Fangraphs: Ubaldo has been worth +0.6 fWAR this year

[Bahama O's Fan]

See ya'll make me question WAR altogether now. Give me ERA for a pitcher and it paints a pretty clear picture.

[Can_of_corn]

See ya'll make me question WAR altogether now. Give me ERA for a pitcher and it paints a pretty clear picture.

Clear as mud.

You have things like ballpark factors and team defense obfuscating things when you try and rely on ERA.

[DrungoHazewood]

See ya'll make me question WAR altogether now. Give me ERA for a pitcher and it paints a pretty clear picture.

Yes, that same ERA that wildly fluctuates with league context, with park, with opponent, with team defense, with hit/error decisions, with bullpen support, with luck...

You walk the bases loaded with two out. The next batter hits a quick two-hopper to the backhand side of the shortstop, goes off his glove. Next three guys homer. Depending on how generous the official scorer is with that play at shortstop your ERA for the inning is either 0.00 or 63.00.

[Bahama O's Fan]

It seems to reflect a pitcher's performance over a full season just as well as WAR does.

[DrungoHazewood]

They both clearly have issues. You don't see me in here taking up for ERA, but many very smart people are ignoring the glaring problems with FIP.

Combining ERA with WHIP seems a much more effective tool than FIP.

Who? We've had countless threads where my attempts to focus people on what FIP does (and doesn't do) have been mostly dismissed as nonsense because there are some outliers that don't seem right at first glance.

ERA and WHIP have every bit as many issues as FIP. ERA and WHIP's primary shortfall is that they assume run prevention is 100% the responsibility of the pitcher when it's really more like 60%. Also not adjusted for context. Or defense.

[DrungoHazewood]

It seems to reflect a pitcher's performance over a full season just as well as WAR does.

What, ERA? You'd have a better case if you rephrased it as "it reasonably reflects a team's performance while a certain pitcher is on the mound". ERA makes no effort to sort out what was the pitcher's responsibility and what was the responsibility of others. None.

[Phantom]

It seems to reflect a pitcher's performance over a full season just as well as WAR does.

In 70% of the cases, sure. FiP is there to show us where ERA has failed by crediting or dinging a pitcher for things he has no control of.

[DrungoHazewood]

In 70% of the cases, sure. FiP is there to show us where ERA has failed by crediting or dinging a pitcher for things he has no control of.

ERA is like taking (0.6 * OPS) + (0.4 * RANDOM) and saying that correlates to offense pretty well.

[waroriole]

Who? We've had countless threads where my attempts to focus people on what FIP does (and doesn't do) have been mostly dismissed as nonsense because there are some outliers that don't seem right at first glance.

ERA and WHIP have every bit as many issues as FIP. ERA and WHIP's primary shortfall is that they assume run prevention is 100% the responsibility of the pitcher when it's really more like 60%. Also not adjusted for context. Or defense.

Sure, they all have their failings. Most people above the fray in these conversations will admit that ERA and WHIP have their failings. It's been my interpretation that people are so quick to defend FIP that they gloss over the problems.

I think people are more willing to overlook the failings of ERA, because it tells you what happened. Not would should've happened on an even playing field.

[DrungoHazewood]

Sure, they all have their failings. Most people above the fray in these conversations will admit that ERA and WHIP have their failings. It's been my interpretation that people are so quick to defend FIP that they gloss over the problems.

I think people are more willing to overlook the failings of ERA, because it tells you what happened. Not would should've happened on an even playing field.

They're used to ERA since it's been around for 100 years and it's so ingrained that people don't even think about the pitching/defense/luck/official scorer decisions aspects. Same thing that makes me see 23 wins and subconsciously think the guy was great.

I see almost no defense of FIP here. It's mainly brought up in the context of mocking outliers that don't match preconceived opinions. See: This thread.

[Tony-OH]

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.

One thing to remember, luck is used by sabermaticians when they can't explain it with stats. At the end of the day, I've watched Jimenez pitch this year. He's not unlucky, he's just not very good.

[Phantom]

Sure, they all have their failings. Most people above the fray in these conversations will admit that ERA and WHIP have their failings. It's been my interpretation that people are so quick to defend FIP that they gloss over the problems.

I think people are more willing to overlook the failings of ERA, because it tells you what happened. Not would should've happened on an even playing field.

ERA actually does a pretty terrible job of telling you what happened. It doesn't tell you how many runs were scored. It doesn't tell you how many runs were given up by the pitcher. It doesn't even tell you who won.

[Tony-OH]

It's why I hate FIP. Unless you're giving up homers, it doesn't really ding you much.

FIP is a flawed stat because it assumes that when teh batter hits the ball it's all luck from there. That's just ridiculous. That's like saying Zach Britton is just lucky he gets so many ground balls and soft contact.

FIP gives too much credit for K's and doesn't take into consideration the amount of hits a pitcher gives up. ERA may be a flawed stat, as are most stats, but at the end of the day, it's a pretty good gauge to judge starters on when combined with there WHIP and K-BB ratio.

[Phantom]

At the end of the day, I've watched Jimenez pitch this year. He's not unlucky, he's just not very good.

Then why do you think FiP is a better predictor of future performance than ERA? If ERA were such a better reflection of a pitchers talent than FiP, wouldn't it be the superior measure?

Also, the eye test is just about the worst thing in the entire world to judge a player on. People can't judge balls that should have been caught or pitches that were great but hit for homeruns or remember all the times the bullpen let inherited runners scored. There's a reason sabermetrics has run circles around the eye test for the last decade.

[Phantom]

FIP is a flawed stat because it assumes that when teh batter hits the ball it's all luck from there. That's just ridiculous. That's like saying Zach Britton is just lucky he gets so many ground balls and soft contact.

Brittons career ERA and FiP are .06 off, so it seems to be doing just fine with that assumption. Turns out that players that are able to foll batters into making weak contact tend to fool them into striking out a lot.