Just an observation on Cahill & Breslow and maybe KT

by golfmanthee on Dec 9, 2011 9:32 PM EST

Was going over Dbacks stats in the wake of the trade and I think I noticed an interesting trend in current DBacks pitchers. It seems to me that KT greatly values pitchers who pitch better than their FIP and/or xFIP. I'm sure he probably isn't even aware of it but check out the numbers after the jump.

Someone posted that in the rumor thread that Cahill's FIP worried himso I started checking it out and he has exceeded his career FIp by quite a bit. So I started pulling current DBacks pitchers to see how they compare. Seemed like a lot of them did the same - career ERA exceeds FIP and xFIP. So I pulled every Dback pitcher that threw a pitch for the DBacks last year and their ERA and FIP and xFIP. I also entered IP and sorted by IP so we could weed out the guys who have throw a handful of career IP:

	IP	ERA	Fip	xFIP	Fip-era	Xfip-era
J Marquis	1675.2	4.55	4.79	4.62	0.24	0.07
Duke	1041.0	4.56	4.31	4.34	-0.25	-0.22
J Saunders	986.2	4.16	4.65	4.52	0.49	0.36
AA Heilman	630.0	4.40	4.22	4.12	-0.18	-0.28
A Galarraga	518.0	4.69	5.34	4.88	0.65	0.19
Ian Kennedy	475.2	3.65	3.89	4.02	0.24	0.37
Owings	473.1	4.91	4.95	4.93	0.04	0.02
Putz	464.1	3.06	3.25	3.37	0.19	0.31
Daniel Hudson	336.0	3.19	3.42	3.88	0.23	0.69
Ziegler	252.0	2.43	3.38	3.72	0.95	1.29
D Hernandez	250.0	4.50	4.92	4.76	0.42	0.26
J Gutierrez	167.1	4.79	4.28	4.24	-0.51	-0.55
Collmenter	154.1	3.38	3.80	4.18	0.42	0.80
E Vasquez	137.0	4.66	4.50	4.90	-0.16	0.24
B enright	136.2	4.87	6.00	5.00	1.13	0.13
Y Brazoban	121.0	4.76	4.37	4.55	-0.39	-0.21
S Demel	62.2	4.88	4.73	4.07	-0.15	-0.81
A Castillo	60.1	4.33	5.02	4.81	0.69	0.48
W Miley	40.0	4.50	5.08	4.35	0.58	-0.15
J Paterson	34.0	2.91	3.44	4.24	0.53	1.33
K Mickolio	31.2	4.83	3.03	4.08	-1.80	-0.75
B Shaw	28.1	2.54	3.52	3.27	0.98	0.73
Z Kroenke	10.2	7.59	7.18	4.91	-0.41	-2.68
Ryan cook	7.2	7.04	4.33	5.80	-2.71	-1.24
J parker	5.2	0.00	3.20	5.42	3.20	5.42

C Breslow	279.0	3.06	3.80	4.40	0.74	1.34
t Cahill	583.0	3.91	4.51	4.23	0.60	0.32

2011 MLB overall		3.94	3.94	3.93

The way it's set up, positive numbers are pitchers who exceed their predicted number and negative numbers are guys who fail to live up to their expected numbers.

I threw in all of MLB for 2011 so you can see that FIP and xFIP pretty fairly assess pitcher skill over many pitchers.

Looking at the guys expected to contribute next year, I see a LOT of guys who have pitched much better than their expected numbers and Breslow & Cahill fit right into that dynamic with HUGE ERA/FIP discrepencies.

Do you suppose KT has something for guys who pitch better than their numbers suggest? (either consciously or subconsciously?)

Just an observation, nothing more.

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One thought

FIP is simply based of K, BB and HR. If a pitcher has a good defense behind him, converting a higher percentage of balls in play in to outs, this could lead to results consistently better than FIP would expect. With fly-ball pitchers, outfield defense would be particularly important, and we would seem to have both on the 2011 Diamondbacks.

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by Jim McLennan on Dec 9, 2011 11:23 PM EST reply actions

Agreed,

Most of the pitchers that exceed their FIP and xFIP are going to be guys who make a living pitching to contact successfully. KT’s logic might be that, if these guys can outperform their peripherals (which seem to be increasingly determining market value) with an average defense, then they should be even better in front of our fantastic defense.

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by Zavada's Moustache on Dec 9, 2011 11:51 PM EST up reply actions

Exactly

FIP doesn’t account for GB% although almost counter-intuitively, GB’s actually go for hits more than FB’s, but rarely do GB’s go for XBH and they provide an opportunity for a double play.

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by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Dec 11, 2011 12:06 PM EST up reply actions

Ehh,

I don’t think this is fair to say. FIP/xFIP tries to account for GB’s by using HR/FB% as an input for xFIP. The big difference is often LD% – pitchers who find themselves somehow maintaining a shockingly-low LD% manage to beat FIP because FIP and xFIP somewhat unintentionally and inherently assume that a pitcher will give up a league-average number of line drives. If a pitcher gives up less than a league-average number of line drives, they are showing a skill that FIP doesn’t think exists.

For instance, Ricky Romero didn’t necessarily dominate because he induced a ton of ground balls, it’s because he allowed just 14.2% line drives (zomgz absurd). Hence, his ERA of 2.92 and FIP of 4.20. Next on the list of lowest LD% among qualifying starters was Cole Hamels, whose 15.0% LD% translated into an ERA of 2.79 off an FIP of 3.05. The following guys: Jhoulys Chacin, Jon Lester, Mat Latos, R.A. Dickey, Philip Humber.

Speaking of Latos, he actually had a higher ERA than FIP in spite of a LD% of just 16.1%. He’d be a good get if someone were to blow Josh Byrnes away, even moving out of Petco.

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by Dan Strittmatter on Dec 12, 2011 2:46 AM EST up reply actions

does LB%

really account for difference between ERA and FIP though? Hamels’s ERA/FIP are pretty close

by blue bulldog on Dec 12, 2011 4:00 AM EST up reply actions

Difference of 0.26?

Pretty significant. And unlike a lot of the rest of the group, he actually strikes people out, so there are fewer balls in play for FIP to misvalue him on.

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by Dan Strittmatter on Dec 14, 2011 9:12 PM EST up reply actions

OMG

I would be so happy if we got Latos. It will never happen, obviously, but it’s fun to dream about.

Ian, Daniel, Josh, and two Trevors: It's not a Christian rock group.

by Zavada's Moustache on Dec 12, 2011 5:50 PM EST up reply actions

With KT's emphasis on character

there is NO WAY we trade for Latos. He’s a head case.

"Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hitting." Yogi Berra

by njjohn on Dec 13, 2011 12:41 PM EST up reply actions

Is he?

I hadn’t heard that. What sort of issues does he have?

Ian, Daniel, Josh, and two Trevors: It's not a Christian rock group.

by Zavada's Moustache on Dec 13, 2011 9:23 PM EST up reply actions

General weirdness and cockiness, last I heard.

Eccentricities, natural and innocent though they might be, still can create clubhouse rifts. A solid point.

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by Dan Strittmatter on Dec 14, 2011 9:13 PM EST up reply actions

After I posted that, I started playing with fangraphs and

ran the overall numbers from 2002-2011 and just eyeballing it, it looks to me like teams in pitchers parks (Dodgers, Giants, A’s, Padres) tend to outperform their FIP and teams in hitters parks (Rockies, Rangers, DBacks) tend to underperform thier FIP so I wonder if FIP needs to be park-adjusted in some way?

by golfmanthee on Dec 10, 2011 12:22 AM EST reply actions

a couple things

1) xFIP is supposed to adjust for park, by adjusting FIP to league average HR/FB rates

2) there’s some selection-bias at work. in general, if a pitcher’s ERA is better than their FIP, their pitcher’s ERA will simply be better overall. KT could be influenced by a pitcher’s ERA only, and that would have an effect, because those guys are also likely to have ERA’s better than their FIP’s

by blue bulldog on Dec 10, 2011 1:36 AM EST up reply actions

So much for our great defense

With the Kubel signing….

But the reason Beane gave us Cahill is that he thinks FIP/xFIP is telling him that Cahill has been lucky, and isn’t going to be as good going forward. This doesn’t mean that Beane thinks the bottom is going to drop out on Cahill, but given he’s also going to get more expensive with his contract he apparently likes Parker more. And Parker probably fits in their next good team better, since the DBacks are better positioned to win now than the As.

But I worry about the over-all mediocrity in Cahill’s sub-stats. Poor K rate, poor walk rate, so-so ERA+. What Towers sees is a starter with one of the best ground ball rates and best ground ball to fly ball ratios in the league, and thinks that will play very well here (and in Coors). Esp. with Kubel in left.

I hope he’s right.

by valuearb on Dec 21, 2011 3:23 AM EST reply actions

Now would be the best time to gamble,

with his job guaranteed for several years.

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by xmet on Dec 21, 2011 7:03 AM EST up reply actions