Comments on: King Indeed

By: morris

morris — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:11:01 +0000

Hernandez’s 2009 success with his fastball is the result of adding two-seam movement to it.

By: curt

curt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:52:26 +0000

Being from seattle and wathing the king pitching every 5 days is a delight. Like previously said its about time he gets some press, he is a top 5 pitcher the league no doubt. GO KING

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:09:26 +0000

Well, i guess you Jinxed him by making this post, 5.2 Innings 7 earned 1BB 2k’s. Ouch for my fantasy team.

By: Toffer Peak

Toffer Peak — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:56:53 +0000

Graham – As I admit above I may have exaggerated to make a quick, simple point. I’ve also linked to lots of sources that have led me to these conclusions. Since you’re the creator of tRA maybe you wouldn’t mind explaining my stupidity rather than pouting? Links to previous work would be fine.

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:29:22 +0000

“HRs and LD% need to be, or should be, regressed significantly more than stats such as BBs and Ks which have been proven to be under the control of pitchers unlike HRs and LDs.”

Perhaps it would be better to understand the metric more deeply rather than making false accusations which are quite frankly an insult to my intelligence.

By: B

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:38:12 +0000

“tRA uses HRs allowed and LD%, both of which have been proven to be beyond the pitcher’s control, (outside of FBs allowed)”

I’d be interested in this research if anyone wants to share the links. I’m pretty skeptical of the conclusions that certain results are totally “beyond the pitcher’s control”. Just because a number tends to regress towards a league wide mean does not necessarily mean a pitcher has no control over it (or that it’s actually regressing towards the league mean, each pitcher may have a slightly different mean of their own) – so it may be they have a very limited amount of control over it. I’d like to read the research before judging whether this conclusion is off base or not, though.

I see a lot of problems with LD% in general, so you may be right that it’s not a good stat to include. My guess is there will often be balls hit where the only difference between whether it’s classified as a LD or FB is whether it happens to fall in for a hit. In those situations, rather than LD% causing hits, hits are causing LD%.

“To keep things simple it would probably be best if FanGraphs simply replaced FIP with xFIP.”

I’m under the impression FIP has been tested to be a better stat than xFIP. If someone thinks otherwise, I’d be interested to see the evidence.

By: Disco

Disco — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:17:00 +0000

I love me some King Felix. I wrote recently on my website that Felix could potentially become the best pitcher in baseball going forward over Tim Lincecum.

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:02:36 +0000

It’s about time Felix gets a post, he is so dominant it’s unbelievable. Long live the King!

By: AT

AT — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:38:38 +0000

Best pitcher in baseball in my humble opinion. At least the one I’d want to build a team around. And to think he’s still younger than many of the top flight pitching prospects being called up this year.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:53:23 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t tRA* regress numbers based on how quickly they stabilize (meaning HR and LD would be regressed more than BB and K)? I agree wholeheartedly with the second part of Toffer’s comment though – it seems as though there has to be a better way to take into account what we know about the pitcher in the regression. Wouldn’t the current method of doing artificially inflate top pitchers’ tRA*s (as they are regressed each year as though they were rookies, I think)