Yet another RA Dickey thread...

[DaveW]

 

Knuckleballers vs. FIP

FIP = ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP))-(2*K))/IP + constant

Why exactly do these not apply to him? Does his knuckleball change how many HR's, BB's or k's he has? If it was true that knuckleballers were exempt from this stat it would show up in other knuckleballers stats. Here are career ERA and FIP numbers of a few knuckleballers as well as Dickey's 3 year average:

No, FIP is a terrible way to judge him because it makes the case that his low BABIP is "luck" rather then "Skill". The majority of balls put in play against Dickey are "bad batted balls" as in the hitter is not making even close to good contact.

 

Again you can point out FIP all you want, the fact is Dickey's ERA is over a full run lower then Dempster over the last 3 years, and it's not due to luck. You pointing out there WAR shows how WAR is a flawed stat.

 

2009 has no bearing on this discussion in regards to Dickey and it shouldn't even be brought up, he was clearly a totally different pitcher as he wasn't even starting back then. (other then a single game)

[Reginald Maudling's Shin]

No, FIP is a terrible way to judge him because it makes the case that his low BABIP is "luck" rather then "Skill". The majority of balls put in play against Dickey are "bad batted balls" as in the hitter is not making even close to good contact.

 

 

FIP is an empirical equation, i.e. "let's put some numbers together until they make sense". I don't like using empirical equations in every circumstance. I have other engineers who give me designs to review based on empirical equations all the time that don't make sense.

 

I wonder how to quantify and prove the idea that sustained low BABIP from non-strikeout pitchers equates to a skill. Here are the pitchers last year with an FIP-ERA>0.5:

 

[TABLE]

Name

Team

W

L

GS

IP

K/9

BB/9

HR/9

BABIP

ERA

FIP

xFIP

WAR

FIP-ERA

Jeremy Hellickson

Rays

10

11

31

177

6.31

3.00

1.27

0.261

3.10

4.60

4.44

1.0

1.5

Jered Weaver

Angels

20

5

30

188.2

6.77

2.15

0.95

0.241

2.81

3.75

4.18

3.0

0.94

Jason Vargas

Mariners

14

11

33

217.1

5.84

2.28

1.45

0.254

3.85

4.69

4.45

0.8

0.84

Matt Harrison

Rangers

18

11

32

213.1

5.61

2.49

0.93

0.284

3.29

4.03

4.13

3.8

0.74

Kyle Lohse

Cardinals

16

3

33

211

6.1

1.62

0.81

0.262

2.86

3.51

3.96

3.6

0.65

Ross Detwiler

Nationals

10

8

27

164.1

5.75

2.85

0.82

0.263

3.40

4.04

4.34

1.8

0.64

Clayton Richard

Padres

14

14

33

218.2

4.4

1.73

1.28

0.272

3.99

4.62

4.16

0.2

0.63

Matt Cain

Giants

16

5

32

219.1

7.92

2.09

0.86

0.259

2.79

3.40

3.82

3.8

0.61

Jordan Zimmermann

Nationals

12

8

32

195.2

7.04

1.98

0.83

0.288

2.94

3.51

3.78

3.5

0.57

Hiroki Kuroda

Yankees

16

11

33

219.2

6.84

2.09

1.02

0.281

3.32

3.86

3.67

3.9

0.54

R.A. Dickey

Mets

20

6

33

233.2

8.86

2.08

0.92

0.275

2.73

3.27

3.27

4.6

0.54

Aaron Harang

Dodgers

10

10

31

179.2

6.56

4.26

0.7

0.277

3.61

4.14

4.95

1.5

0.53

[/TABLE]

 

Most of these pitchers are low strikeout guys, which makes sense since FIP is strongly related to K's. But can we say pitchers like Jered Weaver and Dickey (who excepting for this year has had low K-rates) have the skills to cause poorly hit balls?

[Brock Beauchamp]

Testing post.

[Shane Wahl]

Rather low to talk about Greinke's mental health history (by the way, if you AREN'T anxious and depressed given the world we live in, something is wrong with YOU!) and "fat 15-year-old girls."

 

All for R.A. Dickey

[johnnydakota]

I would bet you could offer lower ranked prospects if you also took Santana back. Mets would probably love to include his $20+ million salary. They just extended Wright and owner has money trouble. We need 2 more pitchers and have the $25 million to spend.

 

santana is owed 25.5 million and another 5 million for buying out his option year

[Fire Dan Gladden]

[)

 

 

Aging

Wakefield and the Niekro brothers aged well, good for them. Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens aged well too. These anectdotes mean little with regards to how other pitchers will perform as they age.

.

 

I believe if you took knuckleball pitchers as a group, and non-knuckleball pitchers as a group, you would find that knuckleballers in general pitch more effectively after the age of 40 than non-knuckleballers. If you asked 30 GMs who they think would be pitching effectively at age 41, how many would say Dempster would and Dickey wouldn't? Zero. How many would say Dickey would still be effective at 41? Probably all. This is not anecdotes, this is just the way it is. This portion of your argument has no legs whatsoever.

[DaveW]

Rather low to talk about Greinke's mental health history (by the way, if you AREN'T anxious and depressed given the world we live in, something is wrong with YOU!) and "fat 15-year-old girls."

 

All for R.A. Dickey

 

It was obviously in jest (maybe in poor taste, but this is the internet after all!) Sorry if I offended you with my hyperbole?

 

Greinke's mental healthy history should be taken into factor though (and it is), just like any players injury history or substance abuse history (Josh Hamilton). Greinke is fine and dandy, but giving him 140 million is HUUUUUGGGGGGEEEE RISK

[DaveW]

Most of these pitchers are low strikeout guys' date=' which makes sense since FIP is strongly related to K's. But can we say pitchers like Jered Weaver and Dickey (who excepting for this year has had low K-rates) have the skills to cause poorly hit balls?[/quote']

 

With Dickey, it basically is the "eye ball test" I watched him pitch about 7 or 8 times this year, and hitters were completely baffled by him, the majority of the contact they made was "poor" in can of corn pop ups/flight outs/jam shots etc.

 

Weaver is an interesting case, his GB% is...well... poor, yet he has way outperformed his FIP/xFIP in each of the last 2 years.

 

I get that one year might be a fluke/statistical anomaly , but when you do it three years in a row like Dickey or two in a row Weaver it starts to become more of a trend.

 

IMO WAR for pitchers is basically worthless. I think it is much more useful for position players because it ties in the whole defense and base-running parts of their job as well.

 

Pitchers, pitch. That is pretty much 95% of their success rate (the other 5% is fielding/coverinr and pick off moves)

[Oxtung]

 

Aging

Wakefield and the Niekro brothers aged well, good for them. Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens aged well too. These anectdotes mean little with regards to how other pitchers will perform as they age.

.

 

I believe if you took knuckleball pitchers as a group, and non-knuckleball pitchers as a group, you would find that knuckleballers in general pitch more effectively after the age of 40 than non-knuckleballers. If you asked 30 GMs who they think would be pitching effectively at age 41, how many would say Dempster would and Dickey wouldn't? Zero. How many would say Dickey would still be effective at 41? Probably all. This is not anecdotes, this is just the way it is. This portion of your argument has no legs whatsoever.

 

2 things:

 

First, you start your paragraph off with the words "I think". That is an opinion and no matter how widely believed it is just that, an opinion. Until there is some kind of statistical evidence backing up your assertion my opinion is just as valid.

 

Second, my position on age has always been that Dempster is already 2 years younger than Dickey. So even if we assume your aging assertion is true, which until I see some empirical evidence I don't, they aren't starting from the same place.

[Oxtung]

 

Knuckleballers vs. FIP

FIP = ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP))-(2*K))/IP + constant

Why exactly do these not apply to him? Does his knuckleball change how many HR's, BB's or k's he has? If it was true that knuckleballers were exempt from this stat it would show up in other knuckleballers stats. Here are career ERA and FIP numbers of a few knuckleballers as well as Dickey's 3 year average:

No, FIP is a terrible way to judge him because it makes the case that his low BABIP is "luck" rather then "Skill". The majority of balls put in play against Dickey are "bad batted balls" as in the hitter is not making even close to good contact.

 

Again you can point out FIP all you want, the fact is Dickey's ERA is over a full run lower then Dempster over the last 3 years, and it's not due to luck. You pointing out there WAR shows how WAR is a flawed stat.

 

2009 has no bearing on this discussion in regards to Dickey and it shouldn't even be brought up, he was clearly a totally different pitcher as he wasn't even starting back then. (other then a single game)

 

Look you're basically making the arguement that you believe your eyes over statistics. That is just fine. As I've now said several times I'm ok with you having that opinion. I will lean towards the more empirical analysis for myself. I think we've taken this discussion about as far as we can and so probably won't be responding further. Hope you're having a great Saturday!

[Oxtung]

Bringing up Dickey's stats from the past 10 years is a joke if you know anything about his back story. How can you not know anything about his back story?

 

He's a great pitcher who could definitely pitch well into his 40s. Still, he's not a good fit for the Twins. We're not an ace away from competing. We need to develop aces.

 

 

I'm not sure if you're replying to me but if you are all of my statistics on Dickey only encompass 2010-2012, the three years he has been starting. The only lifetime statistics I posted were in regards to other knuckleball pitchers to see how their ERA compared with FIP to help determine if FIP applied to knuckleball pitchers.

[RodneyKline]

I am in the minority I'm sure but I believe that we are an ace away from competing but that ace is not RA Dickey. I do not believe he is an ace no matter that he won the the Cy Young, even if he has had three very good ERA years after he left the Twins. (BTW, between he and David Ortiz, that is a good argument against TR being able to see into the future). Knuckleball pitchers cause many issues (passed balls, stollen bases, etc) that other pitchers do not have to deal with.

 

Grienke is the ace that we need in my opinion. We still need a #2 and a #3 starter before we are competitive but I think TR will find a couple of #3 guys like he usually does and it will be much easier to sign them once Grienke is here. Grienke is the real deal as an ace. He matches up well with other aces like Verlander and CC Sabathia to name a couple that we need to worry about to be competitive.

 

This strategy is not without risk but to say that it is not a viable strategy is more stupid than my suggesting it. My main points are these: If it were my money and I had a team that was the worst in the American League two years in a row after getting a new stadium, I would make sure that we were competitive in 2013. I would not spend $100 million again this year on a team without a real number one or two starter, because that team will not get over .500. I would still put together that $100 million team but I would replace one of the $5-$10 million guys we are hearing rumors about with Grienke, I know that this increases payroll to $110 or $115 million but I believe it also makes this team competitive. I would keep accumulating good arms in the minors like he is doing (Draft another couple with the #4 and #34 picks coming up.) for the future but we need to realize that the odds are very low that one of these kids will be an ace. It can happen but an ace needs to have more than just strikeout power. He needs control and consistency to go with that live arm. That is very rare and it is what Grienke has. The last thing an ace needs is ice in his veins and a willingness to throw the team on his back when needed. That Grienke has not proven that he has or doesn't have because he has never been on the big stage but there is no other starter available that is that much of the real deal as he is.

 

Ask yourself this, if the Twins build the same team as TR always does for a $100m payroll or they replace one starter with Grienke and spend $115m let's say, which team would you bet your money on doing the best that year and every year after that. I understand fully the risk of a pitcher being one injury away from being paid $40 million for two years of rehab but I still would spend the extra $15m per year on him if it were my money. I also think that Jim Pohlad has proven that he will go to $115m if he can be convinced that it will make the team a winner. You can't build a long term winner by paying more than Mauer and Grienke this crazy money but you need to supplement your young guys with at least two to three superstars. You can trade them if the young guys turn out to be good enough but you need proven superstars until these young guns are here to stay. Mauer and Grienke cost us $43 million of a $115m payroll and that is about a third of it but I think it needs to be done to build a team that consistently competes every year.

 

This team has a good enough offense, bullpen and an OK defense, they just need a #1 and a #2 starter and they are competitive. They can get there with $115m in mlb payroll. Just my $.02

[Brock Beauchamp]

Ryan was not the GM when Dickey signed with the Twins nor was he the GM when the Twins let Dickey go.

 

Pretty hard to pin that one on Ryan.

[DaveW]

Ryan was not the GM when Dickey signed with the Twins nor was he the GM when the Twins let Dickey go.

 

Pretty hard to pin that one on Ryan.

Please Brock, you know as well as anyone that Ryan was clearly the puppet-master the whole time!!111!!!one!!

 

Also can we stop criticizing the Twins for letting Dickey go? NOBODY could predict the success he was going to have.

[Shane Wahl]

Dickey would easily be worth the money, but he is not worth the prospect(s).