Fangraphs: Ubaldo has been worth +0.6 fWAR this year

[DrungoHazewood]

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.

Why would it be one or the other? Isn't it a near certainty that the answer is some of Column A, some of Column B?

Someone has to be the unluckiest pitcher in the world*.

* I nominate Ned Garvin who had a better-than-league ERA every one of his six full years in the majors but finished 57-97 with an ERA 21% better-than-league.

[Phantom]

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.

Someone is always going to be the biggest outlier. That doesn't make them a unicorn, just an unlucky horse.

Clay Bucholtz had a difference of over nearly 3 at the break a few years ago, if memory serves, and he is someone with a career ERA nearly equal to hid FiP.

[waroriole]

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

Good question. I wonder if exit velocity is part of the equation.

[Three Run Homer]

Like it or not, Ubaldo is going to keep getting chances with the Orioles. Maybe the BABIP gods will start to smile on him and he'll be decent in the second half.

[Phantom]

Good question. I wonder if exit velocity is part of the equation.

His HH% is way up, so exit velocity is at least part of the BABIP equation (and HR/FB equation). Whether those balls were hit hard due to bad luck or bad skill is tougher to surmise. Most of baseball history tells us it's probably luck.

[MDK02]

Are any of Ubaldo's mechanics different from the first half of 2015?

[DrungoHazewood]

Good question. I wonder if exit velocity is part of the equation.

From the Statcast leaderboards:

Name Average Exit Velocity/Flyball and Liner EV/GB EV

Ubaldo 89.7/91.4/89.2

Tillman 89.6/92.8/87.4

Kershaw 87.1/90.5/.84.8

Britton 93.7/97.7/91.4 (Britton has the 4th-highest EV of any pitcher with a minimum of 30 batted balls)

Givens 85.6/88.8/81.4

Betances 87.0/91.9/84.9

Gallardo 89.4/91.9/86.7

Sale 88.9/92.3/85.7

I find it hard to draw any conclusions from this. Do we need standard deviations of exit velocities?

[DrungoHazewood]

His HH% is way up, so exit velocity is at least part of the BABIP equation (and HR/FB equation). Whether those balls were hit hard due to bad luck or bad skill is tougher to surmise. Most of baseball history tells us it's probably luck.

How well does exit velocity track to Hard/Medium/Soft? On Fangraps Zach Britton's Hard is 16.3% and he has the 4th-highest Statcast EV. Gallardo is halfway down the list of at least several hundred pitchers and has a Hard% of 29%. Tillman's Hard% is 30.8%, or 2.5% lower than Ubaldo.

[Phantom]

Tillman has a HH% of 30.8% to Ubaldo's 33.3%. Additionally, their IFFB% are 8.3% and 4.9% respectively.

[Phantom]

How well does exit velocity track to Hard/Medium/Soft?

It doesn't track at all.

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/quality-of-contact-stats/

Things To Remember:

● These stats are based on hang time, trajectory, and landing spot. Raw exit velocity is not considered.

● There are hard, medium, and soft hit balls of each batted ball type. A weak line drive might be hit harder than a medium ground ball.

● There is no perfect profile and players can have success with a variety of quality of contact profiles.

League average is 20soft/50med/30hard for the record.

[DrungoHazewood]

It doesn't track at all.

Right, so we're left with one Oriole pitcher who gives up hard contact 31% of the time, has an average exit velocity of 89.9 mph, gives up LDs 21.4% of the time and has a BABIP of .263.

And another at 33%, 89.7 mph, 21.2% LDs and a BABIP of .380.

I still need to be convinced that's anything like 117 points of skill. The only big differences I see between the two are a 3.4% delta in IFFB%, Ubaldo gets more GBs and 2 BB/9.

[Frobby]

I don't think we are very close to finding an equation that tells us what portion of BABIP is luck and what is skill. My personal belief is that Ubaldo's BABIP is not just the product of bad luck, and is mostly due to other factors. And I don't want to give him 14 more starts to try to find out if his "luck" will normalize.

[atomic]

I don't think we are very close to finding an equation that tells us what portion of BABIP is luck and what is skill. My personal belief is that Ubaldo's BABIP is not just the product of bad luck, and is mostly due to other factors. And I don't want to give him 14 more starts to try to find out if his "luck" will normalize.

People seem to get stuck on this stat. I don't even understand how Jiminez is doing well with this stat. He is walking 5.5 batters per nine innings. And has given up 10 home runs.

[Redskins Rick]

People seem to get stuck on this stat. I don't even understand how Jiminez is doing well with this stat. He is walking 5.5 batters per nine innings. And has given up 10 home runs.

Personally for me and when looking at Ubaldo, I toss out the metrics and go with what I have seen, and its not been very good.

[Tony-OH]

This is a random stat I came across this morning that surprised me. Essentially, Ubaldo's FIP (4.90) and xFIP (4.96) are not all that terrible. Arguably, he's been terribly unlucky, with a .380 BABIP. So, fangraphs assigns him a +0.6 fWAR.

And yet, that just flies in the face of common sense for anyone who has watched him pitch. BB-ref has him at -1.6 rWAR, which seems much closer to the mark than fangraphs' +0.6 fWAR.

Which is EXACTLY why I don't look at fWAR, only rWAR. Fangraphs does a ton of things well, but calculate WAR is not one of them in my opinion. They try to be a little too smart for their own good. Any stat that nets Jimenez as plus value needs to be immediately discontinued because it's majorly flawed.