Phil Gurnee of True Blue L.A. wrote a post I enjoyed today, "Frustrations and Celebrations," that looked at the good and bad of the Dodgers. A snippet of that post reflected the disappointment in Chad Billingsley's 2009 finish that was shared by even some of his longtime supporters.
This might be a tangent, because I don't gather that Gurnee has given up on the Dodger right-hander, but I'm still taken aback by how many people think Billingsley's second half represents the real Billingsley.
Of the 46 starts Billingsley made from April 30, 2008, through July 5, 2009, 36 were quality starts. (That doesn't include two outings in which Billingsley reached the seventh inning with a quality start, only to lose it later in the game.) And by and large, we're not talking of the worst-case scenario, six-inning, three-run, 4.50 ERA quality start. Billingsley's ERA in that time was 2.91, with 8.5 strikeouts per nine innings.
Just to emphasize the point, we're talking an ERA below 3.00 for more than a year.
Billingsley's quality start percentage for this period was .783. That figure would have placed him fifth in the major leagues in 2009, behind Felix Hernandez, Tim Lincecum, Zack Greinke and Chris Carpenter. His ERA would have been in the top 10 in all of baseball.
Billingsley was particularly hot at the start of 2009. He had 15 quality starts in his first 18 of 2009 (.833), good enough to lead the National League. His ERA was 3.14, with 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings.
And then, in the remaining portion of the 2009 season, during part of which he was suffering from leg injuries and possible first-half overwork by Joe Torre, Billingsley's quality start percentage dropped to .571 (8 of 14), and his ERA during that time was 5.45.
The disappointing finish caused Billingsley to fall into a tie for 17th place in quality start percentage (22 of 32, .688) -- with Roy Halladay. Yep, the sainted Halladay had as many ineffective starts in 2009 as Billingsley did.
Now, I'm not trying to argue that Billingsley was a better pitcher than Halladay in 2009. Halladay was better. And I'm certainly not asking you to accept quality starts as a be-all, end-all definition of greatness. It's just one measurement of several I could have employed.
But I ask you, which of the following is most logical?
1) Billingsley's six sub-par starts in the final three months of the 2009 season -- plus, if you must, his two poor starts in the 2008 National League Championship Series -- represent his true ability, a distance so far from Halladay that the Dodgers must make it a mission to acquire the Toronto star.
2) Billingsley's body of work outside of those six starts better represents his true ability, and he remains a bona fide asset who, at age 25 compared with Halladay's 32, is much more likely to get better -- while allowing the Dodgers to avoid a trade that would be costly in both players and salary.
Trading Billingsley and others for Halladay doesn't solve the Dodger pitching depth problem -- in fact, the trade might worsen it if another pitcher is included in the deal, or if Halladay's $15.75-million 2010 salary in the final year of his contract prevents the Dodgers from signing a free-agent arm.
And though acquiring Halladay might make the Dodgers stronger at the front of the rotation, the difference, based on the evidence, is not a substantial one -- unless you are willing to use only Billingsley's six poor starts in the second half of 2009 as evidence.
The Dodgers are bound to get a lot of grief this off-season if they don't acquire a star pitcher -- a perceived ace -- with the assumption being that they are too cheap and/or too chicken to make a move. But a trade for Halladay that involves Billingsley (and don't even mention the even sillier idea of including Clayton Kershaw) seems most likely to create more problems than it solves. It is doubtful that it would bring the Dodgers closer to a World Series title.
You want to get Halladay? Leave Billingsley out of it.
