Happy New Year! As you hold your head and moan gently – ok, maybe just me – have some pitchers to consider
As I write this, on December 31st, five nominations have turned Sedona Red in the original thread. I love it when a plan comes together. 🙂 These five are as follows:
Zac Gallen
Nominated by chronicles_of_the_desert. “It was a down year, but we still need to talk about Zac Gallen. Among starters:
- Zac had the best ERA (by a lot) – 3.65
- Zac had the best FIP (by a little) – 3.38
- Zac had the highest strikeout rate – 25.1%
- Zac had the best average game score – 54.1
- Zac allowed the fewest hits (and home runs) per nine innings – 8.1 (2.1%)
- Zac tied Ryne for second most quality starts (12, behind Brandon’s 13, and he had 5 more starts)
By all our pitchers
- Zac led the team in wins – 14
- Zac led the team in Wins Above Average – 1.4
- Zac tied Bryce Jarvis for best WPA – 1.0
- Zac had the third most innings (narrowly beat by Ryne) – 148
- Zac “bequethed” only 7 runners all season (this is a new stat for me, but it’s runners he left on base when being taken out of the game). Ryne and Brandon both left 18, meaning they had to be bailed out a lot more.
We’re used to a high standard that he didn’t match this year, but he’s still a force to be reckoned with on the mound.
Justin Martinez
Nominated by ercil. “Not only did he prove himself in a huge way, he was a massively reliable and relied on arm, especially in the second half. He worked his way into higher and higher leverage and later innings as the season went on and even picked up a few saves after Sewald lost the 9th inning role. JMart pitched the most innings of any bullpen arm at 72.2, and as Jim mentioned above, had the best ERA on the team (40 inning min.)” Of course, Martinez already won our Rookie of the Year award, and you should also see James’s season review of our young hurler. Just do not confuse him with our other relief Martinez, Seth, who was added to the 40-man roster earlier this winter.
Ryne Nelson
Nominated by DbacksEurope. “He had a great month of July and second half of the season, starting with the game against the Dodgers where he started behind Mantiply the opener. He then pitched a good game against the Padres and continued the climb up after the All Star Break. It is probably not a coincidence that the rise of the Diamondbacks went hand in hand with Ryne Nelson’s performances. Sure, he had a stinker here and there, but overall he provided much needed innings and solid back-of-the-rotation performance… After seeing the case for Gallen, just wish to add this too about Nelson’s July-September (3.16 ERA/3.17 FIP/1.09 WPA/4.94 K/BB). That is ace performance.”
Brandon Pfaadt
Nominated by Michael McDermott. “For being the guy who consistently answered the bell when his team needed him. There’s still value in a guy who gives you 180+ innings, even if he ran into the blow up innings far too often than I’d like.” Also chipping in: Webb_Gems, who said “Pfaadt was the one SP to not hit the IL at any point last season, and I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but it felt like a lot of games he didn’t get much run support. He for sure never got the run support Monty got.“ As chronicles_of_the_desert confirmed, Pfaadt got the lowest support of any of our main starters, at 5.2 runs per game. In contrast, Montgomery got 6.9 R/G.
A.J. Puk
Nominated by ArizonaAZ88. “This guy came in at the Trade Deadline from the Marlins (pretty sure he was happy to be on a better team. A WAY better team.) Anyways, he performed pretty well with the Marlins (besides being a starter for a few games) with a 4-8 record, a 4.30 ERA, and 1.34 WHIP, but when he got to Arizona, he ended up with a 0-1 record, 1.32 ERA, and 0.73 WHIP. Throughout the whole season with Miami and Arizona, he ended up accumulating a 121 ERA+, one of the best in all of his seasons (the only better seasons for his ERA+ were 2019 and 2020, both of which he had 139 ERA+.” It is definitely worth noting his role split for the year: starter = 9.72 ERA, reliever = 1.72 ERA.
Here’s the poll: as ever, feel free to explain your choice in the comments. Poll will close at some point between now and Saturday, whenever I feel the need to write up the winner’s post!