Comments on: If You Remove…

By: Eric Seidman

Eric Seidman — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:15:31 +0000

NickP, yeah, I did something like that, albeit not a huge study, based on something Jamie Moyer said in an interview. He said he likes to evaluate pitchers after removing their 3 best and 3 worst starts, to look at the larger bulk of performance. Using Game Scores it didn’t make too much of a difference, and since the difference wasn’t substantial it doesn’t seem like removing starts period is any better at evaluation or serving as a predictor.

By: dan

dan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:12:37 +0000

NickP–

Eric did that very thing at Statspeak about a week or two ago.

By: NickP

NickP — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:51:40 +0000

If you’re going to take a player’s 3 (or 4) worst starts out, it would only be fair to also take out this 3 best starts.

By: Eric Seidman

Eric Seidman — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:51:49 +0000

Adam, I have heard of it but have not looked at it a whole lot. It sounds quite interesting though. This all goes back to the true talent level, though. I actually wrote a whole big article this weekend at StatSpeak discussing Sabathia’s awful April with regards to his true talent level and projection going forward and it honestly didn’t change a whole heck of a lot. He had a 3.25 FIP projected for this year, and after his four starts, which is a very small sample, his projection changed to 3.47 for the balance of the season. Since then he’s had a 2.32 FIP, giving him a 3.23 for the season to date (or before that CG against the Giants). Which means he was projected to go 3.25 this year, at the halfway point was 3.23, and was projected for a 3.21 over the remaining 14 or so starts.

A few bad outings may cause a pitcher to have a very high rate in certain areas, but it’s all about how it affects his true talent level, not how it affects a half-season of data which isn’t indicative of such a true talent level.

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:40:19 +0000

Eric, have you heard of the new stat at baseball prospectus called Flake? It ‘s basically a standard deviation stat that measures which pitchers are the most consistent from start to start and which ones have had the most variance. For example, because of CC Sabathia’s god awful april starts and then dominance since then, his flake rating is through the roof. Since it’s a new stat, it’s hard to determine what its significance is right now, if, say, pitchers are consistently consistent or vice-versa, but it helps to account for some fluky bad outings that may warp season stats (like Bronson Arroyo’s disastrous ten inning affair a few weeks ago)

By: Eric Seidman

Eric Seidman — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:43:15 +0000

Bill, regardless of what we may think of the trade I think everyone can agree on, or should be conscious of the fact that you just cannot remove numbers from one person and not everyone else to make something look good.

It’s very easy to remove the worst few starts for one person but if we want to remove them from Blanton we have to do so from everyone else. And at that point his ERA would still be proportionately higher than others.

I wrote a little bit back about something Jamie Moyer said in an interview, that he likes to evaluate pitchers by removing the 3 best and 3 worst games and looking at all the rest. Though it wasn’t a supremely extended study, the initial look showed it didn’t make a big difference to the average game score or the proportion between the players.

Let’s hope he extends it to 22 straight scoreless against the Mets!

By: Bill B.

Bill B. — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:46:31 +0000

That should read “the Phillies’ Minor League system isn’t that good anyway.” My apologies.

By: Bill B.

Bill B. — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:45:15 +0000

Eric, I wasn’t a huge fan of the trade either, but once I got over my initial reaction of “we gave up Cardenas AND Outman for that?!” I realized it’s not so bad. As mentioned, Cardenas wasn’t going to be in a Major League Phillies uniform probably ever, and Outman wasn’t really deserving of the #4 rank in the Phillies’ system. He’s really overrated, I think. Regardless, the Phillies’ Minor League system is that good anyway, so being in the top-five isn’t really an accomplishment.

I think we gave up a bit too much but I’d rather have given up those two for Blanton than possibly Cardenas, Carrasco and/or Marson for A.J. Burnett or Erik Bedard. I’m vehemently against a Burnett or Bedard trade because of their injury histories and Bedard is really overrated.

By: Eric Seidman

Eric Seidman — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:03:03 +0000

Brendan, you definitely make good points, I just feel as a Phillies fan and baseball analyst that either a) the return for two top prospects was not worth Joe Blanton, b) there’s something about Outman that we don’t know about, or c) the fact that it’s known Cardenas is completely a trade chip and serves no other purpose to the Phillies hurt them because teams knew they would have to unload him.

The point of this post was really that if people are going to defend the trade or say it’s good for the Phillies, which is a completely fine standpoint if it can be backed up, do not cherrypick numbers like Zolecki and others did. As I mentioned before, if we want to remove Blanton’s 4 worst starts, we have to remove the four worst starts from all starting pitchers and then look at ERA… and at that point, even though Blanton would be down to 3.58, it would be same in terms of being proportionately higher than the rest.

Now, if they mentioned that, perhaps Blanton pitched well in 15 of his 19 starts and that his higher ERA is due to a lower percentage of starts, that’s something, because even though it isn’t a perfect analysis it does tell us that he has a higher percentage of quality games than his barometer suggests… but to drop his 4 worst starts and nobody elses just doesn’t fly.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:54:40 +0000

I actually don’t mind the trade from the Phillies standpoint. Blanton isn’t a world beater, but you know what he’s going to give you . . . . innings and should keep the Phils in the game. He’s not a rental so moving Cardenas is fine, plus Adrian is still 2-3 years away and Utley isn’t leaving anytime soon anyway. Outman has been alright, but with Happ proving that he is a legit, Outman is no longer the closest LHP to being MLB ready.

Obviously it’s a steep price to pay, but you gotta give something of value up to get something in return.