Matusz Optioned To Norfolk After The Game

[CA-ORIOLE]

You're making a lot of assumptions in your third paragraph (ie, "If Arrieta continues going the way he's going, he will continue to be bad and have a high babip."---Arrieta's BABIP does not follow from his LD%, that is, there's no causational link between the two. Correlational yes, but there could be years in which Arrieta has the same LD% and HR/FB and has much lower BABIP and ERA's respectively).

Either way, your point really misses the following: all of your qualifications are limited because SIERA, as you note, doesn't take a lot of them into account in its formula YET it's still been shown to be the most predictive. That alone suggests that some of the factors you are most interested in aren't perhaps ultimately as relevant as you think they are/want them to be.

As for the tERA, two points to consider: tERA is on a skewed scale, it's a little higher than ERA, so the fact that his tERA has him at 4.93 doesn't mean it's saying his ERA should be 4.93. The highest tERA in the league is 2.77 and the 10th highest is 3.41 whereas the highest ERA in the league is 2.00 and 10th highest 2.53.

Secondly, tERA is not supposed to be predictive as much as it is supposed to give a measure of how a pitcher's performing taking into account batted ball data as well as peripheral data/park factors/fielding. 4.93, or a little bit lower, to adjust for the skew of tERA (say 4.80), sounds about right to me for what Jake has looked like this year. (ie, a 4.80 ERA pitcher) That says nothing of the future, though.

Yeah, I think we've exhausted this one. I think we do agree that Arrieta is somewhere in between his FIP and ERA in terms of performance. I just don't think Arrieta's FIP/SIERA for 2012 is predictive of much of anything as far as future performance trends. I get the K/BB part maybe, but not the rest. The rWAR methodology is the most detailed batted ball data you're going to get and it shows him as a minus 0.4 WAR right now. That methodology is supposed to neutralize defense. I can't ignore the plain fact he's being hit hard or that DIPS somehow indicates he's not goiing to continue to be hit hard and trend more towards his FIP at this point. If anything, it looks like it may be the other way around. You may have the last word.

[DrungoHazewood]

The rWAR methodology is the most detailed batted ball data you're going to get and it shows him as a minus 0.4 WAR right now. That methodology is supposed to neutralize defense.

I'm not sure that's really true. Here's bb-ref's pitcher WAR methodology. Quick summary:

At a basic level it's just runs allowed and innings, converted to wins. But it's adjusted for:

1) League difficulty

2) Defense, by taking % of innings and assigning that fraction of the team's Total Zone rating to the pitcher

3) Park factor

I think the defensive adjustment is pretty rough. Unless I'm missing something, it looks like a pitcher who's pitched 1/10th of his team's innings, and his team has a +10 TZ, will get a 1 run penalty to give a defense-independent number. Any batted ball data would be hidden in the team's overall Total Zone number.

[Moose Milligan]

I haven't read the entire thread. I've been off the grid since Saturday, no power in NoVa. Listened to the game on the radio yesterday.

All I have to say is...good. I hope it's an extended stay.

I wrote something similar last week, but I can't believe how this guy was ever considered a high first round pick. He's just awful.