If you subtract just 4 starts...

by The Cheat on Jan 16, 2006 4:54 PM CST in White Sox News

You've heard it before. "If you take away a few starts, [insert platitude here.]" I guess new Philly GM Pat Gillick was guilty of this trap this weekend when commenting on Ryan Franklin. Craig Burley over at Hardball Times was inspired enough to take a look at a few random players to see what happened to their lines if you removed just their worst 4 starts. Not surprisingly, it made many pitchers look much better than they are.

I decided to do the same thing with the White Sox starters. Rather than concentrating on the Sox pitchers' lines after the bad starts were taken out, I was more interested in what was the deciding factor that made them have the bad starts (i.e poor control, too many HRs, etc.).

Mark Buehrle

W-L IP H HR BB K ERA Real 16-8 236.2 240 20 40 149 3.12 (4 starts) 0-3 25.1 45 2 9 10 8.53 Adjusted 16-5 211.1 195 18 31 140 2.47

Buehrle's poor starts weren't terrible. He gave up just 2 HRs in 25 IP, but his walk rate was up, and he was giving up a ton of hits.

Jon Garland

W-L IP H HR BB K ERA Real 18-10 221 212 26 47 115 3.50 (4 starts) 1-3 23.2 39 7 3 10 10.27 Adjusted 17-7 197.1 173 19 44 105 2.69

Garland actually had better control in his poor starts than in his good ones. He was probably in the zone too much, as he was giving up more HRs and hits, while walking fewer batters. Both he and Buehrle are prone to high H/9 totals in their bad starts because they rely on their defense, and thus the randomness of balls in play.

Freddy Garcia

W-L IP H HR BB K ERA Real 14-8 228 225 26 60 146 3.87 (4 starts) 0-3 23.2 42 6 10 18 10.65 Adjusted 14-5 204.1 183 20 50 128 3.08

Garcia just has your normal, across-the-board worse peripherals in his poor starts. He also had 5 WPs in his 4 poor starts.

Jose Contreras

W-L IP H HR BB K ERA Real 15-7 204.2 177 23 75 154 3.61 (4 starts) 0-3 22 27 6 13 13 10.28 Adjusted 15-4 182.2 150 17 62 141 2.81

Contreras is the only Sox pitcher to maintain a relatively decent H/9 in his poor starts. However, and again not-surprisingly, his bad starts are highlighted by poor control, including 6 WPs.

Javier Vazquez

W-L IP H HR BB K ERA Real 11-15 215.2 223 35 46 192 4.42 (4 starts) 0-4 13 38 7 3 12 21.46 Adjusted 11-11 202.2 185 28 43 180 3.33

WOW! That poor start ERA is incredibly bad. When Vazquez doesn't have it, boy does he gives it up; and he gives it up quickly. With the exception of IP, his poor starts peripherals are remarkably similar to Garland's. Hopefully Cooper and Ozzie can work with Vazquez to fight through those poor starts and grind out some useful innings to save the bullpen.

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Stats

I always wanted to see stats like those. In fact, I'm surprised that's not a more common way of looking at starters.

You said "it made many pitchers look much better than they are." But I wonder if maybe a statistic like this may in fact paint a better pitcher of how good a pitcher is. ERA has always troubled me a bit because it's just an average. Couldn't you theoretically have two pitchers with similar ERAs, one who was consistent, another who was generally better, but got blown out a few times? And if you could, wouldn't you prefer the one who was generally better.

I'm not familiar enough with many scouting services or advanced baseball stats to know, but has anyone heard an argument like this before? Can I find anything like this on the internet (runs per start distributions/histograms)?

by generico12 on Jan 16, 2006 5:44 PM CST reply actions

Vazquez is a mystery

Wow, I cannot figure Vazquez out, and I hope Cooper and Ozzie can. He had some horrible outings in 2005. In the 4 games that were subtracted (which were pretty easy to find in his Game Log) he had some other glaring numbers:

31 ER in those 4 games (13 IP)
23 runs occurred in 4 innings (1 big inning per game 5, 5, 6, 7)

So you can even take the statement even farther. If you took out his 4 worst innings....

I just used the 4 innings above for the test, and came up with 211.2 IP, 83 ER for an ERA of 3.53. So from 4.42 to 3.53, a 0.89 drop in ERA for only 4 Innings!

WOW!

by RME JICO on Jan 16, 2006 5:53 PM CST reply actions

Well....

What about the reverse? If not for a pitchers 4 best outings their stats might look much worse. I think an interesting indicator would be to take out the pitchers 4 best and 4 worst games...and look at the era then.

AIM: BrentBrookhouse

by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 17, 2006 11:25 AM CST reply actions

It wouldn't be as bad

BrentBrookhouse,
Take my example of 4 bad innings, if you take out the 4 best innings, you are only taking away 4 shutout innings, which happens a lot.

If I take my first example, 211.2 IP, 83 ER for an ERA of 3.53, then take out his 4 best innings of 0 ER, he then has the numbers of 207.2 IP, 83 ER for an ERA of 3.60. Remember his real ERA is 4.42. So removing the bad innings has more of an effect on stats than the good numbers do. Either way, a 3.60 ERA is a lot better than a 4.42. That is still 0.82 runs per 9 innings. That could be the difference between a win and a loss in about 3-5 games per year.

by RME JICO on Jan 17, 2006 5:40 PM CST up reply actions