Fun with PECOTA comparables: The Yankees 2009 staff is chock full of Roger Clemens in his prime

While reading through my copy of Baseball Prospectus 2009, something jumped off the pages about the comparables for the Yankees' pitching staff - Roger Clemens was omnipresent. For those of you not familiar with the projection systems, the following is how Baseball Prospectus defines comparables:

Comparable Players are the backbone of a player's PECOTA. Only the twenty best comparables are listed here, but as many as 100 players may be used in the generation of his forecast if they are sufficiently comparable.

PECOTA compares each player against a database of roughly 20,000 major league batter seasons since World War II. In addition, it also draws upon a database of roughly 15,000 translated minor league seasons (1997-2006) for players that spent most of their previous season in the minor leagues. (When minor league comparables are used, they appear in ALL CAPS). PECOTA considers four broad categories of attributes in determining a player's comparability

PECOTA essentially tracks a pitcher's career path and tries to predict the future largely based on past results. It is widely accepted that PECOTA is at the top of the totem pole when it comes to projections systems, and the system is known as "deadly accurate."

For that reason, I got pretty excited when I saw that various prime seasons of Roger Clemens' presumably pre-steroid years were among the top three comparables for CC Sabathia, A.J Burnett and Joba Chamberlain. Lets get a sneak preview of their comps (paid content from Baseball Prospectus' website):

Sabathia:

Rank	Pitcher	Year	Score	Trend	Rank	Pitcher	Year	Score	Trend
1	Don Drysdale	1965	37		11	Mark Gubicza	1991	25
2	Steve Carlton	1973	31		12	Fergie Jenkins	1971	24
3	Roger Clemens	1991	30		13	Len Barker	1984	24
4	Frank Viola	1989	30		14	Chris Short	1966	23
5	Rick Reuschel	1978	28		15	Larry Dierker	1975	21
6	Jim Kaat	1967	28		16	John Smoltz	1996	21
7	Andy Benes	1996	28		17	Jose Rijo	1994	21
8	Roy Halladay	2006	27		18	Bert Blyleven	1980	20
9	Sam McDowell	1971	27		19	Greg Swindell	1993	20
10	Aaron Harang	2007	27		20	Brandon Webb	2008	19

Burnett:

Rank	Pitcher	Year	Score	Trend	Rank	Pitcher	Year	Score	Trend
1	Jack Morris	1987	50		11	Todd Stottlemyre	1997	34
2	Mike Scott	1987	46		12	Earl Wilson	1967	33
3	Roger Clemens	1995	41		13	Mike Krukow	1984	33
4	Joe Dobson	1949	39		14	Kevin Millwood	2007	33
5	Chris Carpenter	2007	39		15	Bob Gibson	1968	32
6	Vic Raschi	1951	38		16	Darren Dreifort	2004	32
7	Kevin Gross	1993	37		17	Jim Clancy	1988	32
8	Gaylord Perry	1971	36		18	Pedro Astacio	2002	32
9	Bruce Hurst	1990	36		19	Dave Stewart	1989	31
10	Curt Schilling	1999	35		20	Bert Blyleven	1983	31

Chamberlain:

Rank	Pitcher	Year	Score	Trend	Rank	Pitcher	Year	Score	Trend
1	Roger Clemens	1986	50		11	Johnny Antonelli	1954	26
2	Aaron Sele	1994	43		12	Steve Carlton	1968	25
3	Don Newcombe	1950	41		13	Billy Loes	1953	24
4	Bill Singer	1968	35		14	Bill Gullickson	1982	24
5	Dave Righetti	1982	32		15	Joey Jay	1959	22
6	Erv Palica	1951	31		16	Burt Hooton	1973	22
7	Jose Rijo	1989	30		17	Andy Messersmith	1969	22
8	Jonathan Broxton	2008	30		18	Dick Ruthven	1975	22
9	Jim Maloney	1964	27		19	Vida Blue	1973	21
10	Rick Reuschel	1973	27		20	Dennis Bennett	1963	21

(all of the links in the above charts bring you back to baseballprospectus.com where you can peruse the glossary in case you aren't familiar with the terminology)

Those charts are filled with some pretty impressive comps including a wide range of Roger Clemens' historic career. These are obviously just computer projections and all of the work is done on the field. That being said, the Yankees are in a position to have a pretty dominant pitching staff in 2009 if everyone stays healthy. PECOTA predicts especially good things for A.J Burnett, although I still think he will be a disappointment. One thing is for sure - PECOTA loves a pitcher with high strikeout rates and hates a guy like Chien Ming Wang who relies on balls in play.

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