A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes on the Chopping Block

For those of you following Yankee news, it's recently been hinted at by Joe Girardi that Nova will keep his spot in the rotation.  I think most of us here will agree that he has certainly earned it.  At the beginning of the year, the consensus on this site was to expect about a 4.5 ERA from Nova.  The season isn't over yet, but he has definitely exceeded my expectations of him so far.  His 3.85 ERA is good for fourth best among our starters.  Since May 1st, he has an excellent 3.38 ERA.  His FIP, xFIP, and SIERA are all 4th best on the team, and his tERA is 3rd best.  My point is that he has definitely been one of our 5 best pitchers, as Girardi said.

So this leaves us with two guys, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes.  There is a lot of A.J. hate out there, but let's be honest here, A.J. at his best is the second best pitcher on this team.  The problem is that we haven't seen A.J. at his best often enough over the last two years.  There have been several games this year that I can recall off the top of my head where he has dominated for like 5 or 6 innings, and then imploded in his final inning, making his final box score look not-so-great.  A great example of this is his last game, where he shutout the Angels for 5 innings, then gave up 4 runs in the sixth.  Granted, it wasn't entirely his fault since the intentional walk to Izturis was one of the dumbest calls I've seen made all year, but A.J. did walk a batter in front and behind Izturis as well.  In other games, A.J. dominates except for a couple pitches that get jumped on by the opposition.  An example of this was his game against the Orioles where he went 8 innings and struck out 10 while only walking 2, but allowed 4 ER on 2 HR.

Now let's talk about Hughes.  Hughes' overall ERA is a 7.11, but since returning from the DL it is a 4.55.  However, he's only really had one bad start since returning.  If you exclude that start, he has averaged 5.75 innings per start at a 2.35 ERA.  The problem to keep in mind is that this is only 4 starts, so we're dealing with small sample sizes.  Taking A.J. out of the rotation has all kinds of ramifications, including his 16MM salary, plus risking really damaging his confidence for the future (remember: he's under contract for 2 more years).  So, as of right now, it looks like Phil Hughes could be the odd man out, looking at a late season trip to the bullpen for the playoffs.

But here's a conundrum:  What if on Hughes' last start against the Rays, he picks up where he left off in Chicago and throws a fantastic game?  Keep in mind, the guy was pretty good last year before he started to get tired at the end of the year.  If he shows that he is truly back, can you justify taking him out of the rotation either? 

In my opinion, what decides this, as difficult of a decision as it is, is the potential for throwing one dominant start.  Either of these guys will most likely be the 4th starter, or possibly not start at all, in the playoffs.  Forget their season stats, all we might need is one strong outing out of either of them come October. 

I decided to analyze the starts of these two pitchers over the last two years by grouping starts into data buckets.  First is the "disastrous start" bucket, which is any start with ER >= IP.  Next is the "quality start" bucket, which is any start of 6+ IP and <= 3 ER.  Next was the "high-quality start" bucket, which was a start of 7+ IP and <= 2 ER.  Next was the "dominant start" bucket, which was a start with 8+ IP and <=1 ER.  Finally was the "complete game shutout" bucket, which is obvious, but neither guy had one over the last two years.  Obviously, dominant starts are a subset of high-quality starts, and high-quality starts are a subset of quality starts.  The following are my results:

A.J. Burnett - 58 starts
Disastrous starts = 11, 18.9%
Quality starts = 22, 37.9%
High-quality starts = 13, 22.4%
Dominant starts = 4, 6.9%

Phil Hughes - 40 starts
Disastrous starts = 10, 25%
Quality starts = 19, 47.5%
High-quality starts = 8, 20%
Dominant starts = 0, 0%

Now, there are a few ways of looking at this.  First of all, you will notice that Hughes gives you an almost 10% better chance of a quality start.  However, he also has a 6% better chance of imploding, and he doesn't give you the high-end opportunities that A.J. does, namely being his 2.4% higher chance of a high-quality start, and 6.9% higher chance of a dominant start.  If you want to give Hughes the benefit of the doubt and say that he was really injured at the start of this year, and therefore not count his 3 disastrous starts to begin the year, it puts his disastrous start level right at A.J.'s.  So it comes down to this:  Hughes might be the safer choice, but A.J. seems to give you the most high-end potential.