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Post by bbg95 on Aug 16, 2022 13:57:04 GMT -5
Ah, I see. I'm 100% a BRef person, especially after I discovered the nonsensical way that FanGraphs does pitcher WAR. Though that's just for looking up stats. I still think FanGraphs does a lot of great work in their columns and other analysis. I just never really go to them when I'm looking up stats. As for Murphy, this is before my time, but my understanding is that injuries caused him to be less effective as a player, not that they prevented him from playing altogether. And that makes sense--it would be a bit unusual for a healthy person to be a great player from ages 24-31 but suddenly not be very good by the age of 33. I am trying to remember the methodology differences between bWAR and fWAR. I am thinking there were 2 main differences. 1) fWAR uses FIP while bWAR uses ERA. I think this is a minor difference - I tend to like FIP better than ERA. Over the course of a career, there is usually very little difference between the two. 2) fWAR factors in pitch framing in defense for catchers, bWAR doesn't. This is why Salvador Perez has only 15.3 fWAR, but 30.8 bWAR. This is a major difference. Or Jonathan Lucroy has 17.7 bWAR and 37.0 fWAR. Those two players are among the extremes in pitch framing (Perez one of the worst in baseball history, Lucroy one of the best). I am just annoyed with the idea that pitch framing is a factor in baseball today - we should already be at robo balls/strikes. IDK if fangraphs also factors in pitch framing for pitchers WAR? So it's been a long time, and I haven't followed any recent changes in fWAR for pitchers. But as I recall, fWAR only considers (or considered at the time) walks, strikeouts and home runs. The reason this initially came up is that someone asked Joe Posnanski on Twitter what pitcher he would take to pitch one must-win game, and he went with Pedro Martinez in 1999. It was suggested that 2000 Pedro was actually the superior pitcher (he was crazy good both years, but his OPS+ of 291 in 2000 was clearly superior to his OPS+ of 243 in 1999), and he wrote a column about the differences between bWAR and fWAR for pitchers. There was a lot of great discussion in the comments of the original article, but it apparently was moved to another domain, and the comments appear to have been a casualty of that move. I just remember thinking that it was insane that fWAR doesn't consider runs in its assessment of pitchers and have discounted it ever since. I also find the belief that pitchers don't have any control over the type of contact (except home runs) that they give up to be highly dubious.
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 16, 2022 14:07:39 GMT -5
I am trying to remember the methodology differences between bWAR and fWAR. I am thinking there were 2 main differences. 1) fWAR uses FIP while bWAR uses ERA. I think this is a minor difference - I tend to like FIP better than ERA. Over the course of a career, there is usually very little difference between the two. 2) fWAR factors in pitch framing in defense for catchers, bWAR doesn't. This is why Salvador Perez has only 15.3 fWAR, but 30.8 bWAR. This is a major difference. Or Jonathan Lucroy has 17.7 bWAR and 37.0 fWAR. Those two players are among the extremes in pitch framing (Perez one of the worst in baseball history, Lucroy one of the best). I am just annoyed with the idea that pitch framing is a factor in baseball today - we should already be at robo balls/strikes. IDK if fangraphs also factors in pitch framing for pitchers WAR? So it's been a long time, and I haven't followed any recent changes in fWAR for pitchers. But as I recall, fWAR only considers (or considered at the time) walks, strikeouts and home runs. The reason this initially came up is that someone asked Joe Posnanski on Twitter what pitcher he would take to pitch one must-win game, and he went with Pedro Martinez in 1999. I suggested that 2000 Pedro was actually the superior pitcher (he was crazy good both years, but his OPS+ of 291 in 2000 was clearly superior to his OPS+ of 243 in 1999), and he wrote a column about the differences between bWAR and fWAR for pitchers. There was a lot of great discussion in the comments of the original article, but it apparently was moved to another domain, and the comments appear to have been a casualty of that move. I just remember thinking that it was insane that fWAR doesn't consider runs in its assessment of pitchers and have discounted it ever since. I also find the belief that pitchers don't have any control over the type of contact (except home runs) that they give up to be highly dubious. I find it odd that under the "three true outcomes" philosophy, pitchers are blamed for giving up home runs, but not for hits, doubles, triples, sac bunts, sac flies, RBI ground-outs etc. etc. I mean, if they can control the at-bat enough that home runs are their fault, why can't they control the at-bat enough that a sacrifice fly is their fault? It's the same thing except the HR just got a little bit better contact.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 16, 2022 14:17:15 GMT -5
So it's been a long time, and I haven't followed any recent changes in fWAR for pitchers. But as I recall, fWAR only considers (or considered at the time) walks, strikeouts and home runs. The reason this initially came up is that someone asked Joe Posnanski on Twitter what pitcher he would take to pitch one must-win game, and he went with Pedro Martinez in 1999. I suggested that 2000 Pedro was actually the superior pitcher (he was crazy good both years, but his OPS+ of 291 in 2000 was clearly superior to his OPS+ of 243 in 1999), and he wrote a column about the differences between bWAR and fWAR for pitchers. There was a lot of great discussion in the comments of the original article, but it apparently was moved to another domain, and the comments appear to have been a casualty of that move. I just remember thinking that it was insane that fWAR doesn't consider runs in its assessment of pitchers and have discounted it ever since. I also find the belief that pitchers don't have any control over the type of contact (except home runs) that they give up to be highly dubious. I find it odd that under the "three true outcomes" philosophy, pitchers are blamed for giving up home runs, but not for hits, doubles, triples, sac bunts, sac flies, RBI ground-outs etc. etc. I mean, if they can control the at-bat enough that home runs are their fault, why can't they control the at-bat enough that a sacrifice fly is their fault? It's the same thing except the HR just got a little bit better contact. 100% agree. Hitters have a very high batting average on line drives, for example. And there are plenty of pitchers who have made careers out of inducing weak contact (softly hit ground balls, pop ups, etc.) But fWAR doesn't care about that, which is why I have a hard time taking it seriously.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 16, 2022 14:45:05 GMT -5
I find it odd that under the "three true outcomes" philosophy, pitchers are blamed for giving up home runs, but not for hits, doubles, triples, sac bunts, sac flies, RBI ground-outs etc. etc. I mean, if they can control the at-bat enough that home runs are their fault, why can't they control the at-bat enough that a sacrifice fly is their fault? It's the same thing except the HR just got a little bit better contact. 100% agree. Hitters have a very high batting average on line drives, for example. And there are plenty of pitchers who have made careers out of inducing weak contact (softly hit ground balls, pop ups, etc.) But fWAR doesn't care about that, which is why I have a hard time taking it seriously. I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. However, HR does have a correlation between fly balls and ground balls. For the most part - pitchers do not have much control over singles, doubles, triples - etc... A fly ball pitcher will generally give up more HR's than a GB pitcher. This has been show time and time again - the results of batted balls in play against Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson will be very similar to Oil Can Boyd and Al Nipper. FIP is designed to look only at what a pitcher can control. And then, XFIP was added where it is assumed that a pitcher has no control over a HR. FIP is overwhelmingly more predictive of a pitchers future than ERA. Thus - fangraphs chooses to only consider statistics that are under their control and uses FIP 1999 Pedro Martinez - 2.07 ERA and 1.39 FIP 2000 Pedro Martinez - 1.74 ERA and 2.17 FIP Career Pedro Martinez - 2.93 ERA and 2.91 FIP What we find - FIP strips out much of the luck involved with ERA that doesn't have time to even out over a short period of time like an individual season. Pedro was most likely a better pitcher in 1999 than he was in 2000 even though his ERA+ was better in 2000. He struck out substantially more batters in 1999. There were two 'luck' factors that impacted his ERA in 1999: 1) His BABIP in 1999 was .323 (the highest in his career) while just .236 (his best, luckiest of his career) in 2000. Just to give a frame of reference for how this is mostly luck - Pedro Martinez had a career .279 BABIP while Oil Can Boyd had a .281 BABIP. We see this all the time - great pitchers have a similar BABIP as an average pitcher. 2) LBO% - 77.6% of the baserunners Martinez had on base when he left in the middle of an inning didn't score with the following relief pitchers. In 2000, it was 86.6% - Again, this was the highest % in his career. The relief pitchers that came in were much better at shutting down the inherited runners - something that Martinez has almost no control over. I am not saying that we should only look at FIP and never consider ERA, but I do believe if we are to use one when evaluating a season - FIP is the better metric and the one that Fangraphs uses.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 16, 2022 14:48:08 GMT -5
100% agree. Hitters have a very high batting average on line drives, for example. And there are plenty of pitchers who have made careers out of inducing weak contact (softly hit ground balls, pop ups, etc.) But fWAR doesn't care about that, which is why I have a hard time taking it seriously. I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. However, HR does have a correlation between fly balls and ground balls. For the most part - pitchers do not have much control over singles, doubles, triples - etc... A fly ball pitcher will generally give up more HR's than a GB pitcher. This has been show time and time again - the results of batted balls in play against Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson will be very similar to Oil Can Boyd and Al Nipper. FIP is designed to look only at what a pitcher can control. And then, XFIP was added where it is assumed that a pitcher has no control over a HR. FIP is overwhelmingly more predictive of a pitchers future than ERA. Thus - fangraphs chooses to only consider statistics that are under their control and uses FIP 1999 Pedro Martinez - 2.07 ERA and 1.39 FIP 2000 Pedro Martinez - 1.74 ERA and 2.17 FIP Career Pedro Martinez - 2.93 ERA and 2.91 FIP What we find - FIP strips out much of the luck involved with ERA that doesn't have time to even out over a short period of time like an individual season. Pedro was most likely a better pitcher in 1999 than he was in 2000 even though his ERA+ was better in 2000. He struck out substantially more batters in 1999. There were two 'luck' factors that impacted his ERA in 1999: 1) His BABIP in 1999 was .323 (the highest in his career) while just .236 (his best, luckiest of his career) in 2000. Just to give a frame of reference for how this is mostly luck - Pedro Martinez had a career .279 BABIP while Oil Can Boyd had a .281 BABIP. We see this all the time - great pitchers have a similar BABIP as an average pitcher. 2) LBO% - 77.6% of the baserunners Martinez had on base when he left in the middle of an inning didn't score with the following relief pitchers. In 2000, it was 86.6% - Again, this was the highest % in his career. The relief pitchers that came in were much better at shutting down the inherited runners - something that Martinez has almost no control over. I am not saying that we should only look at FIP and never consider ERA, but I do believe if we are to use one when evaluating a season - FIP is the better metric and the one that Fangraphs uses. I understand the arguments that you're making, but because I have rejected the way that FanGraphs calculates WAR for pitchers (and that's probably not even a strong enough characterization--I put absolutely zero value on fWAR for pitchers because I think its logic is nonsensical), we're never going to agree. I vastly prefer ERA+ to FIP. That was the point of Posnanski's column--which metric you prefer tells you which Pedro season you think was better. Edit: It's a real shame that the comments on the original article seem to have disappeared. As I said, there was a lot of great discussion. As I recall, it was fairly divided, though I think a small majority of the comments gave 2000 Pedro the edge because ultimately, the results (i.e. runs) have to matter.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 16, 2022 15:04:58 GMT -5
100% agree. Hitters have a very high batting average on line drives, for example. And there are plenty of pitchers who have made careers out of inducing weak contact (softly hit ground balls, pop ups, etc.) But fWAR doesn't care about that, which is why I have a hard time taking it seriously. 2) LBO% - 77.6% of the baserunners Martinez had on base when he left in the middle of an inning didn't score with the following relief pitchers [in 1999]. In 2000, it was 86.6% - Again, this was the highest % in his career. The relief pitchers that came in were much better at shutting down the inherited runners - something that Martinez has almost no control over. This is a reasonable point. However, we'd have to control for the game situation for those inherited runners. Were they runners on second and third with nobody out, or were they runners on first base with two outs? Those things matter. I doubt it would make up such a big gap in ERA+, but it's worth looking at. Though as I think about it, while it's true that he wouldn't have control over whether the relievers were able to get those inherited runners out, he is responsible for them being on base in the first place. So I don't think it really works to try to completely absolve him of runners that he's responsible for being on base. Edit: Also, Pedro was better in 2000 at not allowing baserunners in the first place. In 2000, he pitched 3.2 more innings than he did in 1999 but allowed 32 fewer hits and five fewer walks. As a result, his WHIP in 1999 was an incredible .737, by far the lowest of his career. In 1999, his WHIP was .923.
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 16, 2022 15:55:11 GMT -5
I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. But if pitchers have no influence on what happens after the ball is contacted (which I don't agree with -- not all data analyses are correct), then it makes no sense for them to be blamed for home runs. Doesn't that mean the correct metric would just be something about strikeouts v. walks v. balls in play?
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Post by carsonvega on Aug 16, 2022 16:01:37 GMT -5
Edit: It's a real shame that the comments on the original article seem to have disappeared. As I said, there was a lot of great discussion. As I recall, it was fairly divided, though I think a small majority of the comments gave 2000 Pedro the edge because ultimately, the results (i.e. runs) have to matter.
I have no skin in the discussion regarding whether fWAR or bWAR is better, or which Pedro season was better. I enjoy reading what's been written here but do not have strong enough feelings to be able to add to a debate. I may be able to help with the comments, however.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2022 16:16:40 GMT -5
100% agree. Hitters have a very high batting average on line drives, for example. And there are plenty of pitchers who have made careers out of inducing weak contact (softly hit ground balls, pop ups, etc.) But fWAR doesn't care about that, which is why I have a hard time taking it seriously. I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. However, HR does have a correlation between fly balls and ground balls. For the most part - pitchers do not have much control over singles, doubles, triples - etc... A fly ball pitcher will generally give up more HR's than a GB pitcher. This has been show time and time again - the results of batted balls in play against Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson will be very similar to Oil Can Boyd and Al Nipper. FIP is designed to look only at what a pitcher can control. And then, XFIP was added where it is assumed that a pitcher has no control over a HR. FIP is overwhelmingly more predictive of a pitchers future than ERA. Thus - fangraphs chooses to only consider statistics that are under their control and uses FIP 1999 Pedro Martinez - 2.07 ERA and 1.39 FIP 2000 Pedro Martinez - 1.74 ERA and 2.17 FIP Career Pedro Martinez - 2.93 ERA and 2.91 FIP What we find - FIP strips out much of the luck involved with ERA that doesn't have time to even out over a short period of time like an individual season. Pedro was most likely a better pitcher in 1999 than he was in 2000 even though his ERA+ was better in 2000. He struck out substantially more batters in 1999. There were two 'luck' factors that impacted his ERA in 1999: 1) His BABIP in 1999 was .323 (the highest in his career) while just .236 (his best, luckiest of his career) in 2000. Just to give a frame of reference for how this is mostly luck - Pedro Martinez had a career .279 BABIP while Oil Can Boyd had a .281 BABIP. We see this all the time - great pitchers have a similar BABIP as an average pitcher. 2) LBO% - 77.6% of the baserunners Martinez had on base when he left in the middle of an inning didn't score with the following relief pitchers. In 2000, it was 86.6% - Again, this was the highest % in his career. The relief pitchers that came in were much better at shutting down the inherited runners - something that Martinez has almost no control over. I am not saying that we should only look at FIP and never consider ERA, but I do believe if we are to use one when evaluating a season - FIP is the better metric and the one that Fangraphs uses. The first math study of pitchers affecting things was in the 1990s by Voros McCracken.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2022 16:17:21 GMT -5
I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. But if pitchers have no influence on what happens after the ball is contacted (which I don't agree with -- not all data analyses are correct), then it makes no sense for them to be blamed for home runs. Doesn't that mean the correct metric would just be something about strikeouts v. walks v. balls in play? They don't. Once the ball is contacted, everything is up to the fielders and their positioning.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 16, 2022 16:21:48 GMT -5
But if pitchers have no influence on what happens after the ball is contacted (which I don't agree with -- not all data analyses are correct), then it makes no sense for them to be blamed for home runs. Doesn't that mean the correct metric would just be something about strikeouts v. walks v. balls in play? They don't. Once the ball is contacted, everything is up to the fielders and their positioning. That is an absurd assertion that I could not disagree more with. Obviously, the fielder still needs to make the play, but if you induce a pop-up, it's a lot easier for the fielder to get an out than if you give up a booming double off the wall or even just any kind of line drive. Now, I understand that this effectively is the position that FanGraphs takes. But as I've already said, this is also why I view fWAR for pitchers as less than worthless. Edit: Actually, if you're saying they have no control after the ball has already been contacted, that's probably true unless they're fielding their own position. But if the argument is that they have no control over the type of contact they give up (i.e. what fWAR thinks), I think that's ridiculous.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 16, 2022 16:22:08 GMT -5
Edit: It's a real shame that the comments on the original article seem to have disappeared. As I said, there was a lot of great discussion. As I recall, it was fairly divided, though I think a small majority of the comments gave 2000 Pedro the edge because ultimately, the results (i.e. runs) have to matter. I have no skin in the discussion regarding whether fWAR or bWAR is better, or which Pedro season was better. I enjoy reading what's been written here but do not have strong enough feelings to be able to add to a debate. I may be able to help with the comments, however.
Thanks. I was going to look for an archived version myself, but I wasn't sure what the original URL was.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 16, 2022 16:38:54 GMT -5
I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. But if pitchers have no influence on what happens after the ball is contacted (which I don't agree with -- not all data analyses are correct), then it makes no sense for them to be blamed for home runs. Doesn't that mean the correct metric would just be something about strikeouts v. walks v. balls in play? Yes - sort of: To say that a pitcher has no influence isn't correct. However, the influence can be unpredictable and the great majority of cases there is no statistical support for the pitcher having an impact. Ground ball pitchers will tend to have a slightly higher BABIP than fly ball pitchers (ground balls are more likely to find holes than fly balls), but then fly ball pitchers are usually going to give up more HR's per batted ball. Pitcher's lack of influence over HR's isn't nearly as strong as their lack of influence over balls in play (that are not HR's). This is why we have xFIP and FIP. xFIP looks at just K's and BB's. FIP looks at K's, BB's and HRs.
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Post by nowhereman on Aug 16, 2022 16:44:47 GMT -5
Discussion of war is way beyond my comprehension. My thought basically boils down to thi: anything beyond the badinage box score is overkill.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 16, 2022 16:49:03 GMT -5
I forget who did the study - it was ~ 50 years ago - that the result of a batted ball is largely out of the control of a pitcher. This is largely not disputed by people from Bill James to current SABR people. However, HR does have a correlation between fly balls and ground balls. For the most part - pitchers do not have much control over singles, doubles, triples - etc... A fly ball pitcher will generally give up more HR's than a GB pitcher. This has been show time and time again - the results of batted balls in play against Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson will be very similar to Oil Can Boyd and Al Nipper. FIP is designed to look only at what a pitcher can control. And then, XFIP was added where it is assumed that a pitcher has no control over a HR. FIP is overwhelmingly more predictive of a pitchers future than ERA. Thus - fangraphs chooses to only consider statistics that are under their control and uses FIP 1999 Pedro Martinez - 2.07 ERA and 1.39 FIP 2000 Pedro Martinez - 1.74 ERA and 2.17 FIP Career Pedro Martinez - 2.93 ERA and 2.91 FIP What we find - FIP strips out much of the luck involved with ERA that doesn't have time to even out over a short period of time like an individual season. Pedro was most likely a better pitcher in 1999 than he was in 2000 even though his ERA+ was better in 2000. He struck out substantially more batters in 1999. There were two 'luck' factors that impacted his ERA in 1999: 1) His BABIP in 1999 was .323 (the highest in his career) while just .236 (his best, luckiest of his career) in 2000. Just to give a frame of reference for how this is mostly luck - Pedro Martinez had a career .279 BABIP while Oil Can Boyd had a .281 BABIP. We see this all the time - great pitchers have a similar BABIP as an average pitcher. 2) LBO% - 77.6% of the baserunners Martinez had on base when he left in the middle of an inning didn't score with the following relief pitchers. In 2000, it was 86.6% - Again, this was the highest % in his career. The relief pitchers that came in were much better at shutting down the inherited runners - something that Martinez has almost no control over. I am not saying that we should only look at FIP and never consider ERA, but I do believe if we are to use one when evaluating a season - FIP is the better metric and the one that Fangraphs uses. The first math study of pitchers affecting things was in the 1990s by Voros McCracken. Yes McCracken. And I was off by ~ 20 years. From what I remember, he came up with this theory, tested the theory - and it was so intuitively outrageous no one could believe it. I think Bill James when he first read about it - didn't believe it. Then he couldn't figure out why he didn't think about it...
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