Buck: "part of developing pitching is having guys who can defend"

[weams]

You see what happened to Steve Melewski when he decided to take a random shot at stat guys today?

I would think he wouldn't decide to tick off a sizable portion of his audience.

Well, there is a reason that stat guys win some arguments. The statistics back up most of their claims.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Well, there is a reason that stat guys win some arguments. The statistics back up most of their claims.

I'm going to frame this one somewhere.

[Can_of_corn]

Well, there is a reason that stat guys win some arguments. The statistics back up most of their claims.

I don't get why he feels a need to take shots at the stat guys. Doesn't seem like a smart move on any level.

[weams]

I'm going to frame this one somewhere.

Frame it. You know I am not a math guy. And I live around the edges of arguments.

[SteveA]

I think in many cases what it comes down to is that because the Orioles have built an excellent defense, and thus our pitchers out-perform their FIP. Not because of luck, but because of defense.

But we hear a lot of folks talk down our pitching, often pointing out how we are out-performing our FIP and thus due for regression. And those people rarely mention our superior defense or point out that FIP does not include defense... they kind of just state it as a fact that we should regress because FIP is more accurate than ERA. Period, end of story.

So, since we are all Oriole fans, we tend to get a bit defensive. And for those who don't live and breathe advanced stats, some of that defensive anger gets pointed at the stat in general rather than the people who are incorrectly using it to draw a conclusion.

[DrungoHazewood]

Sigh, just because I say your position is a losing one does not mean I am trying to demean you. Geez folks are so sensitive these days.

So you think that when deciding on if a pitcher is good, anyone with any common sense looks solely at FIP? Of course they don't.

Not sure why I have to keep repeating myself, but it is a tool.

You, for whatever reason, are reading way too much into one tool.

FIP does a very limited thing.

Are you saying it is better to not know what FIP tells us? That somehow this knowledge is bad?

Many people seem much more comfortable sticking only with old metrics that are very limited and flawed, rather than supplementing them with other metrics that might add to their understanding.

[weams]

Many people seem much more comfortable sticking only with old metrics that are very limited and flawed, rather than supplementing them with other metrics that might add to their understanding.

I enjoy ERA. Because of Bob Gibson. And Pedro.

[Beef Supreme]

Saying that a strong defense is good is in no way controversial. Saying that FIP is as or more flawed then ERA and saying that pitchers have more control then fielders over outs are controversial, and in my opinion, incorrect. Your specific mention of pop ups excepted.

I think we agree more than we disgree. I think they are all useful tools. I wish you had quoted me saying ''relying solely on FIP, while ignoring other stats such as WHIP and ERA, is probably going to warp one's perception to the point of making bad analysis.'' I would say the same about WHIP and ERA. How I wish I had phrased it would be something along the lines of ''when you look at all the formulas instead of any single one, you'll get a clearer picture.''

For WHIP and ERA, there is a ballpark variable that can suppress or inflate those values. I realize that FIP is fielding independent, but I am wondering whether we see less of a ballpark factor expressed upon FIP.

[Can_of_corn]

I think we agree more than we disgree. I think they are all useful tools. I wish you had quoted me saying ''relying solely on FIP, while ignoring other stats such as WHIP and ERA, is probably going to warp one's perception to the point of making bad analysis.'' I would say the same about WHIP and ERA. How I wish I had phrased it would be something along the lines of ''when you look at all the formulas instead of any single one, you'll get a clearer picture.''

For WHIP and ERA, there is a ballpark variable that can suppress or inflate those values. I realize that FIP is fielding independent, but I am wondering whether we see less of a ballpark factor expressed upon FIP.

Well quoting that part of what you said wouldn't have been supporting my side of the argument.

Let's just call this settled.

[weams]

I realize that FIP is fielding independent, but I am wondering whether we see less of a ballpark factor expressed upon FIP.

Because the types of things measured are not really dependant on location?

[CA-ORIOLE]

I think we agree more than we disgree. I think they are all useful tools. I wish you had quoted me saying ''relying solely on FIP, while ignoring other stats such as WHIP and ERA, is probably going to warp one's perception to the point of making bad analysis.'' I would say the same about WHIP and ERA. How I wish I had phrased it would be something along the lines of ''when you look at all the formulas instead of any single one, you'll get a clearer picture.''

For WHIP and ERA, there is a ballpark variable that can suppress or inflate those values. I realize that FIP is fielding independent, but I am wondering whether we see less of a ballpark factor expressed upon FIP.

No real park Factor but League average FIP is set to league average ERA, so it's sort of a defacto adjustment for the league. Parks the have a high ERA will generally correlate to higher FIPs and lower ERA parks, lower FIP's. FIP- adjusts for Park factor similar to what ERA+ does and FIP based WAR (fWAR) will also adjust for Park Factor.

[BohKnowsBmore]

Many people seem much more comfortable sticking only with old metrics that are very limited and flawed, rather than supplementing them with other metrics that might add to their understanding.

And some people (not you) latch on to these new metrics and use them incorrectly in an attempt to sound like the smartest people in the room, which doesn't lend itself to the aforementioned groups accepting said stats.

[malkusm]

When you start off with the conclusion and work backwards towards some evidence to support your conclusion sometimes you have to take some liberties. Like continually saying "FIP and the stats guys think pitching is all luck".

If someone wants to show me some data that suggests there are pitchers with a consistent ability to induce soft contact or significantly lower BABIP I'm all ears. But everything I've seen says the most extreme BABIP-limiting pitchers of all time cut maybe .010 or .015 points off their BABIP over a long career. Yes, there's an ability there. And that ability might mean a few tenths of a run a game in the extreme cases.

As a not-that-often poster I want to preface this by saying that I respect the heck out of Drungo, and that I love this place because of this sort of thread - lively discussion about real baseball analysis with people who know the same players I know best.

I think there's a disconnect here and I want to bridge the gap a bit. There's a camp that feels compelled to defend FIP and a camp that feels compelled to bash it. I think both have made good points. The reason I quoted the above is that I feel it goes beyond saying "FIP is a useful predictive tool". Nobody needs to prove that soft contact is a repeatable skill in order to say that FIP isn't predictive in some situations. The margin of error in using a FIP prediction model, and some (not statistically significant) examples where FIP and ERA wildly diverge, in combination with common sense about baseball, can show that. But FIP isn't intended to be perfectly predictive in all situations.

The comparison of run prevention to FIP for the last 3 seasons for the O's has led people here to question why, and rightly so, and it doesn't hurt to simply question. Maybe, in a vacuum, Chen and Norris are not above-average pitchers. But, they have been with the O's. To say that FIP is good and right is to suggest that the entire O's starting staff is on a tear of great luck. The fact that the data necessary to prove that this isn't the case is not available does not relegate us to believing that FIP is infallible.

But Kershaw and Felix wouldn't see as MUCH improvement with a good defense behind them because not as many balls would be in play.

So improving the defense can in fact narrow the difference between a staff of Verlanders and a staff of Chen's. And can probably be done alot more cheaply than going out and paying for high K pitchers.

This is an excellent post that I felt probably captured the philosophy of the organization. Maybe they have some numbers to bear this out, maybe they don't. But it makes sense intuitively.

[CA-ORIOLE]

As a not-that-often poster I want to preface this by saying that I respect the heck out of Drungo, and that I love this place because of this sort of thread - lively discussion about real baseball analysis with people who know the same players I know best.

I think there's a disconnect here and I want to bridge the gap a bit. There's a camp that feels compelled to defend FIP and a camp that feels compelled to bash it. I think both have made good points. The reason I quoted the above is that I feel it goes beyond saying "FIP is a useful predictive tool". Nobody needs to prove that soft contact is a repeatable skill in order to say that FIP isn't predictive in some situations. The margin of error in using a FIP prediction model, and some (not statistically significant) examples where FIP and ERA wildly diverge, in combination with common sense about baseball, can show that. But FIP isn't intended to be perfectly predictive in all situations.

The comparison of run prevention to FIP for the last 3 seasons for the O's has led people here to question why, and rightly so, and it doesn't hurt to simply question. Maybe, in a vacuum, Chen and Norris are not above-average pitchers. But, they have been with the O's. To say that FIP is good and right is to suggest that the entire O's starting staff is on a tear of great luck. The fact that the data necessary to prove that this isn't the case is not available does not relegate us to believing that FIP is infallible..

Started out pretty good but you kinda lost me at the end. No one has suggested FIP is infallible or even "GOOD and RIGHT" or that there aren't outliars and/or reasonable conclusions/data as to why the Orioles "beat their FIP". So, I call strawman.

Also it's interesting that you chose Norris and Chen here, both of who have actually been more "valuable" (for the Orioles) the past two years by FIP based WAR than ERA based WAR.

[malkusm]

Started out pretty good but you kinda lost me at the end. No one has suggested FIP is infallible or even "GOOD and RIGHT" or that there aren't outliars and/or reasonable conclusions/data as to why the Orioles "beat their FIP". So, I call strawman.

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but:

I'd be curious for one of the FIP haters to address this question myself.

My point is that the burden of proof is on people to tell me why I should rely on FIP as a projection tool, since they are the ones using it to project. The scientific method allows any and all criticism of a theory, as far as I know. Critics of FIP don't need to prove that soft contact is a repeatable skill, with batted ball data that doesn't yet exist. No more than critics of flat-earth theory needed to prove that the earth was round, back in the day.

FIP is a useful tool. It's also probably flawed in some ways. To argue that critics of FIP need to prove that FIP is wrong, is taking the statistic farther than the statistic was ever intended to go.