Continuing on to squeeze as much use..full?less? information from the Baseball Reference’s Play Index I wanted to answer this question. If you did have some choices from the free agent pool for the start you need to pick up, because you planned poorly for the bad luck that was inevitable, which match-up should you choose?
Great question! 2015 offered a nice spread of teams. If the pitcher you looked at picking up was facing off versus the Toronto Blue Jays, don’t!
17.16, All 162 starts taken against the Blue Jays line up last year averaged out to be poopy day. There is so many negative starts here. They include some names too. Poor Chris Tillman was basically a tee for the Blue Jays going negative four times. Rick Porcello, Garrett Richards, Michael Pineda, JA Happy, Taijuan Walker among a couple dozen others all had really bad days versus this lineup.
There were eleven teams though that gave opposing pitchers easy days. If you were looking for a pitcher who was facing off the Phillies or Padres? That was likely a better outcome. 28.8 and 28.2 respectively, were the average point totals for starts against those line ups.
White Sox, Brewers, Twins and Marlins all averaged 27 points per start against, and the Angels, Braves, Rays, Pirates and Cardinals round out the better than average start against group.
The most surprising team on this list for me was the Mariners coming in at 22.12 points per start against. Looking at their list a bit delivers some serious outliers. Jeremy Guthrie’s -51 makes an appearance here. Ross Detwiler, Collin McHugh, Eddie Butler, Jesse Chavez and Chris Tillman all went for more than negative 20 against the Mariners last year.
Last year you wanted to avoid the Jays of course, but also the Red Sox, Rangers, Yankees, Rockies (mostly in Coors), Mariners, Dodgers, Nationals (unless Harper was out), and Indians.
Looking ahead to next year, some of those lineups project to be better or worse, but there might be some data worth considering early on if you need a week two or three emergency start.
Avoid Joey Bautista and friends.
Average Points Per Start Vs Each Team
| TOR | 17.16 |
| BOS | 20.72 |
| TEX | 21.29 |
| NYY | 21.37 |
| COL | 21.97 |
| SEA | 22.12 |
| LAD | 22.25 |
| WSN | 22.51 |
| CLE | 22.88 |
| HOU | 23.39 |
| BAL | 23.52 |
| SFG | 23.60 |
| DET | 23.80 |
| OAK | 23.85 |
| CHC | 23.87 |
| NYM | 23.89 |
| ARI | 23.96 |
| CIN | 24.66 |
| KCR | 24.67 |
| STL | 25.39 |
| PIT | 25.69 |
| TBR | 25.73 |
| ATL | 26.55 |
| LAA | 26.56 |
| CHW | 27.05 |
| MIL | 27.25 |
| MIN | 27.39 |
| MIA | 27.49 |
| SDP | 28.20 |
| PHI | 28.80 |