Let’s Play a Game, Starring 3 AL Starting Pitchers
Who doesn’t like playing games? The most common baseball article game I have seen is the Player A and Player B game. And guess what…that is exactly what I am going to play today, with the addition of Player C, who will also be joining the party. So put on your thinking caps, this one is going to be an exciting one, and it stars three American League starters named A, B and C!
You only have the following stats for three pitchers. Which one is better?
Pitcher A: 7.8 K/9 | 2.6 BB/9 | 40% GB%
Pitcher B: 7.9 K/9 | 2.3 BB/9 | 39% GB%
Pitcher C: 7.6 K/9 | 2.0 BB/9 | 34% GB%
These three pitchers seem rather similar in terms of overall skill. Would anyone disagree? Strikeout rates are very close, they all have good control and they induce ground balls at a below league average level.
I considered including xFIP into the above table, but decided against it. Better to show just the skills. If you must know though, the xFIPs of these three pitchers ranged between 3.57 and 3.75. This confirms that these three pitchers are indeed similar skill-wise.
So really, whoever you pick as the best could be correct as they are very close. Unfortunately, ERA tells us a different story. Two of these pitchers have sub-3.00 ERAs, while the third has an ERA above 4.00. How is this possible? The short answer is that in a single season, ERA does a terrible (okay, maybe an exaggeration) job of telling us whose process was best. Notice I said process and not results, because a pitcher’s results factor in too many other variables outside his control.
I am getting dangerously close to letting this become another article ranting about ERA and trumpeting xFIP, SIERA, etc, which I did not intend. But I do want to stress how important it is for fantasy owners to try their darnedest to give as little weight as they can to the number the ERA roulette wheel ends up landing on. It just does not really matter much when trying to project next year’s ERA.
Oh, you want the names of Pitchers A, B and C, right? Well, if you haven’t figured it out by now.
Pitcher A = Max Scherzer
Pitcher B = Josh Beckett
Pitcher C = Jered Weaver
Weaver is almost guaranteed to be overvalued next season, while Beckett has a solid chance, and Scherzer will likely be undervalued.
Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Weaver is averaging 7.2 INN/GS, Beckett 6.5, and Scherzer a mere 6. I will grant that team defense, park effects, and luck dragons have a role in every start … but I think that there’s an unstated skill here. Something along the lines of pitch efficiency. Weaver’s got it and Scherzer doesn’t. Mad Max has too many games where his peripherals look fine but his pitch count gets way too high way too fast, and it’s holding him back.
Or, Scherzer appears less efficient because more batted balls are falling in for hits, causing him to face more batters in higher leverage situation, leading to higher pitch counts and fewer innings pitched per game.
I looked into the effects of team defense on a player’e ERA and WHIP a while back. It is measurable, but not enough to make for the deference’s seen.
http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/effects-of-defense-on-era-and-whip/
Here are the adjustments for each of these 3 pitchers:
Team UZR/150 WHIP adjustment ERA adjustment
Tigers -3 -0.01176 -0.081
Red Sox 8.2 0.032144 0.2214
Angels 8.6 0.033712 0.2322
Player WHIP aWHIP ERA aERA
Scherzer 1.33 1.32 4.21 4.14
Beckett 0.97 1.00 2.44 2.66
Weaver 1.01 1.04 2.03 2.26
I wouldn’t think it was team defense causing the bulk of the difference in ERA – I assume it is primarily luck.
If you watch his starts, that is not at all how it appears. It appears that he’s perennially in a 2-2 or 3-2 count, often with a foul or three thrown in.