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BCB Community Over/Unders: Kyle Lohse

The steady right-hander will start on opening day.

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Pitcher contributions are a bit tougher to put a win number on than batting numbers depending on how much credit you give to a pitcher for things out of his control. The wins totals below are based on fielding-independent pitching; when they are based off of ERA, those wins numbers are 3.3 and 2.5. I think it's safe to say that the Kyle Lohse contract has worked out as well as anyone could have possibly expected.

36 year old starting pitchers are a scary type of player, but Lohse has been working with an 89ish MPH fastball for years now so there's less risk in terms of stuff dropoff-- Lohse isn't a guy who is going to begin to struggle because he can't bring the big fastball anymore.

Lohse IP ERA FIP K% BB% WAR
2013 198.2 3.35 4.08 15.5 4.5 2.0
2014 198.1 3.54 3.95 17.3 5.5 2.0
Steamer 192.0 4.26 4.31 16.4 5.3 1.1
ZiPS 163.1 3.91 4.22 - - 1.1

Lohse isn't much more than an average starting pitcher at this point in his career, but that ZiPS line seems pessimistic for me. I think that's mainly because you want to build in a ton of decline for 36-year old starting pitchers in a good projection system. But I don't think Lohse fits the profile of the kind of guy in for a steep decline. I have the OVER.