618 replies to this topic

[Mackus]

The 6 innings part isn't marginal anymore.

[You Play to Win the Game]

You give your team a chance to win if you only allow 3 through 6.

[jamesdean]

My cousin was talking about the paradox of starting pitchers today being so dominant with stuff and strikeouts and yet, a lot of them have lousy ERA's.  I told him it's because they just don't throw enough innings.  They can be lights out for a few starts and then get hammered in the 4th start and their ERA jumps accordingly.  If you're a pitcher in Jim Palmer's era, and you've thrown 200 innings or more going into September, a bad start isn't going to affect your ERA much. 

[You Play to Win the Game]

I think the pitching environment this year has been turned upside down due to the rule changes mostly. The shift ban is putting more runners on. The bigger bases and “disengagement” rules are prompting much more base stealing activity. The clock is making a lot of them uncomfortable when the first 2 above happen.

Scott White, who is one of my favorite fantasy analysts recently introduced the “glob theory” for this season. Where you do have a small handful of reliable top end pitchers, but most of the rest of good pitchers are now part of a big glob, where it’s getting more challenging to distinguish between them from a pure results standpoint.

I’d have to dig deeper but I think in years past there’s been more distinguishable 1 vs. 2 vs. 3 starters, and this year there’s a few 1’s, and again the rest are just sort of part of this big glob. Then you get to the back end guys which are on the wrong side of the glob, like Kremer.

Perhaps another reason why I shouldn’t have been so harsh on Flaherty the other day.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

The 6 innings part isn't marginal anymore.

Exactly. 6 innings and 3 ER is always gonna keep your team in the game and it will never hurt a pen. Im a fan of the quality start in general. Hypothetically, if you had a pitcher that yes, has a 4.50 ERA, but every single one was exactly 6 innings and 3 runs Id sign that guy every single year. Id sign 3 of them every year.

[dude]

The idea I have thrown out before includes consideration of quality between what we know as a QS (6/3) today and a shutout (9/0).

 

We could have QS3 (6/3), QS2 (7/2), QS1 (8/1) and shutout.  While a still sort of endorse that, the reality is that there probably isn't enough quantity in the QS2 and QS1 categories to waste the space in a graphic.  

 

Today's QS (and the starts are listed beside it in the data, but I agree with being able to sort on QS%) are probably enough to describe who is getting it done.  It's not predicative (which is what everyone wants to pretend they can figure out), but does speak to quality.

 

I like the other discussion on cutting off the ends.  I think I've trademarked 1SP (one-sigma performance), but that's more conceptual in terms of expectations versus performance.

 

As Mackus has said (I do the same thing), look at what the average results are because (as someone else said) one bad start is still only one loss.  Flaherty is a great example this year when he got pounded in one start (1+IP and 10 ER), it's just going to skew your actual performance perspective.  One of the reasons we view RPs as so volatile.  A handful of bad outing crush any perspective of quality.

 

3-sigma (99) and 2-sigma (95) seems like all the data...1-sigma is 68% so maybe that's right, but I feel like I'd want something like 80% of the data (10% off each end)...so in 30 starts you lose top and bottom 3. In 20 starts top and bottom 2 and 1 starts top and bottom start.

 

Someone code that thing up.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Would be interesting to see the actual results between these pitchers.

 

Pitcher A pitches 6 innings and allows 3 runs every time out.  So he has an era of 4.5

 

Pitcher B pitches an array of starts:

1. three starts he goes 7 innings and allows 2 runs.

3. three starts he goes 6 innings and allows 3 runs.

4. three starts he goes 5 innings and allows 4 runs.

 

Now he has the same era of 4.5. But which pitcher produces more wins?

[BobPhelan]

Feel like a quality start might be 5 innings with two runs or less soon enough.

I do like the idea of ERA-1 or something. Maybe take off one bad start out of every 10.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

I havent done any research on this. Just going off feel but IMO Kyle Gibson has given us a good number of "quality" starts as we are trying to define here. Love how he competes and grinds.

[bmore_ken]

My cousin was talking about the paradox of starting pitchers today being so dominant with stuff and strikeouts and yet, a lot of them have lousy ERA's.  I told him it's because they just don't throw enough innings.  They can be lights out for a few starts and then get hammered in the 4th start and their ERA jumps accordingly.  If you're a pitcher in Jim Palmer's era, and you've thrown 200 innings or more going into September, a bad start isn't going to affect your ERA much. 

You and I have already had that discussion about the state of starting pitching in today's MLB lol

[BobPhelan]

Teach those clouds who’s boss!

[dude]

Would be interesting to see the actual results between these pitchers.

 

Luke Weaver (CIN) was interesting in this way.  His ERA earlier was like 7.88....but the Reds were 9-1 in his starts.  His ERA has gone down some (not last night) but they've lost more of his starts...

 

...because the starter doesn't specifically control the Win.  They create opportunity to win and Baseball is a team game that generates the Win (or not)

 

If we somehow knew what was going to happen, always go with the result that generates the Win.

....but we don't know that, so we're left doing things that create the best opportunity possible.

[BobPhelan]

Almost like pitcher wins are a meaningless stat.

[dude]

Almost like pitcher wins are a meaningless stat.

 

I'd suggest there's more balance in the argument than the camps on either end acknowledge.

[hallas]

Would be interesting to see the actual results between these pitchers.

 

Pitcher A pitches 6 innings and allows 3 runs every time out.  So he has an era of 4.5

 

Pitcher B pitches an array of starts:

1. three starts he goes 7 innings and allows 2 runs.

3. three starts he goes 6 innings and allows 3 runs.

4. three starts he goes 5 innings and allows 4 runs.

 

Now he has the same era of 4.5. But which pitcher produces more wins?

 

 

There's some data that suggests that you prefer more volatiity with run prevention and less with run production.  The theory goes that your marginal win rate doesn't go up very much when you score more than 5 runs, but when you allow less than 3 your chances to win go up rapidly, and when you allow 0 your chance to win is basically 100%.

[CantonJester]

Wins are a strong indicator of how well a pitcher pitches with a lead. 

[ivanbalt]

Almost like pitcher wins are a meaningless stat.

Jordan Lyles (2-12) agrees.  Now he justs need to figure out how the 6.15 ERA is also an overrated stat.

[jamesdean]

You and I have already had that discussion about the state of starting pitching in today's MLB lol

Yep and we're preaching to the choir! (LOL)

[BSLRoseKatz]

The 6 innings part isn't marginal anymore.

 

Yeah the league average start is 5.2 innings, if you go 6 every time you're providing above-average length in your outings