Post-Reds WAR (since 2000)

Since 2000, the Cincinnati Reds' best-known "one that got away" is, of course, Josh Hamilton.  Many Reds fans still won't shut up about him.  And indeed, he has provided the most total value to his teams since, among all players the Reds lost to trade or free agency in that time period.  Take a look at the list below.  Some of the names might really surprise you.

Notes: Players appearing on this list must have appeared in at least one MLB game for the Reds in the 2000 season or more recently.  Totals are based on baseball-reference.com's wins above replacement.

Top WAR (wins above replacement) accumulators after leaving the Reds:
1) Josh Hamilton (21.7)
2) Ryan Dempster (20.4)
3) Cody Ross (12.0)
4) Edwin Encarnacion (9.1)
5) Bruce Chen (8.3)
6) Russell Branyan (8.2)
7) Kyle Lohse (7.7)
8) Chris Denorfia (7.1)
9) Jose Guillen (6.7)
10) Dmitri Young (6.3)
11) David Ross (5.7)
12) Brady Clark (5.3)
13) Matt Belisle (5.1)
14) Jerry Hairston (5.0)
15) Dennys Reyes (4.6)

I think most Reds fans have been surprised by the performance of Encarnacion, Denorfia and others since their departure - heck, even Chris Dickerson and Adam Rosales have performed decently for their teams, although not well enough to make the list.

Needless to say, this list is skewed toward players who left a handful (or more) of seasons ago.  Here are three players who, given more time, will probably accumulate some strong numbers:

Travis Wood (2.9 total WAR after leaving the Reds)
Yonder Alonso (1.9)
Didi Gregorius (1.7)

Notice that you didn't see some rather famous players listed?  The Reds didn't miss out on much value by letting these guys go:

Sean Casey (-0.2 total WAR after leaving the Reds)
Adam Dunn (-0.7)
Ken Griffey, Jr. (0.2)

Ranking the Reds' Starting Pitching

By median game score:
1) Cueto 62
2) Bailey 57
3) Leake 54.5
4) Willis 52
5) Wood 49.5
6) Arroyo 46
7) Volquez 44

By percentage of starts with game scores of 40+ (keeping the team in the game)
1) Cueto 91
2) Leake 88
3) Willis 83
4) Volquez 77
5) Arroyo 76
6) Wood 75
7) Bailey 68

By ERA:
1) Cueto 2.36
2) Leake 4.00
3) Bailey 4.34
4) Wood 4.92
5) Willis 5.04
6) Arroyo 5.28
7) Volquez 5.80

By xFIP:
1) Leake 3.65
2) Cueto 3.86
3) Bailey 3.89
4) Willis 4.07
5) Volquez 4.22
6) Arroyo 4.52
7) Wood 4.60

By SIERA:
1) Leake 3.57
2) Willis 4.12
3) Cueto 4.13
4) Volquez 4.26
5) Bailey 4.37
6) Wood 4.39
7) Arroyo 4.41

By WAR (extrapolated to 35 starts)
1) Cueto 4.4
2) Bailey 2.4
3) Wood 2.2
4) Leake 2.0
5) Willis 1.8
6) Volquez -0.6
7) Arroyo -1.1

Composite rankings
1) Cueto 1.5
2) Leake 2.2
3) Bailey 3.7
4) Willis 3.8
5) Wood 5.2
6) Volquez 5.5
7) Arroyo 6.2

It's funny how closely these final numbers resemble each pitcher's ideal role. Cueto has pitched like an ace, but is likely something between a 1 and a 2 on a true contender. Leake looks like a 2nd or 3rd starter. Bailey and Willis are good enough to be 4th (or 5th) starters - but Bailey really needs to reduce the percentage of very poor outings. And the other three (if they continue to pitch as they have in 2011) don't belong in the rotation.

Pitchers due to improve

Using half a run as the cutoff skews things, such that the large list of "lucky" pitchers above is opposed by only two "unlucky" pitchers with respect to both xFIP and tERA:

Brandon Morrow
Zack Greinke

(both should be expected to get better results as the season progresses)

If you look at xFIP alone, you get a bigger list. Again, all these guys theoretically should do BETTER the rest of the season:

Mike Leake
David Price
Madison Bumgarner
Matt Garza
Ryan Dempster
Edwin Jackson
Derek Lowe
Yovani Gallardo
Felipe Paulino
Chris Narveson
Ubaldo Jimenez
Chris Volstad
Carlos Carrasco
Gavin Floyd
Max Scherzer
Ted Lilly
Brett Myers
Jake Westbrook
Fausto Carmona
Brandon Morrow
Zack Greinke

Three Reds (Volquez, Wood, and Arroyo) also have had unlucky ERAs but weren't on the main list because of their xFIPs weren't below 4.00

2011 Reds SP Game Scores

Johnny Cueto may have been the (extremely) hard luck loser today, but he posted yet another excellent start. By game scores, let's take a look at Red starting pitching. The single best start by anyone on the staff, when measured this way, was Mike Leake's win at San Francisco.

The standard formula: start with 50 points. Add 1 for each out, 1 for each strikeout, 2 for each inning completed after the 4th. Subtract 1 for each walk, 2 for each hit, 2 for each UER, and 4 for each ER. 50+ is considered a quality start with this method. According to Wikipedia, the highest game score achieved in a 9-inning game was Kerry Wood's famous 20 K 1-hitter.

Highest percentage of starts with scores of 70+
Cueto (27%)
Bailey (14%)
Leake (7%)
Arroyo (6%)
Wood (6%)
Volquez (0%)

Highest percentage of 60+
Cueto (82%)
Bailey (43%)
Leake (36%)
Volquez (20%)
Wood (19%)
Arroyo (18%)

Highest percentage of 50+ (quality starts)
Cueto (82%)
Leake (71%)
Bailey (57%)
Wood (50%)
Arroyo (47%)
Volquez (40%)

Cueto has actually had 10 of 11 quality starts by the standard definition (6+, 3 or fewer runs), but one of them didn't make the cut by game score because of the lack of strikeouts. Whether his strikeouts are an issue this year or not depends on your point of view. Typically it's not a good sign (in the sense that sustaining a high level of success with a lot of contact is rare) but it's helping him with efficiency, so I'm not personally inclined to complain.

If Bailey can stay healthy, it looks like he and Leake will be the #2 and #3 guys, but there is a lot of trouble beyond that point.

Arroyo has hardly given us any commanding performances. The number of 60+ game scores for him through this point in the season, each of his years here:

2006 - 9
2007 - 5
2008 - 6
2009 - 5
2010 - 7
2011 - 3