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What you consider 5th starters are a lot better than the average "5th starter" MLB teams use.Originally Posted by Coach Owens
You consider league-average pitchers to be 5th starters.
A team whose 5th best starter is a league average pitcher would have a really good pitching staff. For example, the 2005 White Sox, whose 5th starter was a combination of Orlando Hernandez and Brandon McCarthy.
Read the article I linked to above. This one.
Problemo?
None of those guys are even league average anymore. None of them.
o
Miguel Batista hasn't been this year. He was every year up until now.
Mike Mussina wasn't last year. He certainly has been this year.
Tom Glavine hasn't been this year. He was last year.
Read that article, seriously. In 2006, the aggregate 5th starter used by teams had an ERA north of 6. When labeling 5th starters, shouldn't we use the actual data, instead of just "what we think"?
Problemo?
But anyone can have a fluke season! Just like Washburn in 2005! And ERA isn't a good evaluator! You know that!
o
Okay? And? Whose having a fluke season that we're discussing here?
If anything, Mike Mussina being bad last season was a fluke, considering he was around league-average or better every year prior to that season, and is now back to league-average.
Miguel Batista is aging, so he very well may be a 5th starter at this point, but in every year PRIOR to this year, that he's pitched as a starter, he's been league-average or slightly better.
Tom Glavine is also aging, so he very well may be 5th starter material now, but every year up to this point, he has been league average or better.
ERA is bad to use when predicting how somebody will do in the future. That's the trap the Mariners fell into with Washburn. They're paying him like he's a very good starter, because of a fluke season, when he's actually an average starter.And ERA isn't a good evaluator! You know that!
ERA is fine to use when assessing how much value a pitcher has provided. RA would be better, but ERA is fine too. A pitcher that posts a league-average ERA is a league-average pitcher, in that season.
Problemo?
So Horacio Ramirez was league average in 2003? That's what you're saying.
o
In 2003, he provided roughly league average value, yes.
Problemo?
Despite a 4.72 FIP?
o
You're taking DIPS theory to an entirely incorrect level.
First off, I don't know what the league average FIP is, but FIP is an estimation of a pitcher's ERA based on his peripheral numbers, so it's safe to assume that league-average is about around league-average ERA, in which case 4.72 would be a little below league average, but not bad.
Secondly, his FIP just tells you how he pitched based on his peripherals. This does not tell you how much value his provided. A pitcher's job is to prevent runs. The job of the pitcher isn't to walk few batters, strikeout a lot, and keep the ball in the park. Those are all CONDUCIVE to preventing runs, but a pitcher can still do those things well and be less valuable than a pitcher who did those things worse than him. A pitcher could post a 3.00 FIP, but if he allowed 6 runs per 9 innings, he wasn't valuable.
FIP is best used to project the future. FIP is more stable than ERA. The FIP can help you decide if his value was due to his actual ability, or if it was partially due to flukes like a high LOB% or BABIP. You can use this to better project how a pitcher will do in the future. A pitcher with a low FIP and a high ERA is more likely to post a lower ERA in the future than a pitcher with a high FIP and low ERA.
The FIP helps you project how he will do in the future. It does not assess past value.
As I said, you're taking the DIPS principles too far. They're meant to help project the future of players. They do not, nor are they meant to, assess a player's past value.
Also, there are players that routinely overperform their peripherals. Ever hear of a guy named Tom Glavine? His career FIP is 3.94. In most of the seasons of his career, his ERA far exceeded his FIP. A 3.94 FIP is not worthy of Hall of Fame induction, but the value that Tom Glavine provided over his career is, because even though he wasn't a noteworthy strikeout artist, control artist, or groundball pitcher, he prevented runs.
Problemo?
xFIP is built to guesstimate the future value. FIP on its own can assess a pitcher's past value just fine.
o
No, it can't. The ONLY difference between xFIP and FIP is that xFIP normalizes the home run component. Otherwise, it's exactly the same. xFIP is better for predicting the future than FIP is, but neither assess value.
They are meant to assess how the pitcher pitched, regardless of the defense behind him. This is useful for predicting future performance. However, the hits allowed by a pitcher play a huge role in his value. If a pitcher pitches 182 innings, and his ERA is 7% better than league average, he provided solid value that season, regardless of his peripherals. If he had poor peripherals, you shouldn't expect him to give you that same value in the future, but that does not affect his past value.
Jarrod Washburn is in ways a lot like Tom Glavine-lite. He routinely outperforms his FIP numbers.
Either way, these pitchers we're discussing are all clearly better than 5th starters, so long as you're discussing it in terms of the actual production teams get out of the 5th starter slot, as the article linked shows.
Registered User
After reading that article...All I can say is wow!
Who cares if Gillick traded away talent, at least he traded it away for Talent in return...and it isn't 2004 anymore, it is 2008.... We should be in year 4 of our rebuilding effort....
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