How's He Doing It?

[Sssuperdave]

As I was thinking about the awesome season Ervin Santana is having I decided to spend some time exploring his Baseball Reference and Fangraphs pages, and found some results I thought were very interesting. Perhaps those more experienced with these stats could help me interpret them.

 

I was surprised to see that there has been nothing interesting about his K/9, BB/9 and HR/9 (as well as K%, BB%, and HR%). All of these are the same or worse than career averages. In fact, his K/BB rate of 2.00 is the lowest of his career. What did jump though out is his H/9, which at 5.3 is the best in the majors this year, 3.3 hits lower than his career average and 2.8 lower than his previously best season.  This is driving his WHIP below 1 for the first time in his career, and his BABIP against to a ridiculously low .171.

 

Going further, his GB and FB%'s aren't all that notable, but his LD% against of 14.7% is well below his career average of 20.1%

 

What do we make of all this? Has be benefitted dramatically by the improved defense? Is he inducing weaker contact somehow? Perhaps his pitches have a bit more break this year, but then why isn't he striking guys out more? Has his approached changed? Dare I ask... has it been mostly luck?

 

The last thing I noticed was that Baseball Reference and Fangraphs give him dramatically different WAR this year. Baseball Reference is at 3.1, where Fangraphs is at a much less impressive 0.9. I think the low Fangraphs number is driven by his FIP and xFIP, which at 4.68 and 4.91 actually aren't all that good, perhaps due to the things like the K/BB and BABIP numbers I mentioned above.

 

So... what do you all think? 

[bluechipper]

I don't understand the big difference in WAR between the cites. Who cares what your FIP is when it's about results. WAR isn't a predictive stat.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

As I was thinking about the awesome season Ervin Santana is having I decided to spend some time exploring his Baseball Reference and Fangraphs pages, and found some results I thought were very interesting. Perhaps those more experienced with these stats could help me interpret them.

 

I was surprised to see that there has been nothing interesting about his K/9, BB/9 and HR/9 (as well as K%, BB%, and HR%). All of these are the same or worse than career averages. In fact, his K/BB rate of 2.00 is the lowest of his career. What did jump though out is his H/9, which at 5.3 is the best in the majors this year, 3.3 hits lower than his career average and 2.8 lower than his previously best season. This is driving his WHIP below 1 for the first time in his career, and his BABIP against to a ridiculously low .171.

 

Going further, his GB and FB%'s aren't all that notable, but his LD% against of 14.7% is well below his career average of 20.1%

 

What do we make of all this? Has be benefitted dramatically by the improved defense? Is he inducing weaker contact somehow? Perhaps his pitches have a bit more break this year, but then why isn't he striking guys out more? Has his approached changed? Dare I ask... has it been mostly luck?

 

The last thing I noticed was that Baseball Reference and Fangraphs give him dramatically different WAR this year. Baseball Reference is at 3.1, where Fangraphs is at a much less impressive 0.9. I think the low Fangraphs number is driven by his FIP and xFIP, which at 4.68 and 4.91 actually aren't all that good, perhaps due to the things like the K/BB and BABIP numbers I mentioned above.

 

So... what do you all think?

his hard hit rate is down slightly as well.

 

I think his most telling stat is BABIP, in reference to why is ERA is low and FIP is high.

 

I like to call it "The Byron Buxton Effect"

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I don't understand the big difference in WAR between the cites. Who cares what your FIP is when it's about results. WAR isn't a predictive stat.

you are correct, WAR is not predictive, but I get the OP's intent to try to parse out the difference between the two to figure it out.

 

 

I do however care quite a bit that his FIP to ERA are quite a bit different. The question is "How is he doing it?".

 

Those two stats are the very basis of the question. How... is with very good outfield defense.

[ashbury]

I like to call it "The Byron Buxton Effect"

I started to joke, does Byron withhold his services when Kyle Gibson is on the mound?

 

But then I looked at Kyle's game log. There is no shortage of bad games to choose from, but when I sort by the "Game Score" shorthand tool at bb-ref.com, 4 of the 6 worst games this year had someone other than Buxton starting in CF. In Gibby's 2 decent starts, Buxton was there for both.

 

Kyle's not Ervin. But maybe you are onto something there.

 

Then again, Ervin has had only 4 starts that were less than very good. Buxton was there in CF for all 4.

 

Analysis is not easy.

[Doomtints]

There are a few variants of WAR. As far as I know, Fangraphs is the only one that uses FIP for pitchers. The other systems all use Runs Allowed and then add a few other metrics in. In other words, the other variants are more granular.

 

FIP is considered to be pretty weak nowadays. I'm not saying Fangraphs should move to Runs Allowed like the other systems, but they should strongly consider moving to xFIP or SIERA. Note that by using FIP, it is impossible for Fangraphs to consider the team defense behind the pitcher.

 

The Fangraphs version of WAR does a couple of other idiosyncratic things that the other systems don't do, such as putting base stealing stats in with the batting stats. All of the other systems put it in baserunning. fWAR also does not consider double plays or distinguish between IF/OF hits. fWAR does not yet support pitch framing either, in spite the website of being a big proponent of it.

[jorgenswest]

There are a few variants of WAR. As far as I know, Fangraphs is the only one that uses FIP for pitchers. The other systems all use Runs Allowed and then add a few other metrics in. In other words, the other variants are more granular.

 

FIP is considered to be pretty weak nowadays. I'm not saying Fangraphs should move to Runs Allowed like the other systems, but they should strongly consider moving to xFIP or SIERA. Note that by using FIP, it is impossible for Fangraphs to consider the team defense behind the pitcher.

 

The Fangraphs version of WAR does a couple of other idiosyncratic things that the other systems don't do, such as putting base stealing stats in with the batting stats. All of the other systems put it in baserunning. fWAR also does not consider double plays or distinguish between IF/OF hits. fWAR does not yet support pitch framing either, in spite the website of being a big proponent of it.

Isn't the difference between FIP and xFIP simply the calculation of home runs given up by pitcher? The other components are strike outs and walks. Both remove the defense with the exception of a catcher impacting strike outs and walks. FIP uses actual home runs and xFIP use fly ball rate to predict the number of home runs a pitcher should have given up. Since home run rate needs a large sample to stabilize and fly ball rate does not, xFIP is more reliable in smaller samples and has shown to be a better ERA estimators than FIP.

 

As for WAR, I think both do the same job of filtering out the defense using the three true outcomes. Using FIP for a pitcher rather than xFIP is consistent with using actual home runs on the batter side instead of trying to do something predictive with fly ball rate on the batter side. With WAR they aren't trying to predict future value so I think it makes more sense to use actual home runs.

[Doomtints]

Yes. I'm not trying to say fWAR is bad, although it probably will be read that way by some people. It's just different, is all. In my opinion it could stand to be revised. The other WAR variants have all been revised/updated as new insights become available.

 

fWAR always feels to me like it sticks out a bit, which may be part of why people like it I suppose. There is a strong craving for something that sticks out in the sea of metrics that is baseball stats, esp. if people think outlying stats = predicting the future.

[gunnarthor]

How about pitch framing as a part of the solution? Last year, Santana wasn't getting the corners so he'd have to pitch back into the zone more, where opponents can get better swings on the pitch?  I have no idea if this is right but I would guess that if pitch framing is a thing, one added benefit would be to enlarge the zone and Santana has been very good with his command in the zone (to my layman's eyes). That doesn't mean he's not afraid to walk a guy either.

 

I think a different thread posted an article from fangraphs (?) that showed Santana's approach against Rangers' slogger Joey Gallo and how he kept peppering certain areas and didn't miss those spots.

[ToddlerHarmon]

Hmm. The variables this year are more Buxton, Castro/Gimenez, a supposed emphasis on fastball command, and Allen able to employ his pitching philosophy unfettered, which seems to include sometimes throwing high in the zone. The last two seem the most likely to change LD%, but they are also the hardest to quantify. I would be curious to see whether a statistician thinks the sample size is big enough to know whether the LD% is a fluke.

[Doomtints]

 

How about pitch framing as a part of the solution? Last year, Santana wasn't getting the corners so he'd have to pitch back into the zone more, where opponents can get better swings on the pitch?  I have no idea if this is right but I would guess that if pitch framing is a thing, one added benefit would be to enlarge the zone and Santana has been very good with his command in the zone (to my layman's eyes). That doesn't mean he's not afraid to walk a guy either.

 

I think a different thread posted an article from fangraphs (?) that showed Santana's approach against Rangers' slogger Joey Gallo and how he kept peppering certain areas and didn't miss those spots.

 

I see two metrics that stand out with Santana:

 

- His BABIP is unsustainably awesome.

- His H/9 is better than his career norm.

 

His FIP, xFIP, and SIERA back up BABIP's suggestion of luck. Considering the rest of the pitchers are not lucky at all -- and thus defense/pitch framing is not helping the rest of the staff -- regression seems likely. Note that if Santana "regresses" we are still looking at a very respectable ERA in the mid-3s.

 

Unless Santana is paying a bounty to every position player who gets outs behind him and that's why he appears lucky, I think he'll finish near his recent career norms.

If the rest of the pitching staff were better this year, I think we could start talking about pitch framing making a difference. Considering how often we see Gimenez on the field, I'm not sure the Twins buy it all that much yet either.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I started to joke, does Byron withhold his services when Kyle Gibson is on the mound?

 

But then I looked at Kyle's game log. There is no shortage of bad games to choose from, but when I sort by the "Game Score" shorthand tool at bb-ref.com, 4 of the 6 worst games this year had someone other than Buxton starting in CF. In Gibby's 2 decent starts, Buxton was there for both.

 

Kyle's not Ervin. But maybe you are onto something there.

 

Then again, Ervin has had only 4 starts that were less than very good. Buxton was there in CF for all 4.

 

Analysis is not easy.

agreed! Another poster brought up pitch framing as well. Also tough to analyze.

 

Defensive metrics and pitch framing metrics needs full seasons of data for the fielder/catcher. Now we're trying to analyze the combination of pitcher and fielder/catcher over two months of data. Talk about SSS!

[Respy]

 

The last thing I noticed was that Baseball Reference and Fangraphs give him dramatically different WAR this year. Baseball Reference is at 3.1, where Fangraphs is at a much less impressive 0.9.

 

It's of course all relative to the algorithms used, but I've considered anything above about 6 WAR for a starting pitcher to mean they pitched a full season at ace/elite level.  Clayton Kershaw, for example, is usually around 6-8 WAR.  I would say Santana's WAR of 3.1 from Baseball Reference at half way through the season, sounds about right.

 

His Fangraphs rating of 0.9 WAR puts Santana on pace for about 2 WAR by the end of season, which is just not right, considering Fangraphs' own definition of WAR: "Average starting pitchers also are worth around 2 WAR."  Santana has not been an average pitcher this year.

 

This also from Fangraphs:

 

"For position players and starting pitchers, here is a good rule-of-thumb chart:

Scrub 0-1 WAR
Role Player 1-2 WAR
Solid Starter 2-3 WAR
Good Player 3-4 WAR
All-Star 4-5 WAR
Superstar 5-6 WAR
MVP 6+ WAR"

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/

[Respy]

Also this: "FanGraphs’ WAR for pitchers is based on FIP (plus infield fly balls). We also have a version called RA9-WAR which is based on runs allowed. Baseball-Reference uses runs allowed and attempts to correct for the team defense."

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/

 

So you are correct that his low Fangraphs WAR seems to be based on FIP.  Which, I generally don't agree with that methodology because WAR should be based on actual stats, not theoretical stats or accounting for how lucky/unlucky you are.  A low actual ERA contributes to teams' wins, not FIP.

[jorgenswest]

WAR tells the story of the previous season or in this case the last few months. It is useful in its ability to add to the story in any sample.

 

It is not a predictive measure. If it tells the story of someone being a role player last year, it does not mean that we should expect the player to be a role player this year. It adds to the story of Santana's first few months but does not help project the next few months.

 

As for FIP, it uses actual stats. Strikeouts, walks and home runs who some consider the three true outcomes. It is not a good ERA estimator because home run rate takes a large sample to stabilize. It does give us a picture about how a pitcher performed relative to the three elements for which they have greatest control.

[Brandon]

Remember Santana also had similar stats the second half of last year too.  i think he made the adjustments last May or Early June if I remember correctly.  So he has been pitching good since then. 

[Mike Sixel]

Good luck on LoB%, in other words, some kind of magic anti-sequencing voodoo would be my guess.

[nicksaviking]

His Left On Base % is also at a career high, and by a lot. He's 3rd in the league in fact and 14% than his career average.

 

Which makes zero sense considering his walk rate his higher and strikeout rate is lower than any time in the past ten years. He's doing well based on his miniscule 5.3 H/9 which is leading the league. In his previous seven seasons he has had a H/9 between 8.1 and 8.9 every single year. Once this figure normalizes, the party's over. I'm very concerned about him going forward.

[h2oface]

After the incredible start, he has been very inconsistent, with great/very good performances alternating with terrible performances. Overall still good, but coming back to normal,  2-3-4 pitcher, depending on the day.