When the Baltimore Orioles officially announced the signing of starting pitcher Kyle Gibson to a one-year deal on December 5, I think it’s safe to assume most of the fanbase had the exact same thought: this is the Jordan Lyles replacement.
The Orioles declined Lyles’ club option on November 9, creating an opening in the rotation that has now been filled by the former Phillies right-hander. While we wait for the Orioles to hopefully make a bigger move for pitching, let’s take a closer look at some numbers from 2022 to see how Gibson and Lyles stacked up last year and what it could mean for 2023.
ERA
Gibson: 5.05 (81 ERA+)
Lyles: 4.42 (91 ERA+)
Lyles holds the edge over Gibson for one of the simplest pitching stats, ERA. However, neither of these pitchers had an above-average ERA based on ERA+, so neither player was impressive in 2022 based on that.
When it comes to Lyles, his 2022 ERA showed a major gap between home and road games. He provided an ERA of 3.47 at home while seeing that figure balloon to 5.25 away from Baltimore, a 1.78 differential between Baltimore and road games. Among the six regulars in the 2022 rotation, Lyles by far had the biggest gap between his home and road ERA.
You don’t need to be a sabermetrician to notice a stat that helps explain this home/road split for Lyles: he allowed six homers at home and 20 on the road. His HR/9 was 0.7 in Baltimore, while it rose to 1.9 on the road.
Gibson similarly enjoyed a better ERA at home than on the road (4.57 vs 5.79) without the benefit of a left field fence that was modified to suppress homers. However, his 1.22 differential is not quite the same as what Lyles offered up last year.
It’s certainly possible a new home park could further help Gibson’s home ERA but it’s worth pointing out that the above table shows that only three of the six regular starters pitched better in Baltimore than on the road last year.
Regardless of how you slice it, neither pitcher provided a strong ERA, but that’s hardly the only stat we have for pitching.
Innings pitched and innings per start
Gibson: 167.2 IP/5.4 innings per start
Lyles: 179.0 IP/5.6 innings per start
Much of the value Lyles provided to the 2022 Orioles was his ability to eat some innings.
He wasn’t a young arm who needed a careful pitch count or innings limit to protect the team’s future, allowing him to go deeper in games than arms like Kyle Bradish or Dean Kremer. The veteran threw 100 or more pitches 11 times in 2022 and was also responsible for one of the team’s two complete games last year. He started nine more games and threw over 50 more innings than any other member of the rotation last year and ended the year ranked 30th in baseball for innings pitched. The innings eater lived up to his billing.
When it comes to simply eating some innings, Gibson looks to be a mild downgrade for both raw innings and innings per start. Gibson finished 41st for innings pitched last year and couldn’t quite match Lyles for 5.6 IP per start.
This year will be another year where we should expect careful management of young arms with the expectation that DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez will both get their first chance to regularly start at the major league level. As such, Gibson being able to eat innings as a low-risk veteran should be a boringly valuable way to help the rest of the pitching staff.
His innings were lower than Lyles last year, but I’d guess they’ll go up next year in Baltimore when joining a rotation that doesn’t feature established veteran arms like Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler.
Whiff% and K%
Gibson: 25.1 whiff%/20.1 K%
Lyles: 21.9 whiff%/18.6 K%
Looking at the data for Gibson reveals an interesting quirk: he finished 2022 in the 46th percentile for whiff rate but only in the 29th percentile for strikeout percentage. His ability to create swings and misses was slightly below average, but his ability to turn those whiffs into strikeouts was much weaker relative to the league average.
Regardless of what seems like an inconsistency between the two numbers, Gibson still ranks above Lyles for both getting whiffs and getting strikeouts. However, it’s not exactly a high bar to clear with Lyles, who ended 2022 in the 20th percentile for whiff% and the 22nd percentile for K%.
Lyles wasn’t signed for his ability to get K’s and neither was Gibson, but there’s still a modest upgrade here.
Ground ball percentage
Gibson: 45.9%
Lyles: 40.2%
We just established Gibson and Lyles don’t heavily rely on strikeouts, so what happens when the ball gets put in play becomes a valuable data point to compare the two. When it comes to inducing groundballs, Gibson is a solid upgrade over Lyles.
Among the 45 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title last year, Gibson’s GB% sat in 16th place, while Lyles was further behind in 28th place.
Unsurprisingly, the average launch angle of the two pitchers helps explain this. Gibson’s average launch angle was 10.6 degrees, while Lyles sat at 15.3 degrees.
A more groundball-friendly pitcher certainly seems like it’d be a welcome addition to an Orioles infield that currently features the defensively strong duo of Ramon Urias and Jorge Mateo. It feels like a safe bet that the 2023 Orioles will have better infield defense than the 2022 Phillies and that should help make Gibson a better pitcher than he was last year.
Of course, there is a major wild card when it comes to ground balls for 2023: shifting is now banned. It’s impossible to predict how many more ground balls will become hits next year, but it’s also an issue that will go far beyond Gibson and Lyles.
Dawg in him
Gibson: Unknown
Lyles: Yes
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).