Why I Still Like Jonathan Sanchez (among other things)
by xanthan on Dec 11, 2008 8:24 AM PST
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PrintThis is a bit of cross-post from my site, but I know a large portion of people don't read it and I wanted to share this with McC anyways. If this is bad form, mods feel free to nuke this thread and/or make it a LOLCAT image depository.
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I plotted every pitcher with 30 IP by ERA vs tRA. tRA is a little like FIP but I think it's more nuanced. FIP only takes into account 4 things that can happen when a pitcher throws the ball -- HR, BB, K, HBP -- and attempts to show you how well a pitcher pitched regardless of the defense behind him. When you think about it, ERA is more of a team run prevention metric than a pitching metric because after ball is hit into play, the pitcher has nothing to do with the results. Anyways, tRA is like FIP but I said it's more nuanced, in that I mean that it accounts for way more factors -- such as assorted BIP types -- than the 4 that FIP looks it.
You can find a really easy to read primer on tRA here. But, the bottom line is that tRA (and FIP) attempt to show you how well a pitcher pitched regardless of the quality of defense and park they played in. tRA and FIP attempt to examine the things a picture can control and then figure out his value from there.
So, I plotted every Giants pitcher with 30 IP. I looked at their RA/9 vs tRA to see if I could find out who was underperforming and overperforming their stats.
Underpeformers = players had an RA/9 higher than their tRA, indicating that they had some bad fortune.
Overpeformers = players who had an RA/9 lower than their tRA, indicating that they had good fortune.
Here's the plot:
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Update: I've changed the plot over from ERA to RA/9 because it works better with tRA. RA/9 is how many runs a pitcher allowed over nine innings. This includes unearned runs as well.
I'll re-add some bullet points from the plot later.
Thanks for the help, everyone!
This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.
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4.20 ERA
I support this future!
Charlie Hayes ate my homework
by glenallen hill's waterpipe on Dec 11, 2008 8:27 AM PST reply actions
Now if we could just get someone with a .420 avg
Alright, I’d settle for .420 obp
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
Good Lord
Thinking about Zito overperforming…I don’t know what to say….I now have to clean up the barf on my keyboard.
Nah
The keyboard will just get ruined again each time Zito pitches. Buy a new one, and only use this one every 5th day.
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
Yeah, reading that Zito was fortunate to be as bad as he was is kinda depressing.
My adopted Giant: "Raptor Jesus" Guzman
what?
The post lists Zito slightly underperforming, in other words, he was slightly unlucky.
Less arm, more talk. Raisingcain is a GAMER.
Adopted Giant: Henry Sosa
Also, I forgot to say that the “30 IP” limit was determined by whatever role the pitcher pitched the most in. For example: I didn’t include Correia’s 7 innings out of the bullpen because he had 100+ as a starter. The ERA scores and tRA scores are from the role that the pitcher pitched the most in with a minimum of 30 innings required. It’s why Hennessey didn’t make the chart, he had less than 30 IP in both the reliever and starter role.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
One more thing
I’d like to give the blog ‘On Baseball and the Reds’ by Jinaz some props for giving me the idea for the plot. It’s a really good baseball blog even if you don’t like the Reds.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
Sergio Romo!
Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.
PABLO SANDOVAL AM STEAL DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
YES
Sergio Romo will gladly hand you a bench to sit on / GIANTSPACE™ / Adopted brother of the AnVil
by SoFa King Mike on Dec 11, 2008 9:15 AM PST up reply actions
this is why i like mccovey chronicles
im unwilling to do statistical research. also, the experienced posters here (while slightly elitist, overly sarcastic, and far too reliant on simpsons and/ or other pseudo-important pop references) provide excellent insight and seemingly well thought out arguments based on evidence. i appreciate the analysis much more after i go to other sites and read the hackneyed bletch that other “fans” pour out. huzzah to the leadership council here, or whoever runs this hotdog stand.
i adopt the ghost of ernest riles
by Headhunter Rollins on Dec 11, 2008 8:47 AM PST reply actions
You can’t say pseudo-important and call other people elitist, but the rest of this is correct and well-taken. Two cheers for the hotdog stand.
It’s Buzz Killington!
Sergio Romo will gladly hand you a bench to sit on / GIANTSPACE™ / Adopted brother of the AnVil
by SoFa King Mike on Dec 11, 2008 10:18 AM PST up reply actions
They're not monocles if you wear two!
If you wear two then they’re called barnacles.
Scott McClain: Great story, no place on the 2009 Giants.
by EliminateMe on Dec 12, 2008 12:02 PM PST up reply actions
Considering where you wear them, shouldn’t they really be called “eyesicles”?
My adopted Giant: "Raptor Jesus" Guzman
Moop!
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
never said i wasnt elitist…in your face space coyote
i adopt the ghost of ernest riles
by Headhunter Rollins on Dec 11, 2008 10:54 AM PST up reply actions
Or who ever runs this hot dog stand.
/ in best baseball announcers voice
When you think runs think ButtPee!
Ivan Ochoa - Heir to the legacy of Rob Andrews & Rikkert Faneyte!
Here comes Captain Obvious wearing his Atomic Wedgie!
by daveinexile on Dec 11, 2008 10:42 AM PST up reply actions
xanthan's post is the weakest link.
Say goodbye.
Kidding. But tl;dr.
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
What’s the league average difference between tRA and ERA?
Billy Sadler still sucks.
I’ve been trying to say something like this to the various people who want to trade Jonathan Sanchez for assorted one-dimensional players. He’s got the potential to be a very good starter, as in ace of a non-Lincecum having team.
I'm curious to this as well.
Is tRA and ERA = for the league? If not is it = for an average length of time? If not, some sort of adjustment needs to be made on the line. Otherwise you’re just kind of comparing stats that don’t have a correlation.
If the correlation is different, then the slope of the line would change. Perhaps bringing the overperformers closer to performing as they should, or bringing the Walker/Zito/Correia group back to performing as they should. Or the complete opposite with both groups.
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
I have no idea what the league average difference between the two. It’s going to vary because ERA varies. They are both scaled to R/9 and I’m comparing what a pitcher “did” (his ERA) to what his tRA says he should have “done”.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
At least..
Is the concept I bring up right though? How can we know if tRA says what he “should have done” if we don’t know how well it measures it? At least from the data on this team, you could say a much better line goes through at a lesser slope towards between Walker/Zito/Correia. I’m aware we can’t make a generalization about tRA vs ERA from just this data but it’s definitely not fitting the Giants players perfectly.
If say, you can find that tRA says that most players “overperform” by .25 on ERA then this needs to be accounted for. Or if most players “overperform” by 5% or something, this could be corrected in the line or also in the stat.
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
I understand what you're saying
Obviously league average tRA and ERA don’t correlate exactly, so what is the error, and how do we adjust xanthan’s graph based on that. I hope we can somehow end up with the “corrected” version of the graph, as that may indeed be more useful.
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
According to BP
It looks like league average ERA was right around 4.32 or so, assuming equal weight for each league
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=204013
That’s a pretty big skew, and if I’m not mistaken, would run the line a bit lower, toward the Lincecum Romo Cain Zito cluster, n’est-ce pas?
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
This would actually make everyone look a lot better
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
This is actually an important point in reading this graph
Going with Hairball’s numbers, the average pitcher underperformed his ERA by .45 when comparing ERA with tRA. So the line in xanthan’s graph really should be shifted to the right (with the same slope) so that it starts from the bottom just to the left of the 2.5 mark. If you look at it that way, Lincecum, Romo, Zito, and possibly Correia and Walker should be seen as “less lucky” than league average. (which amazes me!)
As Tufte Twain would say, there are lies, damned lies, and…
Here you go
Done without Photoshop, using Splashup, which is kind of an online alternative, but it also kind of sucks:
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
Wait a minute
Did I mess up? Should that have actually been parallel to the other line, and just starting in a different spot, as cakes said? Argh.
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
you will never be a computer like your dad, Xanthan
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
ha ha
Now someone please post a corrected version of the correction, because frankly, I don’t want to use splashup again. It has a tendency to freeze, and I only got the image in the end by using grab, because the darn thing wouldn’t save properly.
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
Good
For a moment there, I thought Walker was a Zen Master.
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to my spreadsheet (it’s a home) but I can adjust the line tonight.
This is actually turning into a good statistic refresher thread for me. Thanks to everyone for the input. I’m having trouble getting my head around this, though: why should we adjust for the difference between league average ERA and tRA when tRA is stripping out many of the things that ERA is using to judge a pitcher?
/deer head
Bay City Ball
because if tRA is reliably under ERA, then you then it gives you something of an idea of what “normal underperformance” vs. “true underperformance” is.
OK, I got it.
OT: Does anyone have any good refresher books on statistics? I’d like to pick one up when I do work on stuff like this.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
(ps, I ordered Baseball Hacks last week, I’m waiting for it. I think I’ve seen you refer to it before)
/deer head
Bay City Ball
Don’t you do numbers analysis or something for a living?
(Goldblum Chaos Theory joke goes here)
/deer head
Bay City Ball
yeah, but nothing complicated.
I basically run various Chi-square tests and write some excel-based programs.
I don’t usually do much in the way of baseball stats, I’m more of a consumer than a producer of those.
Baseball Hacks (along with some browbeating from WCW) inspired me to learn some R, though.
R’s got a bit of a curve, doesn’t it? How good is Baseball Hacks for an R-beginner?
/deer head
Bay City Ball
it’s best for an R beginner. I can’t seem to find a good book to take me intermediate on R, actually.
Awesome, looking forward to getting it. I’m trying to setup a PFX data base and once I do, I’d like to use R to do some of the graphing.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
xanthan..
Sorry if I’m stripping out your whole graph and interpretation. I’m just wondering how much better we can make the graph as well.
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
No, I’m happy everyone is commenting on this. Like I said, it’s good to know these things.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
Because tRA has an inherent “bias” “against” the average pitcher – it makes him seem “unluckier” than he really is. What we’re doing is normalizing our graph to reflect the average.
Would not involving league average be counter productive? I mean the whole point here is to filter out "noise" and see how much (if any) the pitcher is fulfilling his potential…no?
Ivan Ochoa - Heir to the legacy of Rob Andrews & Rikkert Faneyte!
Here comes Captain Obvious wearing his Atomic Wedgie!
by daveinexile on Dec 11, 2008 10:49 AM PST up reply actions
Better explanation
If there is an expected difference between tRA and ERA than someone who falls into that expected difference can not reasonably be expected to “regress” in any sense.
For example
Cain had a ~3.7 ERA. He also had a 7.7 K/9. Did Cain “overperform” his K/9 by 4 points? Of course not, that’s silly. The comparison between ERA and K/9 is meaningless unless you actually show the expected correlation between the two stats. In his graph, xanthan assumed that tRA and ERA are supposed to be equal – so if your ERA was lower than your tRA, you must have been lucky. That’s simply not true, since the league average tRA is higher than the league average ERA – a player is expected to have an ERA lower than his tRA. That’s why we look like the luckiest team on earth from the graph.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
Well, put. I didn’t think of the league averages when I was throwing together the data and it doesn’t make sense from them to have a 1:1 correlation.
I’ll make the adjustments later when I get home.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
Thanks all 3 of you for clearing that point up for me.
Ivan Ochoa - Heir to the legacy of Rob Andrews & Rikkert Faneyte!
Here comes Captain Obvious wearing his Atomic Wedgie!
by daveinexile on Dec 12, 2008 11:52 AM PST up reply actions
Thanks, Graham. I’m a dope.
I’ll re-run this with RA’s and see what I come up with. I’m sure it will match up better. Love tRA, btw.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
So..
You’re saying that if everything continues the same, our good pitching staff will be worse next year?
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
maybe, but alot of those guys
are pretty young and stand to improve a bit. Also, the worst performer there is Corriea so just knocking him off and replacing him with someone better helps. Also, Affeldt projects to be our best reliever and he’s not on here.
Also, for the resident STATS computer:
COMPUTER – is there a negative squew for tRA-ERA for relievers in general? Since they don’t get dinged in ERA for inherited runners?
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
yes but
His comment wasn’t there when I started and I am specifically interested in this number for starters vs. relievers.
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
Isn't it the opposite?
The graph’s line only leaves out Cain as the overperformer and — oh wait, I’m seeing the updated graph. nevermind. I’m at GMT +8.
I appreciate the nuanced statistical analysis. Thanks for doing the work. But I take issue with the conclusion – and to some extent, the premise.
You titled the post “Why I Still Like SAnchez,” as if there was a contingent of people who don’t still like him. I’m not sure who’s in that contingent, but it’s probably quite small.
Few would argue that he has upside and value. But you conclude that because of this, he shouldn’t be traded. Unfortunately, most GMs want good players if they’re to give up good players. Holding out for a fleecing (ie, a “crazy good offer”) is great if you don’t really need to make trades. But the Giants need good young bats. If they can acquire the right one by trading Jonathan Sanchez, they should do it.
Disfrute Los Gigantes every day at www.leftymalo.com
go sharks
Sergio Romo will gladly hand you a bench to sit on / GIANTSPACE™ / Adopted brother of the AnVil
by SoFa King Mike on Dec 11, 2008 9:51 AM PST up reply actions
But you conclude that because of this, he shouldn’t be traded.
You’re reading too much into “crazy good”.
The gist of it is that I don’t want to trade Sanchez for Cantu/EE type players. And because that’s all I’ve heard Sanchez associated with lately. We need bats, yeah, but I think our rotation depth is constantly overstated and if we swap out Sanchez — who we might be undervaluing — for Cantu types, we are the worse for it.
I’m not saying to not trade him, Lefty, but I am saying that I think he’s undervalued and could surprise people next year. I think he could be undervalued in the market right now because of his ERA. I just don’t see the chances that someone will give up more than Jorge Cantu for him.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
No problem, saying we should get something “crazy good” is an overstatement.
Sanchez for Pujols, Wright, and A-Rod!
/deer head
Bay City Ball
This proves to optimistic people...
Just how lucky we were to win 72 games last year. Not only did our pythagereon have us at 68 wins, but apparently the majority of our pitchers OVERperformed above their peripherals.
Not necessarily
A line that take into account league average ERA vs. league average tRA would actually make us look a lot better, since the average tRA was 4.77, and the average ERA was 4.32, representing a difference of about 10%.
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
good point
Although I still think a lot of our pitchers, and hitters, were quite lucky to do as well as they did
by NeifiChicken on Dec 11, 2008 9:49 AM PST up reply actions
good point
Although STATS>NeifiChicken’s think
¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!
which stats say the Giants were unlucky last year?
by NeifiChicken on Dec 11, 2008 10:36 AM PST up reply actions
actually there are other factors to:
RS 640
RA 759
EQRS 655 (from BP “Equivalent Runs”)
EQRA 751
The difference here represents runs that should have scored given the component stats – so taking out luck from sequencing (example single-single-HR-k-k-k vs. HR-single-single-k-k-k). Both differences are in our favor (well 23 runs worth anyway).
If you add in opponent difficult adjustments you get an adjusted record of 70.1 – 91.9, only 2 games lucky instead of 4.
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
good points again, but still 2 wins better than we should have been
by NeifiChicken on Dec 11, 2008 10:37 AM PST up reply actions
Our Pythagenpat says we shoulda won 70.
Adopted Giant: Aaron King
Wearing the crown by 2011. Or at least the LOOGY hat
Interesting stuff computerbot
I was wondering if you could include FIP/xFIP onto your chart also….
Adopted Giant: Aaron King
Wearing the crown by 2011. Or at least the LOOGY hat
xFIP is going to hate on the Giants pitchers, because the number of HRs/Flyball is less at AT&T then league average, and it assumes that every pitcher *should give up an average number of HRs per flyball.
xFIP is fine when looking at a whole league (when all the park effects cancel out) or when you play in a HR-neutral park but I feel like it’s misleading when looking at just Giants or, say, just Reds pitchers.
I’m not sure if it normalizes HR’s or not, I didn’t think it did. But it very well could.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
tRA doesn't
tRA* does.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
What does AT&T have to do with it?
xFIP is pretty much completely park neutral. If AT&T causes pitchers to have a lower HR/FB, then I don’t see why we should give them credit for it.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
That would be true if they are changing teams, but if they are playing in the same park next year, then xFIP will encourage you to expect worse ERAs than you saw last year.
But that’s the whole point of park adjusted numbers – it’s a tool for comparing players who played in different parks. Two pitchers had a 4.00 ERA – one in Coors Fields and one in Petco. Why should we care where they’re going to pitch next year? The guy who did it in Coors is the better one, and is more likely to be good wherever he goes.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
I’m always a little uneasy about hr/fb regressions because the nature of the park might cause a pitcher to change his approach. If we were in Philadephia, Matt Cain would be trying to figure out how to cut down on his home runs, but he’s taking the right approach for this park.
The effect is probably small, though.
AT&T has a positive park factor for GB’s – pitchers give up fewer FB’s in AT&T than they usually do, so, while your idea makes sense, I’m not sure that it’s what really happens. And I’m not really sure that Cain would even be able to make those adjustments if he needed to. But I also don’t like those regressions – first of all, you should regress towards the mean, not to the mean. Second of all, you should regress towards the (park-adjusted) career average, not the league average. xFIP also slightly underrates FB pitchers because it “punishes” them for being more likely to give up HR’s, while ignoring that they’re also more likely to have a lower BABIP.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
We’re not really comparing guys across parks though. Xanthan is asking whether we can expect to see similar performances next year from guys who will be in the same park. From each stat according to it’s ability to each question according to it’s need.
If, say, the Giants were thinking about acquiring Edison Volquez next year, I would be very interested to see what his xFIP is.
The point Evan brings up is an interesting one, though I don’t pretend to know the answer. I do know that Rags encouraged the pitchers to work up in the zone when they pitched at home last year.
You’re right. In fact, we’re pretty much agreeing. I just have a problem with saying that park-adjusted stats “hate” Giants pitchers. Our pitchers are likely to overperform those stats not because of a problem in the stats, but because of our park. In other words, tRA doesn’t hate our pitchers too much – it’s the regular stats that love them too much.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
Samuelson channels Lenin. I think my head just exploded.
Sergio Romo: striking out professional hitters since 2005.
Marx, of course
My bad. Still, juxtaposition at it’s finest.
Sergio Romo: striking out professional hitters since 2005.
Great stuff, Xanthan
Interesting statistics, eye-opening graph, and all of it clearly and simply explained.
It’s kind of stating the obvious but presumably, even a nuanced stat like tRA has its limitations. Although you remove the defense behind a pitcher and some park factors as a variable, how do you take into account the following:
- the umpire behind the plate — wide or narrow, tall or short strike zone?
- the time of year —Sanchez is a great example here, since arm fatigue probably played a huge role in his ERA exploding during the second half of the season
- weather conditions — as we saw in the World Series, bandboxes like Citizens Bank Park play TOTALLY differently depending on the temperature and the wind
I bring up these example not to downplay the importance of nuanced stats, but to point out the great thing about baseball, that the incredible number of x-factors in any given game, on any given day, make it hard to predict what’s going to happen from one start to the next, and from one season to the next.
My plans for 2009: getting married and attending Tim Lincecum Bobblehead Day.
We don't
We’re also not even allowed to look at #1.
by Graham MacAree on Dec 12, 2008 7:57 AM PST up reply actions
I second the emotion
I really liked this Xanthan post. In fact, he’s pretty darn good as an analyst.
LOLCAT image depository, you say?
I don’t need your fancy mathematics.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness. - Emo Philips
Neglectful father of David Quinowski
o hai windoz dum-ass, can i has macbooks for kristmuss?
Disfrute Los Gigantes every day at www.leftymalo.com
i haz caught a mouse?
BB should send scouts to watch cricket players.
by alea iacta est on Dec 11, 2008 9:14 PM PST up reply actions
Bah
my PIE+ chart didn’t show! It took me all of 2 minutes to make!
This is what I get for posting at work. =(
by Lars The Wanderer on Dec 11, 2008 5:21 PM PST up reply actions
According to this FanShot, which links to this article, Sanchez is staying.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness. - Emo Philips
Neglectful father of David Quinowski
I'm not very good with numbers
thanks for making it into a visual form. Good work computer. Now balance my checkbook.
Giants! Giants! HELP US GOD!
What.?
Lincecum does not suck!
The Basil Fawlty Moderating Strategy:
"We could run a nice blog here if we didn't have all these members getting in the way."
damn
that’s harsh.
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
but
funny and mean is still funny!
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
It would only be harsh if Xanthan looked like that. It would be really rude if I posted that picture in response to a howtheyscored comment, but Xanthan’s in the clear.
by Grant Brisbee on Dec 12, 2008 10:22 AM PST up reply actions
Hey!
How did you get my, er, that picture?
Adoptive parental unit of Kevin " 2007's Most Spectacular Pitcher" Pucetas.
"I'm a Giant now... I like watching the ball get up there" - Wendell Fairley
"I'm really proud to be on this team." - Nate Schierholtz
"Woo hoo" - Tim "The Kid" Lincecum
by obsessivegiantscompulsive on Dec 12, 2008 10:25 PM PST up reply actions
Too nerdy; didn’t read
(Kidding, of course….)
by Grant Brisbee on Dec 11, 2008 7:36 PM PST up reply actions
XANTHAN CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT JONATHON SANCHEZ!
by Lars The Wanderer on Dec 12, 2008 8:49 AM PST up reply actions
Nice Work
I Don't Tolerate Intolerance!
by Giant among Angels on Dec 11, 2008 7:57 PM PST reply actions
This should be more approrpriate
RA/9 compared to tRA
Click to enlarge
I’m away from my home PC, so I hacked this together.
League RA/9 = 4.66
League tRA = 4.62
So, it’s going to be a better match than ERA. Both of these LA’s are for the National League. I adjusted my line for the slight difference between the league average RA/9 and the league average tRA. What do you guys think? Am I on the right track?
Input, as always, is welcome.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
Looking at the graph, I’m not sure I have my line setup right. I won’t have access to my spreadsheet until after work, but I’ll look into it. I may have a couple of errors.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
Yup
This graph is definitely wrong. According to it, a 6.5 tRA is the equivalent of a 7.5 RA/9 – In reality, it’s the equivalent of a 6.55 RA/9. The reason is that the spaces between each tRA value are twice as big as the spaces between each RA/9 value. Fix that, and this should be OK.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
Yeah, I just noticed the scale on the Y-axis was messed up. I’ve posted the new graph in the original post and I think it looks correct. I’d love to get opinions on it though, to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
/deer head
Bay City Ball
So what does this say about Wilson?
The knock on him has been that his shiny save numbers didn’t really reflect how shaky his pitching was last year. But if he actually underperformed we should expect more shiny and less shaky, right?
Or in other words, is Wilson better than we thought he was when we thought he was worse than we thought he was?
Scott McClain: Great story, no place on the 2009 Giants.
Wilson?
Brian Wilson has been and continues to be about the hardest player I’ve ever seen to evaluate. His career in both the majors and minors has seemed to be a continuing contradiction.
As far as how good he was last season, many have shown that like most closers, he pitched poorly in non-save situations. He also posted a low-two’s ERA when pitching at least every third day and had an ERA of something around ten when pitching with three or more days of rest.
If I were the Giants, I would pitch Brian at least every third day (without overworking him) and see how that works out.
You guys can speak for yourself
I’ve been smart for a long time.
I know, I’m a dick.
..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.
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