Starting Pitching 2042: How Good Is It?

[RonCo]

Something too nerdy and stupid to exist, but I did it anyway...

[bigmike13]

Very nice piece.

[RonCo]

Thanks. Not sure what to make of some of it, but it was fun to throw together.

[niles08]

Very nice! Your pictures aren't showing up for me though? I feel like that's important to know who your talking about lol

[RonCo]

Hmmm...I'll drop it into a pdf and see if that helps...just a sec.

[RonCo]

@niles08 ... updated the top post.

[DugoutDesperado]

Nice breakdown of the top pitchers in the league.

[crobillard]

I loved that. I suspected the same thing with the top tier pitching in the league. Really liked the Wullenweber lite comment on Hall. I totally agree

[GoldenOne]

Personally, I think pitch ratings have more of an influence than we think. As well as what type of pitches they are.

I also think the weighting that you gave to each attribute can be subjective. Personally, I value control higher the lower the movement.

[usnspecialist]

It does make me laugh that the very last pitcher listed is the infamous Poto Tornatore, who coincidentally happens to be the last guy in my rotation right now.

I do agree with Brett that the weighting is subjective based on your own preferences, but this is a pretty good snapshot.

[RonCo]

I'm not sure how "good" the cut is, but it's interesting. If nothing else you can kind of move guys around to fit your own views. The idea is the same.

[HoosierVic]

So, here's a question: if you were going to do a similar analysis for bullpen guys, would you weight the three ratings (stuff/movement/control) differently than you did for SPs?

[niles08]

So, here's a question: if you were going to do a similar analysis for bullpen guys, would you weight the three ratings (stuff/movement/control) differently than you did for SPs?

I think Stuff & movement are most important for the bullpen? Control not as much.

[HoosierVic]

So, here's a question: if you were going to do a similar analysis for bullpen guys, would you weight the three ratings (stuff/movement/control) differently than you did for SPs?

I think Stuff & movement are most important for the bullpen? Control not as much.

Yeah, I tend to agree with that … except maybe not for closers. You don't want someone walking a bunch of guys in high leverage situations. Interesting to think about, though ...

[RonCo]

As Brett said, everyone thinks a bit differently ... which is expected. Ultimately, for a closer you'd want 11/11/11, and be done with it.

In the end, though, I think the question you're asking is does the weighting change for a guy who faces higher leverage more often, and the answer is probably yes. Depending. Long relievers and guys being used over a lot of innings probably need to look a lot like starters--but again mostly because their leverage index is lower. If you follow the preaching of FIP, though, you probably weight Stuff and Movement more in a closer than control. If you think about it as "guy comes in with two outs in the ninth and a runner on second and third"...a walk is meaningless, a homer loses you the game, and a K wins it. Two walks, of course, loses the game, too. BB are never meaningless, but they are the "least bad" bad thing that can happen in a high leverage situation.

But that's me just thinking aloud.

[7teen]

Real nice work. Seems I recall way back in the GBC someone had done a similar article on using the ratings of player on building a team.

Just confirms that Portland sucks right now because the only pitcher we had on the list ranks at a 21! But makes me feel a little better about the future. Looking at my farm, I have 6 guys ranking between 21 and 25 on this scale. With limited aces, building a rotation of 5 24s won't be a bad start I suppose.

[sjshaw]

Love this

[sjshaw]

If Commie Child would fill out that STU....

[bschr682]

I've been operating under the gut assumption that our top arms are fine (maybe even better than fine?) but our middle class pitchers are all too cruddy on the whole. Seems like this sorta proves that.

So this + the offensive onslaught from the uber draft = our current feeling that pitching is lacking leaguewide.

[RonCo]

After looking at several things, I think there's a bit of a perfect storm going on.


1) Yes, it can probably be argued that the late #3s/early #4s could be a bit better, and if we had those then the #5s we're using would be pushed out a bit.
2) Offensive ratings are up (but then, so are pitchers on the average--just a little, anyway) ... This post says both pitchers amd hitters are getting a little better.
3) This post says ballparks are enabling offense, especially BIP ... and This post says offensive increase is heavy toward BIP. so ballpark changes are adding to the mix.
4) I've done some looking, and _believe_ that defense is fading a bit, too. That may be a factor of expansion dilution, too.


So at the end of the day, several things are probably combining right now, and weaker pitchers are suffering the brunt of it. That's my take, anyway.

One fun result of this pitcher issue is that I think it's driving a lot of experimentation on usage of relievers and other approaches to short rotations.