- 23,430
- 31,285
Probably. Pretty much everything has happened in baseball.So has an MLB team ever finished last, first, then last again over a three year period. Red Sox will if not. Jesus the offense is dreadful.
Probably. Pretty much everything has happened in baseball.So has an MLB team ever finished last, first, then last again over a three year period. Red Sox will if not. Jesus the offense is dreadful.
I'm not a big fan of fielding-independent stats. Ground ball pitchers get owned. Or pitchers who like to pitch against a certain lineup in a certain way (pitchers will typically stay lower in the zone against teams with a lot of power to reduce chances of HRs for example). FIP doesn't really take that into account./shrug I am not sure. I would think that if ESPN had their own formula they would probably have some proprietary shit that they would shove down our throats like they do with QBR in football.
All I can tell you for sure is that I have always used and trusted Fangraphs for Sabermetrically driven baseball information.
*edit: Apparently there are different formulas:WAR Comparison Chart - Baseball-Reference.com
*double edit: Fangraphs explains how they calculated their pitching WAR compared to other formulas. Basically they give more weight to fielding-independent stats to calculate their pitching WAR:WAR for Pitchers | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library
I'll offer up Darvish's Slider as a counter. Sorry for the weird formatting.Yeah, I agree. It is a worthy endeavor to try to quantify a players performance as objectively and statistically driven as possible, but eventually you need to rely on the good old fashion eyeball test. And based off of what I have watched I think that Felix's changeup is the best pitch in baseball right now. Right up there with the Rivera cutter.
I agree with the last part, however I would point to the number of SOs each pitch has produced as a general indicator on how well it does against opposing batters, in which case the Slider wins out overall since on 292 pitches it has induced 52 strikeouts, versus 367 and 41. It's semantics anyway. I mean, if you asked a baseball fan which pitch they would want in their repertoire, Darvish's Slider or Hernandez's Changeup the smart ones would go, "Shit man, do I have to pick one?"I am once again confused by stats.
293 pitches vs 367 pitches, but only 5 plate appearances difference. Meaning Felix obviously throws the Changeup more than Darvish does the slider. HOWEVAH the average part is based on hits on PA's when they threw that pitch, but it doesn't really measure how hittable that specific pitch is. A lower % of Felix's Changeups resulted in hits than of Darvish's sliders, and the changeup caused 4 DPs.
Those numbers seem to favor the changeup over the slider pretty clearly, though they should really include balls/strikes for each pitch.