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A recent Fan Post marks Nick Markakis as the biggest disappointment of the 2009 season, but for me that honor goes to Jeremy Guthrie. Going into the season there was one person in the rotation that I wasn't worried about, and that person was Guthrie. I never thought he was an ace, but for two years he'd been a reliable, above average starting pitcher.
I don't know what happened. I know that people who know advanced stats better than I do say he pitched above his head in 2007 and 2008, but I don't know. I don't think anyone saw this coming. I was just looking at the projections that were made for him prior to the season and while PECOTA, Bill James, CHONE, Marcel, and ZiPS all projected him to be worse than he was in 07 and 08, it was nothing like this.
I like Jeremy Guthrie a lot and while I sort of imagined he might be pushed out of the rotation in the future, I didn't imagine that we'd go into 2010 with him as a question mark. And yet here we are.
Jeremy will make two more starts this season, tonight and the last game against Toronto on Sunday. While he's looked better lately, he hasn't looked good. Really he's just given up a few less HR. My best case scenario for Guthrie is that the WBC jacked him up and he couldn't recover (although it's been six months!). My worst case is he's Rodrigo Lopez.