Over the past eight seasons, few pitchers have been as consistent from season to season as Jamie Moyer. However, if you merely peruse his ERAs over those years, you probably wouldn’t come to that conclusion, as he has had ERAs ranging from a very good 3.27 in 2003 to a 5.21 mark the following season that had many assuming his career was just about over. But when we strip away some of the luck factors and look more at his peripheral statistics, we can see that the 47-year-old has been about as consistent as anyone in baseball during that time.

A good way to strip away the luck factors and still focus on a single statistic is by using Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP). Over the past eight years, Moyer’s xFIPs have ranged between 4.53 and 4.86, which clearly is a much tighter range than his ERAs. How does this compare to other pitchers, though? To answer that question, I looked at the standard deviation of xFIPs from 2003-10 for each pitcher with five or more seasons in that time frame. The following table summarizes the results:

A Mark Of Consistency
These are the top pitchers in standard deviation of xFIPs from 2003-2010. (Min. 5 seasons)

Rank	Name	     xFIP SD	Seasons
1	Cole Hamels	0.06	5
2	Mike Hampton	0.08	5
3	Jamie Moyer	0.10	8
4	Gary Majewski	0.11	5
5	Jason Johnson	0.13	5
6	Chien-Ming Wang	0.14	5
7	Kyle Davies	0.15	6
8	Chris Capuano	0.15	5
9	Brett Tomko	0.16	7
10	Victor Santos	0.19	5

Moyer has been more consistent than most of his peers when you remove defense and luck, and his steady run is longer than that of anyone who is ahead of him on the list. There were 433 pitchers who fit the above criteria, and the group had an average standard deviation of 0.72. Moyer’s peripherals have been stable enough to put him in the first percentile of consistency (on a season-to-season basis) when measured with xFIP.

How does he do it? Well, Moyer has had the right mix of strikeouts and walks to keep his xFIP stable over the eight-year sample. Looking at his pitch-type information from FanGraphs shows that the results are not completely surprising, as Moyer hasn’t really changed his repertoire during the time frame in question. He has deployed the same 81 mph fastball, 79 mph cutter, 68 mph curveball and 75 mph changeup each and every season. And since he has never relied on velocity, he hasn’t had to worry about it fading over time like most pitchers do.

Additionally, Moyer’s batted-ball profile, while not traditionally considered a peripheral stat, has looked pretty similar from year to year. Opponents have had around a 20 percent line-drive rate, and ground ball and fly ball rates right around 40 percent each. It appears that having similar stuff each year has led to similar results on balls in play, and it explains why Moyer has been able to continue to succeed into his late 40s.

On Monday, nestled in his comments on potential radical changes, Rob Neyer called for some simulation work, saying the following:

“When thinking about the impact of realignment, additional wild cards, or whatever, it would be shockingly simple to set up some simulations and figure out what it would mean for competitive balance, fairness, fan interest, TV ratings, attendance, etc.”

With the help of a season simulation that decides the outcome of each game using the log5 formula, we can address the impact different realignment options would have on the 2010 season. I will measure the impact by comparing playoff probabilities across the various alignments. The alignments simulated were the current divisional alignment, an alignment based on 2009 record and an alignment based on 2009 payroll. The divisions in the realignment options were created using a snake system based on each criterium, and the fallout is as follows.

MLB, Realigned By 2009 Record

MLB, Realigned By 2009 Payroll

I used CHONE projections (specifically the Starting Lineup Projected Standings) for the team’s strengths and simulated each season 10,000 times. The resulting playoff probabilities are as follows:

Projections Of Realigned MLB

A few observations:

The big takeaway is this: The Red Sox benefit from being in a non-Yankees division, becoming nearly as close to a playoff lock as the Yankees themselves. And New York even sees its playoff odds increase in both realignments. The bottom line is that splitting up these two teams just makes it more likely that both of them make the playoffs.

In the NL, there are only a few instances where playoff probabilities change drastically. One is the Phillies becoming the top projected team in their division under the 2009 record alignment. The other is because of the relative weakness of Division 2 in the 2009 payroll alignment, allowing some weaker-projected teams to make the playoffs more often.

In the AL, most of the large swings in playoff probabilities result from moving into or out of divisions that have either the Yankees or Red Sox.

The Rays, one of the teams most often seen as the biggest victim of the current alignment, pass the Twins and Rangers to become the third-most-likely team to make the playoffs in either realignment.