Gavin Floyd is Brett Myers

On January 4, 2013, one day after the Indians signed Nick Swisher to a team record deal, the Indians signed veteran right hander Brett Myers to a one year, $7 million deal. Myers proved to be an absolute disaster, appearing in four games making three starts while giving up 10 home runs in just 21.1 innings. He experienced elbow problems and was eventually placed on the 60-day DL, before he was released in August of 2013. Nearly two years after the Indians signed Myers, they made the exact same move, except this time they signed Gavin Floyd.

Okay, so it’s not literally the exact same move, but if you compare the careers of Floyd and Myers side-by-side, they are virtually indistinguishable, and that may not be a good thing for the Indians.

To start, both Myers and Floyd were signed to provide veteran experience to a rotation and team looking to compete for a playoff spot in the upcoming season. Both were former first round draft picks, Myers was the 12th overall pick in 1999, while Floyd was the 4th overall pick in 2001. Both were drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies. Both started the season, or will start the season, in the case of Floyd, at age 32. Aside from the some of the similarities surrounding how they were brought up through the big leagues and how they arrived in Cleveland, they have remarkably similar stats.

For  their careers, Myers and Floyd have struck out and walked batters at very similar rates. Myers had a career strikeout percentage of 18.9% and a walk percentage of 7.6%. Floyd has a strikeout percentage of 18.4% for his career, and a walk percentage of 7.3%. Both of these rates are approximately league average to slightly above average.

The two also possess remarkably similar batted ball profiles. Brett Myers had a line drive percentage for his career of 19.7%, a ground ball percentage of 47.6%, and a fly ball percentage of 32.7%. Floyd posted similar numbers with a 19.5% line drive rate, and 44.9% ground ball rate, and a 35.6% fly ball rate. Again, both pitchers are about league average in all three of these categories. The important thing to note about FB% is that it includes home runs.

Myers’ short stay in Cleveland will most likely be remembered by the high number of home runs he gave up. But this wasn’t just a problem he developed after he arrived in Cleveland. For his career, Myers HR/FB% is an astoundingly awful 14.9%, which came after 1,710 career innings, meaning this was not likely a fluke stat. To put this into context, 9-10% is about league average during any given year.While Myers’s career HR/FB% was awful, Gavin Floyd’s is just plain bad. Over 1,205.2 career innings, Gavin Floyd has accumulated a HR/FB% of 11.9%, toeing the line between bad and awful. Both also carried nearly identical HR/9 rates, with Floyd holding a 1.16 HR/9 and Myers a 1.14 rate.

The tendency to give up far too many home runs is one of the likely causes for the two pitchers having identically poor career ERA, FIP, and SIERA ratings. For Myers career, he had a 4.25 ERA, 4.41 FIP, and 3.94 SIERA. Over Floyd’s 11 seasons he has posted a 4.40 ERA, 4.39 FIP, and 4.12 SIERA. So while the two pitchers were roughly league average pitchers in most major pitching categories, they are awful at limiting home runs.

Does this mean that Gavin Floyd will be terrible for the Tribe and only make a few starts before he is released, similar to Myers’ stay with the Indians? No. But he isn’t the type of pitcher you should rely on to push your team into the playoffs either, and he certainly shouldn’t be guaranteed a spot in the starting rotation. While Floyd has been a serviceable innings eater in the past, this will be less of a concern for the Indians this year considering the surplus of starting pitching options they will open the season with.

Both Zach McAllister and Josh Tomlin will be among the pitchers vying for a spot in the Tribe’s rotation this year, and both arguably have a better claim to a spot than Floyd. McAllister has a career 4.38 ERA and 3.93 FIP, and when compared to Floyd you would have to give the nod to McAllister considering his true ERA is likely closer to his FIP rating due to the Indians’ poor defense. Tomlin has worse numbers with a 4.89 career ERA and a 4.44 career FIP, but both rates are still relatively comparable to Floyd’s. This essentially gives the Tribe three equally mediocre pitchers, with Floyd being more expensive, older, and coming off two recent arm injuries. As fans, we don’t know what the Indians’ scouts have seen from Floyd in his workouts up to this point, but we should be hesitant to believe Gavin Floyd can be anything better than the middling pitcher he has been thus far in his career.