You might have heard that Jeff "Ace" Suppan is not pitching well. If you haven't, go back and read today's Frosty Mug, where I linked to seven articles and posts discussing it.
All of this has created an interesting debate: Can two terrible starts, combined with a poor performance down the stretch in 2008, be enough to boot a veteran pitcher from the rotation? That remains to be seen, but there is another question we can answer: Where does Jeff Suppan rank among the worst starting pitchers in Brewer history?
A quick disclaimer: For each leaderboard, I only used pitchers with at least 300 IP (approximately two full seasons as a starter) in a Brewer uniform. As such, Matt Kinney, Ruben Quevedo, Victor Santos, and Rafael Roque, among others, were not eligible for consideration. That doesn't mean they weren't terrible, because they all were, they just weren't terrible as a Brewer for long enough to get into this conversation.
Any conversation about bad pitching should probably start with ERA. Among Brewers who pitched at least 300 innings, Jeff Suppan has the fourth worst ERA:
Pitcher | Seasons | IP | ERA |
Glendon Rusch | 2002-2003 | 334 | 5.34 |
Jimmy Haynes | 2000-2001 | 372 | 5.10 |
Gene Brabender | 1969-1970 | 331 | 5.00 |
Jeff Suppan | 2007-2009 | 392 | 4.94 |
Steve Woodard | 1997-2000 | 481 |
4.73 |
That's not an entirely fair comparison, though, because it's not league-adjusted. When you use ERA+ instead, Suppan drops to eighth place:
Pitcher | Seasons | IP | ERA+ |
Gene Brabender | 1969-1970 | 331 | 74 |
Glendon Rusch | 2002-2003 | 334 | 78 |
Bill Champion | 1973-1976 | 432.1 | 84 |
Bill Parsons | 1971-1973 | 518.1 | 85 |
Don August | 1988-1991 | 440 | 85 |
Pete Broberg | 1975-1976 | 312.2 | 85 |
Jimmy Haynes | 2000-2001 | 372 | 87 |
Jeff Suppan | 2007-2009 | 392 | 89 |
And what about allowing baserunners? Last night (6 walks in 3.2 IP) was an extreme example, but Suppan is always pitching with men on. Again, among pitchers with at least 300 innings as a Brewer, Suppan is the sixth worst in WHIP:
Pitcher | Seasons | IP | WHIP |
Pete Broberg | 1975-1976 | 312.2 | 1.586 |
Jimmy Haynes | 2000-2001 | 372 | 1.581 |
Jaime Cocanower | 1983-1986 | 365.2 | 1.564 |
Glendon Rusch | 2002-2003 | 334 | 1.554 |
Angel Miranda | 1993-1997 | 363.1 | 1.544 |
Jeff Suppan | 2007-2009 | 393 | 1.531 |
But, in light of Suppan's last two starts, here's the last one I wanted to check: Among Brewer starting pitchers who pitched at least 300 innings, here are the bottom five in Quality Start percentage:
Pitcher | Seasons | W | L | QS% |
Gene Brabender | 1969-1970 | 19 | 29 | .380 |
Jeff Suppan | 2007-2009 | 22 | 24 | .433 |
Steve Woodard | 1997-2000 | 25 | 30 | .438 |
Pete Broberg | 1975-1976 | 15 | 23 | .442 |
Don August | 1988-1991 | 34 | 30 | .457 |
So where does that leave Suppan? It's not fair to call him the worst SP in Brewer history: certainly Gene Brabender (the ace of the expansion Pilots, out of the majors after the 1970 season) was worse, and so were Glendon Rusch and Jimmy Haynes. But I think you can make a case for Suppan's inclusion in the bottom five, and that's an awfully heavy chain to allow to drag behind a contending team.