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