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Lacking A Lackey

John Lackey might have pitched last game in an Angels uniform. With Los Angeles’ once-potent lineup plating just four runs in 22 innings against the Yankees, the Angels find themselves down two games to none in the ALCS and in need of a major turnaround to keep their World Series hopes alive. Lackey is scheduled to start game five, if the Angels can make it until then.

But no matter how long Los Angeles lasts, Lackey’s career in L.A. seems to be dwindling down to its final weeks. His contract expires at season’s end, and with the Angels facing the impending free agency of Chone Figgins, Bobby Abreu, and Vlad Guerrero as well, there may not be room to bring back the former 19-game winner.

According to SI’s Jon Heyman, Lackey rejected the Angels’ offer of 3 years and roughly $40 million prior to the start of the season, and when Lackey started having elbow problems, talks broke off entirely. L.A. then acquired lefty Scott Kazmir after the trade deadline, a move that not only seems to soften the blow of losing Lackey, but also provides another multi-million dollar hit to the payroll that further handcuffs the team financially. Supposedly, Lackey wants “A.J. Burnett money,” referring to the 5 year, $82.5 million deal that Burnett got from the Yankees last winter. And when you consider that Lackey’s number compare favorably almost across the board to Burnett’s, he can probably get it.

Enter the Texas Rangers.

Lackey, who was born and raised in Abilene, is a proud Texan and the closest thing to an ace that will hit the free agent market this offseason. The Rangers play in Texas and are in desperate need of said ace. So what’s not to like? Well, the price tag, for one. And there’s the question of whether Lackey’s a bona fide ace, or just a top-of-the-rotation kind of pitcher. And then there’s his age. And his health. And whether or not he’d wither in the Texas heat like so many before him.

The Rangers would be remiss if they didn’t at least explore all avenues in regards to Lackey. But even if the Rangers can afford to pay him the $16.5 million-per-year he’s hoping to emulate from Burnett, and even if they’re willing to commit their entire offseason to one player, one big question still looms.

Should they?

Lackey holds a relative similarity to one player already in a Rangers uniform — Kevin Millwood — who was the last pitcher the Rangers shelled out big money for and was the ace of the Texas rotation in 2009. Though, statistically, there are other pitchers around the league who bear a closer resemblance to Lackey, there isn’t one that Ranger fans know better nor one that serves as a better benchmark in seeing just how much Lackey could improve the team. And the pair are alike right down to their five-pitch repertoires: fastball, cutter, curveball, slider, and changeup.

But it’s not as black and white as it looks. Thanks to the technology of pitch f/x, we can break down the differences between Lackey’s stuff and Millwood’s stuff. And though FanGraph’s data only goes back to 2007 — and the ’07 data is incomplete at that — it still provides plenty of information.

Lackey’s fastball has a bit more zip than Millwood’s, averaging 1.3 mph faster in 2009. Both pitches have nearly identical tailing action, but Lackey consistently gets more sink on his fastball, which can lead to more ground balls.

There’s also a noticeable discrepancy in the breaking stuff, where Millwood throws the more traditional hard slider and slow curveball. In ’09, Millwood’s slider averaged 84.9 mph, while his curve dialed down to 73.6 mph. Lackey, on the other hand, essentially throws two different curveballs. He has a hard, tight curve that sits in the upper-70s — 79.3 mph in 2009 — and a slightly faster pitch that pitch f/x classifies as a slider, though it’d probably be more accurate to call it a slurve. Lackey’s slurve averaged 81.7 mph in 2009, only 2.4 mph faster than his curve which is, obviously, much closer than the 11.3 mph gap between Millwood’s slider and curve. Lackey’s slurve doesn’t drop as much as his curve, but drops much more than Millwood’s hard slider, making it kind of a tweener pitch that can be tough to classify. Comparatively, Lackey’s curveball gets a touch more horizontal movement than Millwood’s even though it comes in so much faster, and Lackey’s slurve breaks significantly more both vertically and horizonally than Millwood’s slider.

The biggest difference, however, is in how they use their pitches. Millwood throws a lot of fastballs and relies fairly evenly on the remainder of his repertoire the rest of the way. In 2009, Millwood threw his 4-seamer and 2-seamer 57.0 percent of the time and, including the cutter, threw a total of 64.9 percent fastballs. The remainder of his pitches were 16.9 percent sliders, 9.6 percent curveballs, and 8.7 percent changeups. In 2008, one of the worst seasons in his career, Millwood threw 75.3 percent fastballs.

Lackey, on the other hand, relies heavily on a three-pitch mix. He fired off 55.8 percent 4-seamers and 2-seamers in 2009, and sparse use of his cutter raised his total fastball percentage to 58.5 percent. His out pitch is the curveball, which he threw 26.1 percent of the time last year, and the slurve composed 11.7 percent of his selection. Unlike Millwood, Lackey rarely uses his cutter or change.

Since Millwood became a Ranger in 2006, Lackey has consistently posted better ERAs, seemingly the direct result of allowing fewer hits and walks and getting more strikeouts. So how do we explain the difference in the pair’s production? It goes back to the stuff.

While both Lackey and Millwood have thrown essentially the same percentage of strikes over the last three years, Lackey makes his count. Of his strikes, Lackey has averaged about 30 percent looking, 14 percent swinging, and 25 percent on foul balls — the remaining 31 percent were balls in play — while opposing hitters have only made contact on 80 percent of their swings. Millwood, on the other hand, gets only 27 percent looking and 12 percent swinging, and his 30 percent foul ball rate helped lead to a contact percentage of 85. In other words, Lackey has a much easier time missing bats with his sinking fastball, tight curve, and swooping slurve, which makes him less susceptible to long, draining at-bats and cheap base hits. He also helps himself by throwing first-pitch strikes at a clip of 65 percent and maintaining a very low walk rate.

So, now that we’ve determined what should have already been obvious — that John Lackey would be the best pitcher on the team should the Rangers sign him — now comes the tricky part. Even if the Rangers could find a way to round up enough cash to woo Lackey to Arlington, could they possibly justify it? In truth, saying Lackey would be the best pitcher on the roster wouldn’t necessarily qualify him as an “ace,” and though he had a great run from 2005 to 2007, his numbers aren’t quite up to par with names like Halladay, Santana, or Lincecum. Lackey’s last two seasons in particular are concerning, as he’s missed 15 starts with injuries and posted a cumulative 3.79 ERA. His strikeout ratio has also dropped in each of the last four seasons, going from 8.57 K/9 in 2005 to 7.10 in 2009.

Then there’s the question of whether or not he could pitch in Arlington. It’s no secret that, for his career, Lackey’s struggled in Texas, and the fact that he’s posted a 6.11 ERA and 1.64 WHIP in 84 innings at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington might make some queasy about the idea of committing major money to him. But Texas beat him up in L.A. as well, with Lackey owning a 5.64 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in 89.1 career innings when facing the Rangers at Angels Stadium. For whatever reason, the Rangers presented a matchup problem for Lackey regardless of where he pitched. So, while there could be an expected jump in Lackey’s ERA should he end up making half his starts in Rangers Ballpark next year, it shouldn’t be as scary as his numbers here would indicate.

Still, it all comes down to the money. Signing Lackey would almost certainly mean no Marlon Byrd, no Ben Sheets, and probably a few more no’s down the road. Lackey’s touted as a big game pitcher with plenty of experience in October, but if the Rangers don’t make the playoffs it won’t do them much good, and Lackey alone wouldn’t guarantee a postseason berth. Yet with Kevin Millwood’s contract expiring after the 2010 season and Arlington’s reputation as a hitter’s haven, it’ll be awfully tough to find a better match any time soon.

John Lackey is exactly the type hard-nosed, tough-minded pitcher Texas seems to be lacking. All the Rangers need is an owner that can make it happen.