An unexpected very bright spot in an otherwise dismal season. 1.20 WHIP and 2.79 ERA? Average over 6 innings per start? Damn, Wandy. That's good. Damn good.
The brightest spot in a mediocre Astros season. At the beginning of the year, people were questioning whether he was a good #2, saying that he should be a #3 or even #4 starter. The ERA, btw, is 2.76. He's 5th in the league in ERA, 6th in strikeouts, 7th in wins. Dude has been an ace, all season long. He'd get some Cy Young consideration if he was pitching on a contender.
Him and Bourn have meant so much to this team. We would likely be the worst team in baseball if they hadn't improved so much.
Imagine how many wins he'd have with an above average offense behind him. I haven't checked the run support he got game by game but I'm guessing it was below average given that our run production, overall, is below average. He and Bourn have been co-MVPs. Lee is right there, too. Wandy leads all Astro pitchers in VORP by a wide margin: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=467771 Bourn actually leads all our position players in VORP now: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=466923 It's nice when stats back up what your eyes are telling you. I believe Miggy was leading early in the season while Lee has been leading in recent months. If you're wondering where Kaz is on that list, click Next at the bottom.
Ok maybe I should have read the post above mine! Anyways, Wandy, Bourne, Lee, Pence & Tejada were the few bright spots this season. Valverde's save numbers are down but his ERA is stellar.
I'm actually imagining if the Astros should trade him this offseason: 30 year old pitcher. Career year. One year left before FA. His market value can't be any higher.
i agree with the premise unless the astros do something to get much more competitive in the offseason. however, he may fetch even more towards next year's deadline than he would in the offseason. also, let me say that i'd be happier if the stros keep wandy! He has been awesome this year, and i appreciate. But just trying to be realistic about what should happen because of the uncompetitive season
He leads the Majors in home ERA, so there still is room for improvement if he can solve the discrepancy between home/road. He's narrowed the gap, but I think Wandy can still be better. To add to that, he also had a brutal stretch where he was tipping his pitches this year. Avoid that, and he'd be a Cy Young candidate.
Wait - who wanted the Astros to trade Wandy? He was the ideal guy not to trade. He wasn't proven enough to command much on the open market, but he had done enough to show potential for improvement (the whole home/road splits thing) and was dirt cheap in a weak rotation on a team without money.
To be fair, a lot of that Home/Road split is distorted by 1 start. He's given up 39 earned runs on the road this year - 10 of them were in that one Milwaukee start a few weeks ago.
I'll agree that Wandy & Mike are the main reasons that we aren't at the bottom, but I do have a question. What is VORP?
Here's the Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_over_replacement_player It means Value Over Replacement Player and it's essentially a measurement of runs produced (for hitters) or runs saved (for pitchers) over a replacement-level player. A replacement-level player is basically a scrub (freely available talent at minimal cost) so a player with a 0 VORP is typically producing below expectations.
