Maybe A Leopard Can't Change His Spots

I can't recall how I got to thinking about this, but I started to wonder about Jeff Suppan. I think it may be from the Cardinals' fans that were comparing Kyle Lohse to Suppan when Lohse was signed, trying to give reasons for why Lohse might really do well (which, thus far, he has). Suppan is one of those pitchers that's listed as a Dave Duncan success story, the mediocre pitcher that excels under Duncan's guiding hand. But once I started looking at some numbers, that didn't seem to add up.

For the purposes of this I compared Suppan's 3 years in the StL to his only stint with one team of comparable length, his time with the Royals (1998-2002). However, he only pitched 12 innings for the the Royals in '98, and I wanted to use full seasons, so it'll just be '99-'02.

Note all relief appearances (which total 4.3 innings in 2000) have been excluded. Also, playoff stats (which only factor into his StL numbers) are included, since I couldn't rule out that the impending postseason played a role in how Suppan was used in the regular season, so try and get a complete picture.

First, cumulative numbers:

Royals - 132 games started, 847.7 innings pitched (6.42 innings/start), 39-51, 458 Ks (4.86 k/9IP), 284 BB (3.02 BB/9IP), 1.61 K/BB, 909 hits (9.65 hits/9IP), 1.407 WHIP, 488 runs/447 ER (5.18 RA/4.75 ERA), 11 complete games, 3 shutouts.

Cardinals - 104, 626.3 (6.02 innings/start), 47-29, 361 Ks (5.18 K/9IP), 219 BB (3.15 BB/9IP), 1.65 K/BB, 645 hits (9.27 hits/9IP), 1.38 WHIP, 310/269 ER (4.45 RA/3.87 ERA), 0 complete games, o shutouts.

So with the Cards he didn't pitch as deeply into games, struck out and walked more batters, but surrendered fewer hits. Total, he allowed roughly 27 fewer baserunners per 1000 innings, or somewhere around 5 a season (since Suppan pitches around 200 innings every year)*, and had an ERA 0.87 runs lower, but was only allowing 0.73 total runs less per.

Now, per-season numbers (rounded to nearest whole number):

Royals - 33 starts, 212 innings, 10-13, 115 Ks, 71 BB, 227 hits, 122 runs/112 earned runs, 3 complete games, 1 shutout.

Cardinals - 35, 209, 16-10, 120 Ks, 73 BB, 215 hits, 103 runs/90 earned runs, 0 complete games, 0 shutouts.

If you look at rate stats for individual seasons, there are a lot of similarities.

WHIP for KC - 1.361, 1.493, 1.379, 1.428
WHIP for StL - 1.367, 1.384, 1.453

His best (and worst) seasons were with KC, while his second-best (and second-worst) seasons were with the Cardinals.

ERA+ for KC - 111, 103, 111, 93
ERA+ for StL - 103, 119, 108

The thing to keep in mind here is a 100 ERA+ in the AL is not the same ERA in the NL, since the AL is a higher scoring league, what with the DH, and generally stronger lineups**. Plus, some years are dominated by offense more than others. So even though his ERA is lower every year with the Cardinals, compared to the rest of his league, he's not necessarily doing any better. His best year was 2005, and his worst was 2002, but his next best seasons were 1999 and 2001, both in Kansas City.

So there doesn't seem to be much difference between his time with the team, on an individual level. The most obvious difference is between the teams. In four years with Kansas City, they went 268-379, a winning percentage of .414, never winning more than 77 games. Suppan's win % was .433. The Cardinals recorded a (playoffs included) 311-214 (.592), while Suppan's win % is .618. Playoffs excluded, it's 288-197 (.594), and Suppan's record is 44-26 (.629). So regardless, Mr. Suppan is just a little better than the team he plays on, to the extent that wins tell you anything.

The biggest advantage seems to have been the bullpen, or the manager's trust in it. LaRussa trusted his bullpen (or didn't trust Suppan past the 7th), so he didn't let Suppan pitch deep into games where his command might start to slip. Probably a sound strategy. In 2004 his OPS+ was 153 (55 PAs), 147 (21 PAs), 464 (1 PA) in 7th-9th innings. In '05, the OPS+ in the 7th was 119 in 56 PAs, though only 49 in the 8th (15 PAs). All told, in three years with the Cardinals, Suppan only faced 232 (77 per season) batters in the 7th or later, with 77 in 2004, 79 in 2005, 76 in 2006. Wow, that's eerily similar. With the Royals, it was 458 batters (114.5 per season) in the 7th or later. It was 118 in '99, 137 in 2000, 113 in 2001, and 90 in 2002. He did alright in 1999 and 2002, but in both 2000 and 2001 he got batted around pretty good in those innings. However, the amount of batters he faced in those situations was declining, so maybe his managers were learning his limits. Or, they put together better bullpens, and didn't have to drive him so deep into games.

The ultimate conclusion seems to be that it wasn't so much that Dave Duncan made Suppan a better pitcher (though I'm sure he helped a little), as it was that he had a manager that didn't leave him in too long, and had a bullpen he could trust to turn to, which is usually a by product of playing on better teams. That was a lot of effort for just that.

* If you only use regular season stats, the gap in WHIP is 6 baserunners per 1000 innings, or about 1 per season.

** Which kind of surprises me. You'd think NL lineups would have better hitters, to compensate for the pitcher, who's typically inept, but AL lineups get a guy who focuses solely on hitting, and still have the beefier overall lineups, on average.