Another Tale of Two Pitchers

Which pitcher would you rather have?

Pitcher A
107.1 IP 108 Hits 7 HR 29 BB 87 K

Pitcher B
122 IP 80 Hits 9 HR 23 BB 129 K

Both pitchers are good--both have good baserunners/9, HR/9, K/9, and K/BB ratios, but Pitcher B is better in each category. If that's all you were looking at, you'd clearly choose Pitcher B.

But what if we told you that Pitcher A costs $2.9 million, while Pitcher B costs $10.875 million? Is Pitcher B really worth $8 million more than Pitcher A? Maybe not, especially when you consider that $8 million would buy a whole lot of hitting. In other words, if you had $10.875 million to spend, would you spend all of it on Pitcher B or would you spend part of it on Pitcher A and the rest on other productive players?

It might depend on what your total payroll was. If you're the Mets, for example, and you're ready to spend about twice what the Nationals will spend once the Nats settle in on a realistic payroll in D.C., you might buy both Pitcher B and the hitting that $8 million (or more) would buy. But if you're the Nationals, Pitcher A is clearly preferrable to Pitcher B, assuming, of course, that Pitcher A keeps pitching at this level. We recognize that that's a big if.

In any event, PItcher A is Esteban Loaiza, and Pitcher B is Pedro Martinez. We raise this not to argue that Loaiza is as good as Martinez, but to show that a player's value--especially to a team like the Nationals--is a lot more complicated than merely looking at his stats. If Loaiza keeps pitching like this, and if the Nationals can sign some productive hitting either through trades or free agency, then Loaiza is just the type of player the Nats need to compete at a high level.