People here should know by now that I like stats, especially baseball stats. I’m not in favor, necessarily, of things like WAR because they take into account a bit too much objectivity, as do almost all things related to defense in baseball. I appreciate the idea of including the entire capability of a player in one stat, but I don’t think there is a yet a truly reliable way to quantify it.
There are, however, common sense calculations for pitching and hitting that can prove indicative of whether or not a player is producing based on their own ability or if luck is involved. For pitchers, there are a few factors related to luck that can easily be accounted for in statistical analysis. Some of them include batting average on balls in play, and strand rate, which are two things that are easily calculated and easy to understand. After the ball leaves the bat, so long as it doesn’t leave the ball park, is in the defense’s hand. Across the league, there is about a .290 average BABIP. Strand Rate involves runners being left on base of their own doing. Sure, you could say that preventing those runners from scoring is “pitching to the situation” or some other BS, but really, if you were that good, you wouldn’t be letting runners on base in the first place. Generally speaking, 71% of runners or so are stranded.
The best way, then, to figure out whether or not your pitchers are bad or just unlucky is to compare their numbers to those average rates. Fielding Independent Pitching stats are derived from those statistics; or more importantly, leaving them out, leading to an approximated ERA based solely on their performance.
I’m sorry for the remedial course in advanced statistics for those of you that have been around here before. This will be the last time this year, probably. But with those statistics in mind, take a look at the two most notable additions to the Twins rotation this year, namely their BABIP/Strand Rate/FIP:
Vance Worley: .398/56%/3.20
Mike Pelfrey: ,397/50%/3.17
Both guys have been afflicted by terrible defensive luck. It seems likely that their traditional numbers will sort themselves out over time. Things will return to the mean, and Worley and Pelfrey will be solid starters. It seems bad right now, but it’s not all on them. It’s important not to give up on them.
Oh, for fun, let’s take a look Kevin Correia, who has been out of his mind so far: .283/78%/3.41
Well, at least things are going well for someone.
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