Scoring for Pitchers

[Canada8999]

While it may seem intuitive that %LD is controlled by a pitcher, that is not what statistical research has concluded - instead, a pitchers %LD will vary only with 'noise'.  The same is not true for %GB and %FB, which are influenced by the pitcher.  Here is some research on a pitcher's control over the types of hits:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/another-look-at-batted-balls-and-dips/

(1) Pitchers have great control over whether a ball becomes an outfield fly ball, infield fly ball, or ground ball, but show no consistency in the number of line drives they allow from one year to another; (2) Pitchers have pretty much no impact on whether a batted ball becomes a hit, and if it does, what kind of a hit it becomes; and (3) This includes home runs, which seem to be solely a function of the number of outfield flies and line drives a pitcher allows.

Since pitchers display no year-to-year consistency in the percentage of batted balls they allow that are line drives, we would then expect them to show little year-to-year consistency in BABIP, which is what happens.

[rcankosy]

Guys,

I have two main concerns about our pitching scoring system.

1.  It seems as if our hitting and pitching scoring systems are contradictory.  If we truly believe that a pitcher is not responsible for what happens once a ball is hit into the air, why don't we use the same hitting categories as pitching?  Does anyone really believe that all of the non-HR hits are just a combination of defense and luck?  Were Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, and Tony Gwynn just lucky all those years?  I'm not trying to be sarcastic here.  I want to hear from the guys that buy this defensive independent pitching theory.

2.  What harm is there in using pitching categories such as ERA and WHIP even if some of us think they are largely products of defense and luck?  Hitters have great years, and we don't penailze them for that.  Why are we trying to "normalize" the pitchers and not the hitters?  If a pitcher is not really good, he'll be bad the next year anyway.  Good years are good years in my book, so we should reflect them. 

Roy

[bridgestone]

Much of the hitters scoring is based on runs created formula which uses all hits.  Perhaps we should have some type of runs prevented formula used for pitchers and use 1B, 2B, and 3B as well?

[Canada8999]

1.  It seems as if our hitting and pitching scoring systems are contradictory.  If we truly believe that a pitcher is not responsible for what happens once a ball is hit into the air, why don't we use the same hitting categories as pitching?  Does anyone really believe that all of the non-HR hits are just a combination of defense and luck?  Were Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, and Tony Gwynn just lucky all those years?  I'm not trying to be sarcastic here.  I want to hear from the guys that buy this defensive independent pitching theory.

Batters do have control, pitchers do not.  I know you guys said you didn't want to re-invent the wheel, but most of these questions are about trying to do just that.

2.  What harm is there in using pitching categories such as ERA and WHIP even if some of us think they are largely products of defense and luck?  Hitters have great years, and we don't penailze them for that.  Why are we trying to "normalize" the pitchers and not the hitters?  If a pitcher is not really good, he'll be bad the next year anyway.  Good years are good years in my book, so we should reflect them.

Because this was a founding principle of the league...

[Canada8999]

Much of the hitters scoring is based on runs created formula which uses all hits.  Perhaps we should have some type of runs prevented formula used for pitchers and use 1B, 2B, and 3B as well?

This would be incorrect - batters have much more control over what happens, pitchers only have impact on whether its a K, BB or if in play FB vs GB.

[rcankosy]

OK guys, I was waiting for the perfect example of how the pitching scoring does NOT reflect reality and we had it last night.  Texas beat Boston 7-2.  Hunter went 7 solid innings, while Wakefield last just 2.  Hunter allowed only 2 ER, while Wakefield got bombed for 6 and got knocked out of the game.  Hunter did his job.  Wakefield did NOT.  And what do our stats show?  Hunter got a whopping NEGATIVE 4 points for his fine effort, while Wakefield got 21 points!  Don't tell me what Wakefield was just UNLUCKY.  Wakefield got hit like a drunken ho from her pimp after a subpar night, while Hunter pitched a quality game against a good team.  Something's wrong here folks.  At the very least, we need to add ERA and innings to our formulas to properly reflect outings like the one I just described.

[Colby]

What could we add that is not an earned run equivalent statistic that goes in line with our scoring system?  What was the comparison in line drives for these two pitchers?

[Colby]

Hunter allowed two bombs but both were solo shots.  He becomes unlucky in our scoring system because the runs allowed were few.  He had 14 fly balls, 9 ground balls and 1 line drive across 6.2 innings.  He threw 67 strikes and 41 balls.  He only had one strikeout and had two walks.  However, despite those bad stats of 1 K, 2 BB, and 2 HR across nearly 7 innings, he only allowed five hits.  He was lucky to only allow five hits considering the other stats.

Wakefield allowed one bomb and 6 ER in his 2 IP across 8 hits.  He had 2 strikeouts to no walks which was nice in that short time frame.  He allowed four fly balls, six ground balls, but three line drives.  His ratios of K/BB and GB/FB were better than Hunter.

I do agree that something is missing in this example.  The difference maker, as I pointed out to earlier, may be the line drives.

Here is some sample data from 2004 in a blog by Hard Ball Times:

                NUMBER     OUTS    OUT%
Groundballs       9952     7208     72%
Flyballs          7845     6179     79%
Line Drives       4082     1050     26%
Total            21879    14437     66%

Source: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/groundballs-flyballs-and-line-drives/

Obviously, we already know it, but line drives are bad.  Flyballs aren't recorded in our scoring system but it appears that they should be.  Both Wakefield and Hunter had about 2 FB/IP.  Hunter actually had a slightly higher ratio since he pitched 6.2 innings and not 7 full innings.

The reason we don't have flyballs in our scoring system is because of the likelihood for them to become home runs.  Generally, it has been shown that 10% of flyballs become homers.  That is something to work with if we incorporated FB into the system.

I guess I would be open to incorporating FB and LD (the bigger factor) into the scoring system.  We would have to give more credence to K's and IP to keep the overall scoring on the Jamesian ratios.

[Mr.TradeKing]

I understand that 10% of fly balls end up being HR's but that also depends on park/weather and the hitter. Some batters just don't have HR power and hit a handful each yr, but they may fly out a lot. In baseball, I was always taught to hit line drives and ground balls b/c it is harder for the defensive to record the out on a ground ball than a fly ball. All a defender has to do is catch a fly ball, however inorder to record the out on the ground ball, the defender must field it, make a good exchange, a good throw and the basemen must catch the ball. So by simple addition that is 4 opportunities for something to go wrong on a ground ball compared to 1 for a fly ball.

~MTK

[rcankosy]

Colby,

I propose that we adopt Bill James' formulas of Runs Created for offense and Game Score for pitching.  Game Score is calculated as follows

Start with 50 points.
Add 1 point for each out recorded, so 3 points for every complete inning pitched.
Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th.
Add 1 point for each strikeout.
Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed.
Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed.
Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed.
Subtract 1 point for each walk.   

James' formulas are accurate and easy to follow.  They accurately reflect what really happened on the field without trying to eliminate what some folks here consider luck.