Comparing David Carpenter To Shawn Kelley

The Yankees have made a series of moves in the last week that has dramatically changed the look of the team’s relief system. On Monday the Yankees sent 31 year old Shawn Kelley to the San Diego Padres for 22 year old prospect Johnny Barbato. The team followed that up Thursday by trading Manny Banuelos to the Atlanta Braves for RHP David Carpenter and LHP Chasen Shreve. With Carpenter taking on Kelley’s abandoned roll, a comparison between the pitches is in order.

Shawn Kelley enjoyed modest success in two years with the Yankees. He owned a 4.39 ERA in 53.1 innings in 2013 compared to a 4.53 ERA in 51.2 innings in 2014. His strikeout rate was an incredible 11.8/9 innings over his two seasons. Although his ERA rose in 2014, he actually had a higher WAR, 0.9 to 0.4. His fly ball rate has dropped every year since 2010 and was down to 43.8% in 2014.

Carpenter has enjoyed more success than Kelley lately. In 2014, Carpenter had a 3.54 ERA in 61 innings of work and a 103 ERA+. His strikeout rate is a little bit lower than Kelley’s, but sitting at 10.0/9 innings over the last two seasons shows he will get plenty of people out without the need of the defense behind him.

Carpenter’s WAR was 0.8 in 2014, nearly identical to Kelley’s. An important stat to keep in mind is the Left On Base % (LOB%). LOB% refers to the rate at which a pitcher can keep inherited runners from scoring. In 2014, Kelley only had a 67.8 LOB% while Carpenter had a 72.6 LOB%.

Often times, people look solely at a pitcher’s ERA to determine the success of their season. However, if a pitcher is letting inherited runners score at a high rate, they still are not getting their job done. Here you can see the Carpenter is keeping 4.8% more inherited base runners on base and off the scoreboard. This is the kind of production the Yankees hope he can reproduce in the Bronx.

Aside from all of his pitching stats, Kelley has one year left until free agency. Meanwhile Carpenter is under team control through the 2017 season. They are both 6’2 righties, but I’ll take the 29 year old under team control over the 31 year old about to hit free agency any day of the week.

One massively important note for Carpenter is that Brian McCann was his catcher in the 2013 season. How did he do? Carpenter had a 1.78 ERA in 65.2 innings of work. His strikeouts per nine innings was better, his home run rate was lower, and his LOB% was a staggering 90.2%.

Reuniting Carpenter with McCann may mean that the Yankees will get more out of the pitcher than any other team in baseball would be able to. Joel Sherman reported that McCann gave a strong endorsement for Carpenter and that helped the Yankees pull the trigger.

The Yankees knew what they were going to get out of Shawn Kelley. However, Carpenter gives the Yankees a known bottom floor and an unlimited ceiling. Much like when the Yankees traded for Nathan Eovaldi from the Miami Marlins, the Yankees are grabbing guys that can come to the Bronx and give the team much more than they gave their previous teams. Expect Carpenter to have strong success in 2015.

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