Cliff Lee vs. Kevin Millwood

I was surfing around the web the other day, going through the message boards over at Let's Go Tribe. I saw a link posted for a radio show that was broadcast on 90.3 FM. The show was an Indians preview, with the contributors being Bill Livingston(PD), Bob Dolgan(PD), and Jay Levine(co-author over at Let's Go Tribe). The trio discussed many topics and had a few arguments, but the one that I found to be the most intriguing was the debate over which pitcher one would rather have; Cliff Lee or Kevin Millwood.

I found this to be particularly interesting because Dolgan greatly preferred Lee, while it seemed the other two thought better of Millwood. I wanted to check out each side's reasoning. Last season, Lee went 18-5 with a 3.79 ERA while Millwood went 9-11 with a 2.86 ERA(which led the AL). Dolgan made a comment that he wanted Lee because he "wins games like 5-3", while he didn't want Millwood because he was the type of pitcher that "lost 3-2"( I'm not sure of the exact quote, but it was something along those lines). Jay then countered with the logical argument that Millwood had no control over how many runs his team scored on a given day. My first reaction was to agree completely with Jay, but some of what Dolgan said seemed to stick in my mind. I think what Dolgan was trying to say was that Millwood was the type of guy who would always give up a run or two early in the game, while Lee seemed to stymie the opposition the first few times through the order. Going from memory, part of me wanted to agree with Dolgan. It did seem that Millwood would do that frequently. I think it is easier to hit when you have the lead, from a mental standpoint. This would then seem to have some correlation to the how the offense worked in these games.

What I did was look at each start made last year by Lee and Millwood, and noted which team scored first. I also then kept track of the Indians record in games started by these two. A few other things I looked for was when the first run of the game was scored after the 4th inning (hard to fault the pitcher for that), and when the starter left the game tied 0-0. Millwood made 30 starts last year and Lee made 32 starts. In 50% (15) of Millwood's starts, he yielded the game's first run. Lee, on the other hand, gave up the first run of the game in 41% (13) of his starts. This happened after the 4th inning to Millwood twice, and to Lee once. Millwood pitched in one ballgame in which he left with a 0-0 score, while Lee pitched in two such ballgames. While there is not a huge difference between the two pitchers in this regard, I can see the argument here. More often, we started with a deficit behind Millwood. Not all of this can be attributed to just the offense. I think this is what Dolgan was trying to get at.

Now, I don't want you all to think that I am agreeing with Bob Dolgan. I am just saying that I see his point and there are at least a little bit of statistics there to back it up. However, in doing this study I also found another very interesting statistic. If we look at the team's record in games started by Millwood and Lee, we see that the Tribe was 14-16 with Millwood starting and 23-9 with Lee starting. Given their ERA's, you would think that Lee was just a lot luckier than Millwood. While it is hard to quantify luck, I think it is easy to see in this case. First I'm going to throw out the three games that the pitchers left with the score being 0-0. This leaves a 14-15 record for Millwood and 22-8 record for Lee. If we look at just the games where the starters were handed a lead, we see a 9-5 record for the Tribe when Millwood started, and a 12-5 record when Lee started. These are pretty similar figures and probably ones that could be expected. The huge difference lies in games started by these pitchers where they gave up the first run. The Tribe was 5-10 in these games when Millwood started, a number that seems pretty reasonable, probably a little on the unlucky side. However, the Tribe went 10-3 in such games started by Lee! This is an extremely lucky record. For whatever reason, the '05 Indians had a better ability to come back from an early deficit with Lee on the hill than when Millwood was pitching. There is no logical explanation for this, most of it was circumstantial luck.

In general, I think what we learned here is that there is a good amount of luck involved in a pitcher's victory total in a season. That is why wins are not usually an appropriate stat with which to compare pitchers' overall worth. There is no way that you can talk about these two pitchers last season without addressing the fact that Lee was a lot luckier than Millwood. Also, I can see the point that Dolgan was trying to argue, and there may be some validity to it based on the stats. But there is just too much evidence out there to say that Lee was superior to Millwood last year. I think they were both very good, and am glad that Indians did not sign Millwood to a long-term contract. His track record just is not good enough. Now let's all just hope that Lee's good luck continues!