Navigation: Jump to content areas:


Pro Quality. Fan Perspective.
Login-facebook
Around SBN: Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire Vow To Fit In With Lin

Consistency and Winning

That's the word that comes up when people say that Edwin Jackson is better than Andrew Sonnanstine. It's the word thrown out there without any backing, other than a thought that Jackson is probably close to an approximate measure of his talent more consecutive times out than Sonnanstine. Here's the problem; if you're using that term to say Edwin is better, you should probably research whether Edwin's performances are consistent or not before stating it.

As you all know I like judging pitchers by their innings thrown, strikeouts, walks, homeruns, groundballs, liners, swinging strikes, and strike percentage. Pitch usage is also important, but for this piece's sake less important. What is the time frame for consistency? Over this season Sonnanstine's numbers are better in every meaningful regard, isn't that more important than a five or ten game stretch in the middle of season? Baseball is a game of streaks and slumps, starting pitchers are not immune to trends despite playing once every five days, in fact, they may be more prone to it. One disastrous start can ruin the numbers that the media and casual fans will look at (ERA).

Pitchers like James Shields and the great Roy Halladay are extremely consistent because they have the meaningful core components down. Do you know when the last time Halladay walked more hitters than he induced stringing strikes? July 12th, 2007 at Boston. Since that game he's started 43 games with 13 complete games. That's consistent. Shields hasn't been knocked out before going five since he tried knocking Coco Crisp out and only four times in his career.

Of course pitchers like Sidney Ponson are also consistent, consistently bad. Which raises the obvious point: consistency means nothing compared to the overall quality. If Sonnanstine has been the better pitcher over 28 starts, and he has, why would we put him in the bullpen for the playoffs based on a small sample size? On average Sonny goes more innings, strikes more out, walks less, gets more groundballs, and is shockingly only gets a tad less strikes swinging (Jackson has 7.19, Sonny has 6.79).

Make no mistake that we're talking about solely heading forward this season, you can argue Sonnanstine's ceiling is what we're seeing, and that's possible, although that's not necessarily a bad thing whether he ends up in the bullpen or another team. Edwin has an extremely high ceiling, and the "ifs" have existed since 2003. At some point Edwin's potential needs to show otherwise his arbitration status is going to leave the Rays likely paying more than one million dollars for a pitcher who isn't a million dollars better than the other available talent.

This season Sonnanstine has the best chance to give the Rays good starts because he has the best core talents. To win this season we need to make the right choice for the fourth starter in the playoffs, and that choice is undoubtedly Andrew Sonnanstine.

Comment 14 comments  |  0 recs  | 

Do you like this story?

Comments

Display:

i don't want to argue again who's better between Sonny and EJax -- it's Sonny ; )

but i would like to get people to stop juding pitchers by their consistency. one, because when people say a pitcher is consistent, what they really usually mean is that the pitcher is good. like RJ pointed out, there’s no value to being consistently bad. inconsistenly good is way better. two, it’s actually more valuable for a pitcher to be INconsistent than consistent. really.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/same-old-same-old

——-

also, there is somewhere you can go to look up how consistent a pitcher has been: http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=337006

Garza’s near the top of the inconsistent list, but we’d all take him ahead of Sonny and Jackson, right? And Jackson comes out a bit more inconsistent than Sonny. Then Shields, then Kazmir.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 6, 2008 11:59 AM EDT reply actions  

Kaz is consistence?

RJ ANDERSON IS THE SECRET POLICE HALP.

by P Brady on Sep 6, 2008 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions  

based on standard deviation of his support-neutral performances, evidently yes

i think that stat doesn’t go much deeper than runs-allowed and IP, though.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 6, 2008 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions  

that stat report is also a good way to neutralize win-loss record

it removes bullpen and offense bias (but not fielding or anything else that affects runs allowed). the five Rays’ starters are all within two wins of each other.

http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=322568

this isn’t really a good measure of pitcher talent, though. it’s still better than regular W-L record

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 6, 2008 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions  

3 starters?

We should only go 3 starters because of the days off. With that said, the way Shields is pitching lately, I’m not sure we have a Top 3. Then you could say do we even have a Top 2 , or even 1 consistent. Our starting pitching lately is all over the place, so were going to need some positive hitting going into the playoffs. The pitching has carried this team to this point, come on O , we need a late show.

by RayGuy3 on Sep 6, 2008 3:17 PM EDT reply actions  

STOP

Sonny sucks, he is a national leaguer, period.

by hulkster on Sep 6, 2008 10:13 PM EDT reply actions  

this sentiment has been put forth about Sonny a lot recently

what the hell is a National League pitcher? does it simply mean a guy isn’t as good? because that seems dumb.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 7, 2008 9:10 AM EDT up reply actions  

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

Founded in 2005, DRaysBay is home to, "Progressive statistical analysis and reasoned argument."

Please read our Community Guidelines.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recommended FanPosts

Small
Zobrist vs Pedroia vs Cano
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #31 Runoff

Recent FanPosts

Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospects #39
Small
Joe Maddon Town Hall meeting on the Ron and Ian show. Any ideas for questions I should ask?
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #37
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #35
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #34
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #33
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #32
Scaled_php_small
Rays Community Prospect #31

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

FanShots

Quick hits of video, photos, quotes, chats, links and lists that you find around the web.

Recent FanShots

"RHP Brandon Gomes will be behind at the start of spring training after...
2 minor league signings with invitations to spring...
Jeff Bagwell, Fred McGriff, The Hall of Fame, and 400 Home Runs
ESPN Chat with Matt Moore
Danny Clyburn: 1974-2012
Joe Maddon Town Hall Contest
Hickey said as of now all of the starters -- Wade Davis, Jeff Niemann,...
White Sox sign Dan Johnson
Indians acquire Canzler
Justin Ruggiano to Elect Free Agency

+ New FanShot All FanShots >

DRB Fantasy Baseball

Friends of the Site

DRB Suggestion Box

Drb4_medium


Managers

Slowsky__1__small Steve Slowinski

Dad_small Jason Collette

Brad_small BWoodrum

Price_small Erik Hahmann

Analysts

Lob-city_design_small rglass44

Untitled_small EminenceFront

Small Mulva

Rutg_uakjmedjwh9ndzd4lkll_small Imperialism32

100_1952_small MrNegative1

Steak-with-crown_small CBJones

Whelk_small Whelk

Small PGP

Scaled_php_small mr. maniac

Tampa_theatre_small jcmitchell

Me_small John Gregg