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Guthrie Doubters stand up

Rex Thunder

By Rex Thunder
in Orioles Talk

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RVAbird All-Star

RVAbird

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I just wonder how arguments like this one we're having were made BEFORE some smart baseball guy came up with stats to track things like this. The guy must have had an axe to grind with some pitcher he hated- so he looked for a stat to make a point of how "lucky" he was, rather than good! :)

That would be Mr. Voros McCracken. He was simply trying to predict future success of pitchers for his fantasy team. He compiled a list of quite a few pitching statistics and found that all of them had significant correlation from one year to the next except for the amount of hits per balls put in play. This varied greatly, and seemed to be largely out of the pitcher's control.

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Leitch Major Leaguer

Leitch

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I just wonder how arguments like this one we're having were made BEFORE some smart baseball guy came up with stats to track things like this. The guy must have had an axe to grind with some pitcher he hated- so he looked for a stat to make a point of how "lucky" he was, rather than good! :)

This is the Baseball Prospectus 2001 edition Player Comment(referring to the 2000 season) on Kevin Millwood, from his PECOTA card.

As expected, Kevin Millwood declined from his 1999 peak. But look at the ratios: Millwood's strikeout, walk, and home-run rates haven't changed all that much over the three seasons. The difference each season is in his hits allowed.

Think of it in these terms: if a hitter's batting average runs from .260 to .320 to .275 while the rest of his offensive profile remains unchanged, it's conceded that he hit in "good luck" the second year. Why wouldn't that concept also apply to pitchers? Batting average, for or against, is volatile.

Put differently, we allow that a pitcher's offensive support can vary to a great degree. Why wouldn't his defensive support be subject to a similar effect, one that would cause his hits allowed and/or slugging percentage allowed to fluctuate? As McCracken puts it, hits allowed on balls in play is comparable to how we regard clutch hitting for batters: "...the level of control, if it exists, is very small and not very significant in the evaluation of players."

For more on these concepts, please check out Voros McCracken's work at http://www.baseballstuff.com/mccracken/pitching.html. Our thanks to Mr. McCracken for his effort and allowing us to discuss his theories in Baseball Prospectus 2001.

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Sports Guy Hangout Grand Counsel

Sports Guy

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just to allude to an earlier assertion about the ineptitude of the A's offense as a reason for Guthrie's success... Why don't you ask Bartolo Colon how good the A's offense is after tonight's game...

You mean the Colon that left the game last night with a sore elbow?

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