Padres Editorial: How Will James Shields Fare in the NL West?

Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

By now everybody has heard the news that James Shields has reached an agreement with the San Diego Padres on a four-year deal worth around $75 million with a club option for a fifth year. A lot has been made of his moniker “Big Game James” and his postseason struggles, but the Padres have to reach the postseason before he has a chance to back up the name. In the interim the real “big games” Shields will be pitching in for the Friars will be games against the NL West. There’s going to be some stiff competition in the division with the defending World Series Champs, the Giants, the reigning NL West winners, the Dodgers, one of the leagues best offenses from a year ago, the Rockies, and a young lineup with some powerful bats, the Diamondbacks. 

So how will Shields fare against these tough lineups? We can look at his past history to try to find out what the future may hold for him. First I looked at his career numbers against each team, then his numbers at each team’s respective park and then his numbers against each player in each team’s projected lineup. I got the lineups from MLB.com’s depth chart page for each team, so the lineups won’t be perfect, but it’s the best that be done at this point in the off-season. Since Shields has pitched his entire career in the American League, the sample sizes will be small, but it will still give us some insight on the future.

Home Sweet Home

Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

First let’s look at how Shields has performed at his new home ballpark. He’ll be pitching roughly half of his intra-divisional matchups at Petco Park, so it makes sense to look at his stat here first.

Shields actually had never pitched at Petco Park until this past season and he liked it so much he decided that he wanted to pitch half his games for the next four, or maybe even five, years. It’s not hard to see why Shields enjoyed his one and only start in San Diego. Aside from the beautiful weather and the fact he was only roughly 100 miles from home, he also pitched great. He tossed seven shutout innings on seven hits while striking out four.

His success in that start can likely be attributed in large part to the Padres’ league-worst offense, but the pitcher-friendly dimensions likely helped a little too. The park dimensions, unlike the woeful 2014 Padre lineup, will be there every time he takes the mound at Petco. He’s already shown he can take advantage of it once, and the more hew pitches at home the more comfortable he will be the park.

Arizona Diamondbacks

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Shields has made only two starts against the Diamondbacks. One wasn’t so bad, while the other was very bad. Neither of the starts tell us all that much because the last time he faced the D-Backs was in 2007 with Chad Tracy, Eric Byrnes and our friend Carlos Quentin doing a lot of the damage. What we can glean from this is his numbers in his one start at Chase Field.

Over the course of his contract, Shields will definitely get a few more chances to pitch in the desert, but his first act didn’t go so well. The intense heat in Arizona helps the ball carry at Chase Field and carry it did in his one appearance there. Byrnes and Tracy both took him deep in his short five-inning outing where gave up 6 runs.

Hopefully now eight years removed from that start, Shields will perform a little better his next time there. He is a much better pitcher now than he was back then, so we can expect at least somewhat better results.

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This was the only time I strayed from MLB.com’s depth charts. I swapped out Tuffy Gosewisch for Gerald Laird and Yasmany Tomas for Cliff Pennington. The signing of Gerald Laird isn’t official yet and while he might win the job over Gosewisch, I figured it’s more beneficial to look at the numbers of a guy who has faced Shields rather than put in a guy who hasn’t. There’s similar logic for Tomas and Pennington, but also because they had Tomas as the starting third baseman which seems unlikely considering his primarily an outfielder.

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Due to the fact that the Diamondbacks lineup is so young, and the fact Shields hasn’t faced them in the past seven seasons, he doesn’t have a lot of experience against many of them. In small sample sizes he has dominated Laird, Pennington and Trumbo, who’ve gone a combined 2-for-23 against Shields with those two hits only being singles.

The only guy with a meaningful sample size, Aaron Hill, has killed him. Hill got familiar with Shields back when they were division rivals in his Blue Jay days. He’s one of only six players  to hit four or more home runs off Shields. He’s accompanied by his former Blue Jay teammates Adam Lind and Jose Bautista who have hit five off Shields, as well as Robinson Cano, Justin Morneau and Hideki Matsui. They haven’t faced off since 2011, so hopefully when they meet again we’ll see a little different results.

Colorado Rockies

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Shields has had a little more experience and success against the Rockies compared to the Diamondbacks, but not much. His experience also comes a lot more recently. Last season he pitched at Coors Field with the Royals. Against the deep Rockies lineup, and the thin air, he was still able to find success allowing just two runs over six innings while striking out six, picking up the win. He did allow a solo home run, but it’s hard not to at Coors.

The reason his numbers at Coors look so ugly, is because of a rough outing he had there back in 2007, his first full season. Much like his lone start at Chase Field, it’s hard to put too much stock in a start at such an early stage of his career and so many years ago. He did give up two home runs that start, so he has given up three homers in just twelve innings there, but it’s not like he’s a fly ball pitcher who will get burned every time he steps foot in Colorado; his career fly ball percentage of 35.7% is just a tick above the average of 35%. As a matter of fact, his highest single-season fly ball percentage was in 2007 when he gave those four home runs in Arizona and Colorado.

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Kings of Kauffman

Unlike the Diamondbacks, all of the projected Rockies lineup has seen Shields before. Most notably Justin Morneau, who has the 22nd most plate appearances against Shields. I mentioned Morneau earlier when talking about the select few who have taken him deep four or more times. While his several at-bats against him give him an advantage over many others, he’s performed in those other at-bats as well with a fantastic OPS of 1.042. The combinations of Morneau and Coors might be too much for Shields to take, although he held him hitless when they met there last year.

The only other two Rockies who’ve had success against him have been Nolan Arenado and Carlos Gonzalez. It shouldn’t be too surprising that two the teams top hitters would be successful, but they’re both slugging over 1.000 off him, albeit in fewer than 10 at-bats. Still, if he wants to be successful against the Rockies, he’ll definitely need to get those two out.

The rest of the Rockies’ lineup have all had at least five plate appearances against Shields, yet none of the five have registered more than one hit. So going into his first start against the Rockies, he’ll know he’s got the number of five of the guys he’ll be facing, including their biggest star, Troy Tulowitzki.  

Los Angeles Dodgers

Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

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As you can see, Shields experience against the Dodgers is pretty much nonexistent. All there is to go on is one rough start last season. He’s never even pitched in Dodger Stadium, so we can’t predict how his results will be there either.

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Where he does have experience, is against this lineup. With guys like Adrian Gonzalez, Howie Kendrick and Carl Crawford spending time in the American League, Shields had a few chances to face them. For two of them, they’ll be glad to see him. Both Gonzalez and Kendrick have taken him deep once and have hit at a high clip off him as well. Crawford, on the other hand, struggled in his 12 plate appearances against his former teammate. Jimmy Rollins has faced Shields the same amount as Crawford and has had twice the amount of success, and Juan Uribe has been successful in limited chances against him.

This is a scary lineup for any pitcher to face, but with their history against Shields, it makes them twice as frightening. The worst part of it all, is Shields will likely take the hill for the Friars on Opening Day, and it’ll be his first chance to pitch at Dodger Stadium. While he’ll definitely be trying to make a strong first impression, I wouldn’t make too much of his Opening Day start if it goes south.