Fangraphs: Ubaldo has been worth +0.6 fWAR this year

[Phantom]

I don't consider +0.6 to denote "pitched terribly."

Would you consider a starting pitcher with a 5 ERA anything but bad?

[Phantom]

Does Fangraphs now make adjustments for quality of contact? They didn't used to do this.

They only adjust for in field fly balls, IIRC.Everything else is a little too noisy to be applied accurately.

[Frobby]

Would you consider a starting pitcher with a 5 ERA anything but bad?

There are 142 pitchers who have thrown at least 60 innings. 36 of them have an ERA worse than 5.00. So, I consider a 5.00 ERA starting pitcher to be about normal for a fourth starter on an average team, in 2016.

[Redskins Rick]

There are 142 pitchers who have thrown at least 60 innings. 36 of them have an ERA worse than 5.00. So, I consider a 5.00 ERA starting pitcher to be about normal for a fourth starter on an average team, in 2016.

Good point, and take it further, only 38 SP have ERA under 5.00

Only 13 of those 38 SP pitchers have an ERA under 3.50

[sportsfan8703]

Would you consider a starting pitcher with a 5 ERA anything but bad?

That's a trade target for us. :thumbsup1:

[atomic]

I get that. Right or wrong, most fans judge metrics by how well they match their subjective experience. They want to release the guy with the 7.00 ERA and the 4.00 FIP, and reserve the right to crucify the GM when that same pitcher throws to a 3.75 ERA on his new team.

I think ERA is a better judge of a pitcher than Fwar. We can all make up stats on how to judge pitchers but if you don't take into account performance at all your stat is pretty worthless. Jimenez is at the very bottom of major league pitchers. There is a reason that players are hitting .380 off Jiminez on balls in play. It isn't bad defense or luck.

[Phantom]

There are 142 pitchers who have thrown at least 60 innings. 36 of them have an ERA worse than 5.00. So, I consider a 5.00 ERA starting pitcher to be about normal for a fourth starter on an average team, in 2016.

And that is why fangraphs has him at .6 WAR. They expect him to have a 5 ERA, if things like luck and defense and ballpark are all neutral.

Now, you might think that Ubaldo is some weird unicorn that can have a K/9 of 8, but also be so hittable that his true BABIP is .380. Fangraphs prefers to take the more reasoned approach of assuming he's just having bad luck though, and if the season were play 100 times in neutral conditions and he pitched exactly like this, his average ERA would be 5.

[nevadaO]

I think ERA is a better judge of a pitcher than Fwar. We can all make up stats on how to judge pitchers but if you don't take into account performance at all your stat is pretty worthless. Jimenez is at the very bottom of major league pitchers. There is a reason that players are hitting .380 off Jiminez on balls in play. It isn't bad defense or luck.

But a great defense can lead to a smoke-and-mirrors type performance too. Unless you compare every pitcher on equal terms you cannot appropriately evaluate numbers like ERA.

I agree though that a .380 BABIP cannot be attributed to luck if they cannot measure the quality of the hit ball in play.

[Phantom]

We can all make up stats on how to judge pitchers but if you don't take into account performance at all your stat is pretty worthless.

There is no pitching stat that doesn't take into account performance. It's just about how about how much credit you want to give the pitcher for said performance. Should a pitcher get credit for their defense? Should a pitcher get credit for their bullpen? Should a pitcher get credit for their ballpark? Should a pitcher get credit for their offense? Should a pitcher get credit for their run environment?

[DrungoHazewood]

I think ERA is a better judge of a pitcher than Fwar. We can all make up stats on how to judge pitchers but if you don't take into account performance at all your stat is pretty worthless. Jimenez is at the very bottom of major league pitchers. There is a reason that players are hitting .380 off Jiminez on balls in play. It isn't bad defense or luck.

Right, one point of view is to take (pitcher's performance + defense + context + luck) and lump it all into "pitcher's performance" and that's that.

I think there's a lot of value in determining the influence of the components that go into ERA, since many are only loosely tied to the pitcher himself. It's literally true that Chris Tillman is allowing more line drives per plate appearance than Ubaldo (21.4% to 21.2%), so I think it's at least worth investigating whether the 117-point gap in their BABIP is completely reflective of actual performance.

[Ohfan67]

I get that. Right or wrong, most fans judge metrics by how well they match their subjective experience. They want to release the guy with the 7.00 ERA and the 4.00 FIP, and reserve the right to crucify the GM when that same pitcher throws to a 3.75 ERA on his new team.

I think it also suggests that Ubaldo is truly worse than some of those stats/indices indicate. Things like walks, working slowly, and past success and failures of the pitcher are weighted much heavier in the fans misery index-pitching (FMIP) (pronounced "f-mip"), and rightfully so.

[Frobby]

And that is why fangraphs has him at .6 WAR. They expect him to have a 5 ERA, if things like luck and defense and ballpark are all neutral.

Now, you might think that Ubaldo is some weird unicorn that can have a K/9 of 8, but also be so hittable that his true BABIP is .380. Fangraphs prefers to take the more reasoned approach of assuming he's just having bad luck though, and if the season were play 100 times in neutral conditions and he pitched exactly like this, his average ERA would be 5.

Ubaldo's already a unicorn. There are 142 pitchers in MLB with at least 60 IP, and of those, only two have a differential between their ERA and their FIP that is larger than 1.52. Ubaldo's differential is 2.49! So, you either have to conclude that he is the unluckiest pitcher in the world (OK, one of the two unluckiest, because the Padres' Luis Perdomo is at 2.53 differential), or that FIP just isn't capturing everything that's going on with Ubaldo. Personally, I vote for the latter.

[DrungoHazewood]

But a great defense can lead to a smoke-and-mirrors type performance too. Unless you compare every pitcher on equal terms you cannot appropriately evaluate numbers like ERA.

I agree though that a .380 BABIP cannot be attributed to luck if they cannot measure the quality of the hit ball in play.

Ubaldo is allowing 21.2% line drives, 49.1% grounders, and 29.7% flyballs.

Chris Tillman is allowing 21.4% line drives, 39.5% grounders, and 39.2% flyballs.

Back of the napkin... grounders get you on base 23% of the time, liners 68%, and flyballs 21%. So per 500 PAs, carry the one... average pitcher with those rates should have almost identical BABIPs.

I think the only other way to go here would be exit velocities.

[Aglets]

Ubaldo is allowing 21.2% line drives, 49.1% grounders, and 29.7% flyballs.

Chris Tillman is allowing 21.4% line drives, 39.5% grounders, and 39.2% flyballs.

Back of the napkin... grounders get you on base 23% of the time, liners 68%, and flyballs 21%. So per 500 PAs, carry the one... average pitcher with those rates should have almost identical BABIPs.

I think the only other way to go here would be exit velocities.

That's where I'm going with it. All line drives, grounders, and fly balls are not created equal.

[Redskins Rick]

Ubaldo is allowing 21.2% line drives, 49.1% grounders, and 29.7% flyballs.

Chris Tillman is allowing 21.4% line drives, 39.5% grounders, and 39.2% flyballs.

Back of the napkin... grounders get you on base 23% of the time, liners 68%, and flyballs 21%. So per 500 PAs, carry the one... average pitcher with those rates should have almost identical BABIPs.

I think the only other way to go here would be exit velocities.

Exit Velocities = how fast they walk off to the dugout, when replaced by the pen.