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This is the fourth in a series of six posts going through the MLB division-by-division to see which team has the best projected 2009 starting pitching by Wins Above Replacement (WAR) according to an average of the "Big Three" projection systems.. This post covers the rotations of a division that appears to be as "up for grabs " as any other in the majors: the AL Central. I actually had to do a bit of revising of my original big spreadsheet because the BP depth charts have undergone some revision since I originally started, which did effect some things. Surprises await...

Brandon "Ducky" Duckworth wants you to read on after the jump.

How Did I Come Up With These Numbers?

Some details on the methods used (if you don't care, you can jump straight to the "Team-By-Team")

• FIP is used as the primary pitching stat.
  
• The projected 2009  for each pitcher is generated by averagfing the projections of the three best publicly available projection systems: CHONE, ZiPS, and PECOTA. The projected FIP for CHONE and ZiPS are from the player pages at FanGraphs. I generated the PECOTA FIP myself from the big spreadsheet.
  
• Playing time/depth chart projections are based on Baseball Prospectus's depth charts (not the PECOTA weighted mean) in order to account for spot starters as well. These change every week; the playing times used are those that were up when I was writing the present post.
  
• No team only starts 5 players all year long. However, I've also included a "top 5" figure for each team, based on the top 5 projected starter WARs for each team (not the top five projected IPs).
• Value is based on a Win% generated using PythagenPat in relation to a average FIP-ERA of 4.40 and an RA of 4.76.
  
• Run values are generated by are scaling FIP to RA rather than ERA for better accuracy and to properly value pitchers with respect to hitters.
• An appropriate replacement level win percentage for starting pitchers is used,   adjusted for relative league difficulty: .390 is replacement level for starters in the NL, and .370 for the AL.
• Adjustments for ballparks use the five-year regressed park factors used at FanGraphs.
• Adjustments are made for each pitcher's influence on his run environment through a dynamic run-to-win conversion for each individual pitcher.
• New feature starting with the AL Central post: aggregate team starter win %. Yay! Note: that this is not directly convertible to team WAR, as it is a simple weighted average based on individual win% and IP. There will be discrepancies between team win% and team WAR, which is based on individual win % because this rough calculation occurs before individual impcat on run environment is taken into account for run-to-win conversion. WAR is the focus here. This feature is just for fun and a rough little guide to quality in relation to average. WAR is still the main focus of this series.
  
• Neither the rates nor playing time projections are "mine." I have simply the projections, averaged them, and combined them with BP's playing time predictions. You can find the complete projected lines for each pitcher  at the home sites for the systems (and FanGraphs, for CHONE and ZiPS). In other words, don't blame me if you lose money betting with this stuff...

Team-By-Team

Comment: Both CHONE and Baseball Prospectus currently have the Indians as the likely winners of the 2009 AL Central. This isn't that surprising, although (like many forecasts) it depends on a number of assumptions about the how successful the  returns of Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, etc. will be. In any case, it's pretty  obvious here that if Cliff Lee completely reverts to his pre-2008 form or is out for an extended period of time, the divisional title aspirations for the Indians may be up in smoke, although, again, that's true for a lot of teams and their star players. Cleveland is attempting up for their lack of top-end quality with depth, as can be seen from the gap between the total projected WAR and the TOP 5. The .498 projected win percentage sees them as about average. As will be a theme throughout this post, there are a lot of variables here.... Insert Carl Pavano joke here.

Comment: Blah blah blah joke about 1,000 run offense in 2008. The pitching (and defense) bombed last year. Adam Everett and Gerald Laird should help out on defense, but there are a lot of fingers crossed in Detroit, as those signings in addition to the Matt Joyce-for-Edwin Jackson trade portend a "win-now" season for an aging team; the pitchers can't blow it. Verlander is the only pitcher here who projects both as clearly above average in his rate stats and for a decent amount of innings. Bonderman looks above average when he's projected to pitch, but at this point, "disappointment" is probably the right word. Galaragga was a nice pickup, but he has to come back to earth eventually. Rick Porcello: replacement level picher. I miss Dontrelle Willis being good. Sorry for all of the negative comments -- in actuality, this group is better than some people think, and notice that their "Top 5" group is as good as Cleveland's.

Comment: I suppose that I'm not the only one that thought these guys would project a little better. Again, this is a situation where playing time is very important. If Liriano and Baker can avoid injuries, this is probably the best rotation in the division. Slowey is also a stud-in-the-making from the Twins' Brad Radke factory.. Imagine if they could get Tampa Bay to trade Matt Garza for Delmon Young. Nah, any GM stupid enough to do that should be fired forthwith, right? In terms of sheer win%,  Baker, Liriano, and Slowey look like the best 1-2-3 punch in the division. Seems like the "Twins way" should probably involve overpaying for some crappy vet to take innings away from one or more of the young guys in the grand tradition of the Sidney Ponson and Livan Hernandez signings.  To be fair, it does like young Philip Humber (part of the Johan Santana trade "bonanza")  will be contributing quite a bit of near-replacement level sweetness this season.

Comment: If you ask me, Kenny Williams is one of the most entertaining GMs in baseball. No, I don't think he's great. I don't think he's terrible. I don't know what to think. Sometimes he makes moves that I think are stupid, and they work out well. Or he makes moves that make me think he's "getting it," and they bomb. It's fun to watch from a distance, although it must be brutally exhausting for White Sox fans. If you read my NL East post in this series, you'll see that Javier Vazquez is projected at about 2 wins better than anyone else on the White Sox currently. The ChiSox got young guys in return and are clearly trimming salary (Vazquez and Swisher wouldn't have been my choices, but see my comments about my judgments re: Williams' past moves above), so we'll have to wait and see how it works out in big picture, but, again, with Vazquez, this would easily be the best rotation in the division... Gavin Floyd, meet reality. Jose Contreras may be old, but White Sox fans would certainly rather see him out there than Bartolo Colon. John Danks turns 24 in April, and looks like a stud-in-the-making.

Comment: I've had some harsh words for Royals GM Dayton Moore this offseason, and I'm not taking them back now. But  I have to hand it to the man:  he's put together a respectable rotation. True, like many of the Royals' best players, young ace Zack Greinke is a holdover from the previous administration (as are Alex Gordon, David DeJesus, Mike Aviles, and Billy Butler) , but Moore did manage to extend him. And although the Gil Meche contract now looks like a giant outlier among Moore's ...questionable... record with free agents, it's been a dandy. Greinke and Meche project as the best 1-2 punch in the division by both WAR and individual win%. Going just by WAR, they project as the 2nd and 3rd best pitchers in the division (behind Cliff Lee). Neither Bannister nor Davies looks like a world beater, but they  can at least hold down the back of the rotation decently, and were acquired by trading older and expensive (Octavio Dotel for Davies) or young and overrated "live arms" (Ambriox Burgos for Bannister) for cheap young production. Um, no, I personally don't think Ho-Ram is a .501 starting pitcher. The projection systems probably don't differentiate between his time as a starter and as a reliever. But hey, I'm just following the numbers here. There's no homerism. There are "issues" like that all over this series, and if I start making half-baked subjective adjustments of my own in one place, I'll have to do it everywhere, and we end up with a bunch of junk. Before Carlos Rosa got sent back to Omaha to be a reliever, the Royals actually projected slightly better, but Sir Sidney isn't going to kill them too badly with only 60 innings (gulp), although the acquisition may trigger a crisis of epic proportions... P. S. Ducky rules.

Let's see the final results:

Final Thoughts: That is very close, with all five teams are within 1.2 WAR. KC and Cleveland are tied on top at 11.9, with Chicago right behind at 11.8. No group of starters (including spot starters) projects as average (.500 or greater win%), although all are pretty close. While the top teams are worse than any other top divisional teams (at least so far), the bottom team is better than any other bottom team... Until the recent depth chart changes on both teams, Cleveland was further down the list, and KC was the clear #1. I was excited about that, but I had to give in to what the projections now say... On one hand, I could give it to Cleveland on the basis of the superior win%, but on the other, KC has the better "Top 5." So I have them tied, with KC listed first (in your face, Kyle!). Besides, as I noted above, the calculations for aggregate win% are only a "rough guide," anyway.  And that's the mess with this whole division -- things are so close. Given the nature of projections in general, the potential for devastating pitcher injury, young player unpredictability, etc. it's not that far fetched to see any of the teams having the best starting WAR at the end of the season. For fans of the Indians, the Twins (my "gut" tells me this is really the best rotation in the division, but you know what the gut's brains are made of...), and the Tigers, it's pretty clear that their rotations definitely have question marks, but are each good enough to potentially help win the division. For Royals fans, there's a good young core there, and hopefully the position players can catch up. For White Sox fans... hey, you know Kenny better than I do, you tell me what to expect, I have no clue. I guess that's why Kenny Williams is the GM, and I'm the blog-talkin' guy...

Next up: NL West (later this week, probably Wednesday or Thursday)