Scott Kazmir is the ace of the Rays, this is fact. Some take the word `ace' to mean best pitcher on team, which in same cases isn't necessarily true (look at the Yankees, would you take Randy Johnson over Mariano Rivera?) this is not one of those cases. So if Scotty K > Rays other pitchers, where does he rank amongst the entire league's pitching roster?
Now there were two ways to go about `ranking' pitchers in the league, one was to basically sit here and give my opinions on him compared to some of the tops in the league, the other was actually compare the stats and maybe create a formula to define a `great pitcher' so of course having quite some time to relax I chose the latter.
The basic formula is this:
IP/2 (if over 100) IP/3 (if over 200) which allows relievers to have some say in this deal.
Add amount of Ks, subtract amount of hits (again using the IP/2 or IP/3 system) as well as homeruns (no IP rate) and walks.
You're probably asking "What about outs that are not strikeouts?" Well they are also implemented but only after being divided by IP rate. Here's an example of a great pitcher versus a poor pitcher...in other words Johan Santana matched up against Glendon Rusch (2005 stats for GR, 2006 for Santana.)
The higher the total = the better the pitcher through this system. So here using SBN's Cy Young Voting results I present to you nine of those pitchers, and Scott Kazmir.
Now as you can tell relievers / closers are at a disadvantage even with no IP rate cutting down on their outs or innings. Obviously I left out some people who may have changed this up, Roy Oswalt for example, was amongst many who I felt were less important in this initial test than say Carlos Zambrano. I wanted to see how a guy with high walk rates would fare in the system, and a few things became evident.
1. Pitcher's dependant on defensive outs won't cut it in this system.
2. Reliever's system needs to be re-thought.
3. I'm no statistician, so this whole thing is flawed in numerous ways.
Now let's actually look at those results, the top two totals are from Johan Santana and Brandon Webb; the league's two Cy Young award winners. Third is Scott Kazmir, he of course had less IP than both of the before mentioned, and less victories (part of the reason I declined to include W-L was the pitcher orientated stats, of course guys like Kazmir don't even pick up a bat so they really have no control over run support.)
So what am I saying with this formula and such? I don't really know, I didn't think Kazmir would rank that high when I started with Johan and Webb or even Halladay. If there interest is there I may add a few more if not a lot more pitchers into the equation and see what turns out then.
Feel free to add any comments as to tweaking the formula, anybody you'd want to see placed in this (including older seasons, maybe a Nolan Ryan season or Roger Clemens), ect. and I hope some of you may have found this a bit interesting if not for a laugh or two at my first attempt at `creating' a statistical analyzer.