Poll v 2014: Which Group of Pitchers Performs Better?
Last year, I polled you wonderful readers asking which group of pitchers you expected to perform better during the post-All Star Break period. The two groups were composed of the pitchers whose ERAs were most disparate from their respective SIERA marks. While a one year sample wasn’t going to prove anything, I was curious what you all thought and what would actually happen. Do I put too much faith in SIERA? If the SIERA beaters from the first half still significantly outperformed the underperformers, then perhaps I either have to rethink the way I evaluate pitchers or those specific pitchers were doing something not being captured by the metric.
You can view the full results of last year’s experiment here, but the short version is this: the first half SIERA outperformers posted a nearly identical ERA as SIERA in the second half, while the underperformers underperformed again, but not nearly as dramatically as they had in the first half. So for the most part, these pitchers had no magical powers that led to SIERA under or overperformance.
Let’s take a look at this year’s groups and get voting. Note that I am using an 80 IP minimum to qualify for the list. I will be closing the polls right before the first pitch when games resume on Friday. At the end of the season, I will revisit this post and publish the results of the voting, as well as the performances of the pitcher groups. For the record, I vote for the third option. I think it will be close between the two groups, with Group A continuing to outperform their SIERA, but only marginally this time, while Group B underperforms marginally.
Group A – The SIERA Outperformers
| Name | IP | K% | BB% | BABIP | LOB% | HR/FB | ERA | SIERA | ERA-SIERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Young | 109.1 | 13.8% | 8.6% | 0.209 | 82.7% | 8.1% | 3.21 | 5.57 | -2.36 |
| Mark Buehrle | 126.1 | 13.9% | 6.1% | 0.293 | 81.1% | 6.0% | 2.64 | 4.51 | -1.87 |
| Adam Wainwright | 138 | 21.7% | 5.1% | 0.250 | 82.0% | 3.3% | 1.83 | 3.36 | -1.53 |
| Alfredo Simon | 116.2 | 16.0% | 6.0% | 0.232 | 85.1% | 13.1% | 2.70 | 4.02 | -1.32 |
| Josh Beckett | 103.2 | 23.1% | 7.8% | 0.235 | 86.0% | 11.9% | 2.26 | 3.55 | -1.29 |
| Henderson Alvarez | 120 | 14.7% | 4.4% | 0.312 | 77.3% | 7.6% | 2.63 | 3.69 | -1.06 |
| Jon Niese | 103.1 | 17.3% | 6.5% | 0.283 | 77.3% | 8.2% | 2.96 | 3.96 | -1.00 |
| Johnny Cueto | 143.2 | 25.1% | 6.2% | 0.221 | 79.7% | 10.1% | 2.13 | 3.08 | -0.95 |
| Anibal Sanchez | 94.2 | 18.4% | 6.6% | 0.251 | 66.1% | 3.0% | 3.04 | 3.98 | -0.94 |
| Tommy Milone | 96.1 | 15.1% | 6.4% | 0.262 | 75.8% | 9.3% | 3.55 | 4.48 | -0.93 |
| Average | 115.2 | 18.0% | 6.3% | 0.255 | 79.6% | 8.0% | 2.64 | 3.98 | -1.34 |
Group B – The SIERA Underperformers
| Name | IP | K% | BB% | BABIP | LOB% | HR/FB | ERA | SIERA | ERA-SIERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colby Lewis | 84 | 18.4% | 6.6% | 0.410 | 65.0% | 8.9% | 6.54 | 4.15 | 2.39 |
| Brandon McCarthy | 116.1 | 19.4% | 4.2% | 0.346 | 66.2% | 18.8% | 4.80 | 3.06 | 1.74 |
| Ricky Nolasco | 103.2 | 15.7% | 6.1% | 0.362 | 68.7% | 12.2% | 5.90 | 4.29 | 1.61 |
| Edwin Jackson | 105.1 | 20.8% | 10.5% | 0.344 | 64.4% | 11.7% | 5.64 | 4.18 | 1.46 |
| Justin Masterson | 98 | 20.6% | 12.4% | 0.350 | 65.0% | 10.2% | 5.51 | 4.08 | 1.43 |
| Mike Minor | 83.1 | 21.4% | 6.5% | 0.343 | 76.1% | 14.9% | 4.86 | 3.67 | 1.19 |
| Marco Estrada | 107 | 20.5% | 7.8% | 0.253 | 77.8% | 17.3% | 4.96 | 4.08 | 0.88 |
| Stephen Strasburg | 125 | 28.5% | 5.0% | 0.347 | 70.6% | 12.1% | 3.46 | 2.59 | 0.87 |
| Wade Miley | 127 | 22.4% | 7.2% | 0.289 | 71.0% | 15.7% | 4.18 | 3.45 | 0.73 |
| Phil Hughes | 121.2 | 21.6% | 2.2% | 0.341 | 69.4% | 6.0% | 3.92 | 3.25 | 0.67 |
| Average | 107.1 | 21.1% | 6.8% | 0.336 | 69.4% | 12.8% | 4.88 | 3.63 | 1.25 |
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.
No poll link?