is, this is an interesting trend.