Today,
Carrie Muskat asks herself, "Can Dempster make a successful conversion from closer to starter?"
Her answer:
After three seasons as the closer, Dempster is switching back to the rotation for the first time, full-time, since 2002. The right-hander has trained hard this offseason, but it won't be easy to go from one-inning outings to seven or eight. He'll be challenged with the addition of Lieber.
I think Dempster will mostly be challenged by the fact that he is not a very good starting pitcher.
Dempster's career numbers as a starting pitcher only, along with those of another guy who we often kick around:
|
GS |
IP
|
W
|
L
|
ERA
|
H/9
|
K/9
|
BB/9
|
HR/9
|
OPS
|
Dempster |
162 |
989
|
51
|
58
|
4.99
|
9.4
|
7.4
|
4.7
|
1.1
|
802
|
Marquis |
170 |
1016
|
66
|
61
|
4.47
|
9.3
|
5.3
|
3.4
|
1.2
|
781
|