Our Pitching Staff: The "Fall" of an Empire?

by benderbrodriguez on Jun 20, 2010 6:56 PM EDT

[Ed: Bumped to the front page. Quality here.]

Consider the month to month ERA/FIP/xFIPs of the rotation.

April: 2.76/4.19/4.19

May: 3.40/4.37/4.35

June: 5.96/4.68/4.24

There is a glaring inconsistency here.

Let me begin by saying that while I knew our pitching staff had stunk this month, I had no idea that we were this terrible. An ERA of 5.96? That's unbelievably bad. I think the main reason our starting rotation's suckitude has gone under the radar is simply because of the bullpen's dominance: this month they've been stellar once again, putting up a 3.04 ERA. This has made our team RA seem a little higher than usual, but not quite as bad as the starters are making it.

While one might be quick to look at our season long-FIP of 4.37 and say that that's what our ERA should be, that simply isn't the case. The Rays have an elite defense with an above average defensive player at every position (barring perhaps 1B and SS) and this must be accounted for (the park factor would also play a role, but ESPN's park factors rate the Trop as essentially a league average park).

(Note, this section has been modified slightly because of an error) Thus far, the Rays defense has accrued a UZR of +25.8 in 621.2 IP. This means that over a course of 621.2 innings, our defense has saved 25.8 runs for our pitching. Scaling this to a UZR per 9 innings, we see that every 9 innings, the defense should prevent a whopping .37 runs. Subtracting this from our FIP, we see that the team's xERA (FIP, adjusted for defense) is a nice round 4.0. What has caused this month's precipitous rise in ERA? Consider the 3 biggest indicators of "Luck" in pitching: LOB%, BABIP, and HR/FB

	IP	BABIP	LOB%	HR/FB
April	147.0	.264	85.9%	10.5%
May	190.2	.273	78.3%	10.7%
June	90.2	.353	63.7%	13.2%
Season	428.1	.289	77%	11.2%

The obvious outliers in the month of June are the LOB rate and BABIP. It's not surprising that these two are related, given that a high BABIP means some outs turning into hits, which means fewer runners being stranded. The high HR/FB isn't a help either. Given that the rotation's xFIP is still in line with previous months, and what appears to be an extremely abnormal series of "luck" indicators, it's safe to say that we shouldn't be hitting the panic button at this point.

This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.

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Comments

Nice look B-Rod

Goes to show how this is literally the worst anyone should expect us to play. Need to get back to playing well very soon or it’s going to be very hard to dig out.

And if one has a problem using stats to prove a point, then use your eyes.

by Sandy Kazmir on Jun 20, 2010 7:15 PM EDT reply actions

Regress now please.

by twenty5psi on Jun 20, 2010 7:43 PM EDT reply actions

I think we all knew April was too good but May was normal

June is Devil Ray level bad o.O

Is this even possible? .353 BABIP with a 3rd ranked D?

PIZZA?!?

by Transplanted on Jun 20, 2010 8:24 PM EDT reply actions

played the marlins like 800 times and their babip against us seems to be above 1.000

by MagicMark on Jun 20, 2010 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions

Coghlan is basically Ted William vs the Rays

PIZZA?!?

by Transplanted on Jun 20, 2010 8:33 PM EDT up reply actions

Glad to see this thread. It was i who first expresessed concern over our huge E-F gap

when things were rolling along. To make sure it was an amoly, i checked the E-F gap of all teams rotation last year, and found only about a 1/2 run gap as the largest, so i knew we’d regress to the norm

I even e-mailed RJ my concern, and he scoffed at it

Well a month later and a 400 winning percentage later, look where we are

by sternfan1 on Jun 20, 2010 8:43 PM EDT reply actions

Artist's composite picture of SF1 found

Sign OJ Da Juiceman

by Top Gun Numba 1 on Jun 20, 2010 8:51 PM EDT up reply actions

You do make me laugh

by sternfan1 on Jun 20, 2010 8:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Please don't make this a mudfest

by benderbrodriguez on Jun 20, 2010 8:59 PM EDT up reply actions

that picture is, how do i put this,

quite “an amoly”

by pudieron89 on Jun 21, 2010 12:33 AM EDT up reply actions

Beware of Yanks bearing gifts

In my day lots of messy tissues over her

by sternfan1 on Jun 18, 2010 6:30 AM PDT

by IntrepidX on Jun 21, 2010 2:39 AM EDT up reply actions

An E-F gap is nothing to ever express concern over

The fact is, it’s unlikely that your rotation’s FIP is really going to change in the long-run, barring injury or a trade or demotion. Individual starters may gain/lose ability but that’s not a huge impact.

An E-F gap just means that as of late, you’ve been getting bonus unrepeatable performance (which is why RJ was scoffing at you, because you were worried about our bonus performance) or if in the other direction, it means that you’re getting an unfair penalty that’s not a repeatable thing.
You shouldn’t be worried about getting bonus performance.

by benderbrodriguez on Jun 20, 2010 8:54 PM EDT up reply actions

we're 10-15 since--so whatever you just said, i'll stand by my gap theory

by sternfan1 on Jun 20, 2010 8:59 PM EDT up reply actions

That means they'll swing the other way soon

hooray for your logic

PIZZA?!?

by Transplanted on Jun 20, 2010 9:01 PM EDT up reply actions

My point is, the 10-15 result is not caused by our pitchers overperforming early this year

You’re mixing up causation and correlation.

If you’re in a casino and you win your first three hands of poker despite being a player of modest ability, but you lose your next 20 hands, is the loss of those 20 hands because you won your first three? No.
If Evan Longoria starts off the year hitting 340 with a BABIP of 380 (unsustainably high) and then goes on to have a 1-40 stretch, was the 1-40 stretch because of his early season super-performance? No.
If your rotation goes through a stretch in which it struggles is it because it overperformed early in the year? No.

by benderbrodriguez on Jun 20, 2010 9:02 PM EDT up reply actions

In Before This?

Not to go all Raymondo, but to keep a balanced perspective when times are good

Our starting rotation is having quite a bit of good fortune to date. Each member of the staff has a FIP below their ERA. As a rotation the FIP is 4.28 with an ERA of 2.88 for a difference of 1.41. This is largely due to an unsustainable 85.2% strand rate and a BABIP against of .288. It’s not to say they aren’t pitching great, but the results have exceeded performance. For perspectiver the absolute best strand rate of any rotation in 2009 was the Phillies at 75.5% with the average around 70. The best BABIP against was the M’s at .278.

Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla

by FreeZorilla on Apr 15, 2010 6:52 AM PDT reply actions

Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla

by FreeZorilla on Jun 21, 2010 7:26 AM EDT up reply actions

Why do you hate the Rays?

Therefore, I should be ignored completely, because I’m a blithering idiot.

When John Jaso strikes out twice in a game, he becomes Kohn Kaso, which is Spanish for "with cheese."

by kericr on Jun 1, 2010 10:28 AM PDT up reply actions

by PriceMultiCyYoungs on Jun 21, 2010 7:57 AM EDT up reply actions

Scoffed?

This was my reply:

Hadn’t noticed it to be honest — I’m enjoying the retired life — but I mean … of course there’s some good luck here. You don’t win 70% of your games without a good number of breaks. We’re getting lucky with runners on (hitting and pitching) and nobody should expect that continue, which is one of the reasons why I’m so hard on Bartlett leading off. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot by having Zobrist bat with 1 or 2 outs. By the time he gets on base for Evan, the chances of scoring are greatly diminished.

by R.J. Anderson on Jun 21, 2010 9:17 AM EDT up reply actions

Of all the legit times he is scoffed at, he runs with this as his example?

Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla

by FreeZorilla on Jun 21, 2010 9:26 AM EDT up reply actions

we suck again

disturbing lack of rob schneider pics on this site

by daveh33 on Jun 20, 2010 9:09 PM EDT reply actions

I thought UZR 150 was how many runs we would save over 150 games, not innings

I am missing something?

Need a lineup? No problem...just give me paper, pen, scissors, a hat, and a blindfold

by jqueipo on Jun 20, 2010 11:38 PM EDT reply actions

This

I had a feeling that defensive runs saved number was too high. UZR/150 is really UZR/1300 which, when scaled down to UZR/9 means that we will save ((8.4/1300) x 9) runs per game. That comes out to be .005 runs per game. Kind of underwhelming.

Just think about it though. We are +8 roughly on the season, and at .5 runs per game we would have to be 16 games in.

Otherwise, good work, but the defense thing really isn’t going to be seen in a ‘defensive runs saved’ way, it will be seen by consistently low BABIPs which prevent offensive runs (making the pitching numbers look better).

by Navi's_Navy on Jun 21, 2010 5:20 AM EDT up reply actions

This is indeed an error on my part

But not as grave as you’re suggesting because fangraphs UZR/150 is the team average (which is why the team UZR is so much higher than the team UZR/150).
The lower BABIP is in a predictable manner, so we should see what level our pitching can be expected to perform at going forward.

by benderbrodriguez on Jun 21, 2010 10:04 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions