On July 20th, the Rockies traded Jeremy Guthrie to the Royals for Jonathan Sanchez. It wasn't so much a change-of-scenery trade as it was synchronized self-preservation, as if both teams' rosters reflexively rejected a toxic substance and instinctively sent it somewhere, anywhere else. The two starters' stats, before the trade:
Sanchez: 53 1/3 IP, 6.1 K/9, 7.4 BB/9, 7.76 ERA (-0.7 WARP)
Guthrie: 90 2/3 IP, 4.5 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 6.35 ERA (-1.0 WARP)
And since the trade?
Sanchez: 11 1/3 IP, 7.1 K/9, 7.1, BB/9, 9.53 ERA (-0.2 WARP)
Guthrie: 31 1/3 IP, 7.5 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 4.02 ERA (0.4 WARP)
In his last three starts for Kansas City, Guthrie has allowed three runs in 21 innings against three playoff contenders (the Rangers, White Sox, and A's), striking out 18 and walking four. As Matthew Pouliot points out, Guthrie has been considerably better than Zack Greinke, Ryan Dempster, Anibal Sanchez, and Francisco Liriano since switching teams, even though all four of those starters, unlike Guthrie, were traded for players who weren't actively sabotaging their teams.
In other news, I'm working on a theory about Coors Field being a tough place to pitch.
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As a fly ball pitcher, I expected Guthrie to be a disaster in Colorado.
I also expected Hammel to improve outside of Colorado because of his substantial home road splits when in Colorado. In Baltimore Hammel has been better than I expected.
They went from Hammel to Guthrie. Then, not realizing they've done a horrible job with getting the pitchers they have to "work", took a fix-up project in Sanchez. At least Guthrie was providing some innings.
They traded Iannetta for a fungible Chatwood.
They let Seth Smith go so they could overpay for similar production from Cuddyer.
Now they have Rosario sitting on the bench for Ramon Hernandez with a rumor that Yorvit Torrealba will be coming back.
But at least they stopped demoting Dexter Fowler or batting him 8th.
Now, you have a new ownership team in LA, Sabean actually building a lineup without having a ton of 40 year old vets, and the Padres have rookie pitchers _and_ hitters coming out of their ears. Oh, and you still have O'Dowd and Tracy...