Understanding the true value of R.A. Dickey

The knuckleball is a mystery, one that Toronto Blue Jays fans hope R.A. Dickey has solved.

Dickey’s early-season struggles, coupled with what looks to be a team-wide return to form, has many Jays fans wondering whether the real Dickey is back, and if so, is he good enough to help the team contend.

Or, should the Jays look to upgrade their starting pitching before their rivals do? 

Whenever we talk about upgrading after an established pitcher struggles, we have to look at track record. Dickey is one of the few players in the game who can play the slow starter card to explain his early foibles. Indeed, if history is any indicator, April has been a brutal month for Dickey long before became a Blue Jay:

Dickey’s average April ERA over the last five seasons is an ugly 4.62, and that includes a 2012 season that ended with him winning the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the National League. Also of note in this five-year sample is the fact that Dickey’s ERA doesn’t always improve in May. In some cases it went up, as you can see in 2011, 2013, and 2015.

At first, you may think this is grounds to dismiss Dickey. He’s aging, his bread-and-butter pitch is volatile, and right now he’s the weakest link the Blue Jays rotation. Surely they can do better, right? 

Not really. 

Consider that, if the Mets would have looked at Dickey’s 4.45 ERA at the start of the 2012 season and demoted him, he’d have never gone on to win his Cy Young. While I don’t think the Jays can count on Dickey to win a Cy Young this season, I do think they can count on the veteran starter to keep them in contention throughout the regular season by doing what he’s always done: supply his team with incredible value. 

What makes Dickey so useful isn’t his ability to win one big battle, but his ability to help the Jays win many smaller ones throughout the season. He is, after all, the Jays most resilient and dependable pitcher, turning in 200 plus innings during each of the last four seasons. Even with this season’s rough start, he’s on pace to do it again.

Context is key here. You can rely on Dickey to turn in a quality season of 200 innings at the back of a rotation. You can't rely on him to be a stopper, ace, rotational capstone or swingman from the pen. He’s not the guy you throw in when you must win, he’s the guy you throw in to protect your most precious arms.

It’s much easier to see Dickey’s value if you think about a baseball team as an array of specialized parts working together to achieve team success and less like a group of big names and big promises. Dickey’s ability to consistently absorb 200 innings gives the Jays options that save money and manpower in other areas. 

For example, because Dickey is in the rotation and throws a relatively low impact pitch, he can be substituted for Aaron Sanchez to mitigate arm fatigue on the young starter. A healthy Sanchez means more return out of his arm for the Jays, now and in future seasons. It also means the team isn’t paying for a replacement arm while also paying Sanchez as he heals.

Dickey pitching 200 innings also allows the Blue Jays bullpen more rest. That gives the team fresher relief arms for other games, and means fewer injuries and less roster shuffling. It also slows down the team’s burn rate options.

 
Even with these ancillary abilities, some fans argue that Dickey hasn’t brought the kind of value promised when he joined the club in a 2013 deal that included top Toronto prospects Travis d'Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. 

Back then, Dickey was coming to Toronto as was a freshly-minted Cy Young winner along with several other big-name acquisitions. He was seen as the jewel in the Jays' 2013 playoffs-or- bust squad. Well, in 2013 the Jays did go bust, finishing at 74-88. Dickey posted an awful 4.21 ERA — almost twice his Cy Young season ERA. It remains the worst ERA of his Blue Jays career.

What many forget is that while the Blue Jays committed to a deal with Dickey potentially worth more than $40 million when he joined the team, they only paid him $5 million for that 2013 season. Dickey threw 224 innings for that $5 million. Considering that the Jays just acquired reliever Jason Grilli, who is owed $3.5 million this year and will most likely throw less than 70 innings, that’s not a bad return. Even at Dickey’s current salary of $12 million a year, 200 quality innings is a steal. 

There are some who insist they’d rather have 200 innings of dominant, “starts on time” power pitching instead of 200 innings of Dickey. That makes sense on paper, but in reality, back-end starters with the kind of resiliency and consistency Dickey has are rare. Many teams employ a merry-go-round system of swingmen and Triple-A pitchers to eat those innings. Inexperienced pitchers with untested results can be just a volatile as a knuckleballer, if not worse. 

And while we'd all like to have Syndergaard on our team now, back when the Jays traded for Dickey, Syndergaard was still a bit away from making a dependable big-league impact — years the Jays felt represented their window of opportunity to content.

And, in case you think stoppers, aces and capstone pitchers are always consistent, think again. The Blue Jays direct division rival, the Boston Red Sox, have two names in their rotation that absolutely must deliver and win big games so the Sox can compete: David Price and Clay Buchholz.

Price, Boston’s flagship arm, is pulling down $30 million this year despite an awful start to the 2016 season. Buchholz, a one-time Boston ace, is labouring to stay in the rotation all together, currently sitting on a 6.12 ERA. 

If the Jays are going to compete with the Red Sox, it’s nice to know that, at present, their rotation is superior, costs less, and their weakest link is pitching on par with Boston’s strongest. 

Finally, if the Jays reach the postseason, Dickey’s impact will be largely marginalized. That has nothing to do with Dickey, but everything to do with the fact that most pitchers at the end of the rotation see little to no action in postseason play unless it’s as a late inning/blowout option from the pen. This scenario is much easier to hedge for than the finding an impact starter at the trade deadline.

If the Jays don’t compete this year, it won’t be because Dickey fails to dominate and carry the team. Dickey didn’t dominate in 2015 either, and the Jays still managed to make their first postseason appearance in 22 years.