Now for the most painful part about the Valencia rebuild process. If one were to describe the mixture of pitching of this year's Valencia starting rotation, it would be like mixing in stagnant pond water with raw sewage and then adding some expired milk topped off with Coca-Cola and a roll of Mentos.
The original intent was to bring in some older affordable pitchers on one-year contracts while the Valencia front office got its financial house in order. To that effect it brought in Todd Jones, Gerardo Rae and Michael Dixon. When Dixon was having trouble in Spring Training/early season, the brass then claimed Bill Williams off of Waivers. Rae, Jones and Dixon were all over 37 years old hence the expired milk.
The one pitcher back from last year's starting rotation is Shiro Takahashi. Ratings wise, Shiro seems pretty solid with a 45/60 overall rating and a potential Stuff/Movement/Control set of ratings of 6/8/5.
To date, Shiro's numbers are not reflecting those potential ratings as his ERA is 5.75 and a WHIP of 1.50. He has a Home Run Allowed rating of 7/8 and he has allowed 10 homers in his 14 starts. All-in-all that calculates into a projected WAR of 1.1 this season.
The next pitcher was acquired in a trade with Charlotte during last year's firesale and was moved from the bullpen to the starting rotation this spring. Qing-Lai Ou-Yang is on a $2.4M salary this season and has put up the most solid numbers in this year's rotation with a 4.15 ERA and a projected WAR of 3.7.
Currently in the #3 slot is Todd Jones. Todd was brought in a a one year/$2.8M deal. Although he has been declining, Todd was still producing about 2 WAR for Brooklyn the last couple of seasons so that is why the front office take a flyer on him. To date he has a 7.80 ERA and has been roughed up in each of his last five starts for four or more runs each time out
In the fourth slot is Bill Williams. Bill was claimed off of Waivers from Yellow Springs. The 27 year old has been roughed up his last three outings on his way to a 7.05 ERA. . Don't be surprised if Michael Dixon gets a chance to see if he can do any better although Dixon's ERA in the pen is currently at 7.64.
Rounding out the rotation is Gerardo Rae. He has started five games with two of those outings being decent and two of them being horrendous while stoking up his ERA to 6.14.
So to sum it all up, three pitchers with a 6+ ERA is not going to cut it but the farm system is trying to get Bhadrasila Chetlapalli (50/50 ratings and a 4.41 ERA) along with Ernesto Escalante (45/50 ratings and a 4.53 ERA in AA) ready for next season. If those two can come along along with a mid range free agent signing, maybe the water will be a little clearer.
