Off Day Filler: #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 NL Starters Thus Far

by James Kannengieser on Jul 8, 2010 2:45 PM EDT

I wrote a similar post last year. The first paragraph describing the methodology is pulled right from that post.

When describing starting pitchers, people often say things like "he's an ace" or "he's a #4 pitcher". A pet peeve of mine is the wrongful labeling of a pitcher to a certain rotation spot, based on subjective perception rather than objective fact. Poll a group of baseball fans about this topic and you will likely receive a vast array of opinions. My take, which is similar to the ones shared in this post and this post, is that if a pitcher is in the top 1/5 of starters in his league, then he should be called a #1 starter. The next 1/5 are #2's, the next 1/5 are #3's, etc. I pulled some statistics from FanGraphs to devise a quick and dirty way of classifying National League starters at this point in the season.

A total of 8,047.2 innings were thrown by 123 different NL starters through Wednesday. I put together a spreadsheet of all these pitchers, their innings pitched, and their FIP (fielding independent pitching). Dividing 8,047.2 by five, I created five groups of 1609.2 innings. Beginning with the pitcher who boasts the best FIP (Stephen Strasburg, 1.77 FIP through 36.2 innings pitched), I summed innings until reaching 1609.2 to determine #1 pitchers. I did the same all the way through the bottom spot on the list, filled by Fernando Nieve and his 15.63 FIP. Standard caveats apply here -- FIP doesn't account for batted balls like tERA, it isn't park adjusted, etc., but it's better than ERA for evaluating a pitcher's performance. Here are the results, showing pitcher classification, the number of pitchers that fit that classification, and the corresponding FIP:

Rank	Pitchers	FIP Range
1	23	0.00-3.41
2	18	3.42-3.86
3	18	3.87-4.33
4	24	4.34-4.73
5	40	4.74+

Of the top 23 pitchers, only 12 have thrown 90+ innings. Here is how Mets starters stack up:

Pitcher	IP	FIP	Rank
R.A. Dickey	58.1	3.01	Mid #1
Johan Santana	120	3.67	Mid #2
Mike Pelfrey	108	3.82	Low #2
Jon Niese	89.2	3.95	High #3
Hisanori Takahashi	49	4.72	Low #4
John Maine	39.2	5.83	Mid #5
Oliver Perez	33.33	6.07	Mid #5
Fernando Nieve	2	15.63	Low #5

Check out the spreadsheet for the rest of the league's starters.

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Comments

Dickey Game 1 Starter

:-)

Pelfrey, Niese, Dickey, Santana sure sounds like a great playoff rotation, don't it? Let's Go Mets!

by ZaBlanc on Jul 8, 2010 2:48 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

DON'T JINX IT!!!!!!

don’t.

I hate Philadelphia so much.

by the caveman on Jul 8, 2010 2:57 PM EDT up reply actions

Guys with one start are on here?

Did I miss a spreadsheet with a cutoff, or something?

by tmu on Jul 8, 2010 3:05 PM EDT reply actions

I don't get it

by Eric Simon on Jul 8, 2010 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions

It's not a joke -- honest question.

I thought there might be another “sheet” where the under 90-inning (or so) guys are weeded out, but I guess the list isn’t that long. It just feels weird to divide the starters into 5 groups without first getting rid of the guys with very, very small samples.

by tmu on Jul 8, 2010 3:31 PM EDT up reply actions

It's the methodology I chose

There are other ways of doing it, with all kinds of stratification and cutoffs, etc., but in this version all starting pitcher innings are accounted for. It’s not exactly a Tom Tango study and it doesn’t claim to be, it’s straightforward and (I think) pretty simple to understand. Including Matt Chico’s 5 innings of 2.53 FIP won’t skew things too much anyway.

by James Kannengieser on Jul 8, 2010 3:59 PM EDT up reply actions

SIGN MATT CHICO!

I figured it was done so that we could have Nieve on the bottom.

by tmu on Jul 8, 2010 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions

The #5 spot should probably be cut in half with "special" replacement level garbage spot

by FrancoTAU on Jul 8, 2010 3:07 PM EDT reply actions

good info, should be a cutoff

I can see why there are so many #5’s without a cutoff of innings but the Mets rotation as of this minute doesn’t stack up too bad against some of the others in the league

Bigappleballin.net

by bigappleballin.net on Jul 8, 2010 3:28 PM EDT reply actions

Going back to yesterday...

this would be a post I never would have understood very well before yesterday. I was able to refer to that link somebody posted regarding sabermetrics. So, to all of those saying that a Sabermetrics 101 series would be useless, I say ha-ha.

I thought Pelfrey would have been a bit higher.

by CCE718 on Jul 8, 2010 3:34 PM EDT reply actions

what did you use as your FIP scale factor?

and how do you calculate it if you dont mind me asking. i was just trying to calculate taka’s FIP for a different post and got a slightly higher number, one that puts him in the #5 ranges (which he barely misses anyway). also, if you take away his first two brilliant starts he definitely drops to a #5 around Maine level FIP – and that includes 2 more good starts, against the O’s and Yanks

I like Ike

by astromets on Jul 8, 2010 3:37 PM EDT reply actions

I didn't calculate FIP on my own

It’s the FIP available gratis at FanGraphs. Also, arbitrarily removing good starts doesn’t make any sense to me.

by James Kannengieser on Jul 8, 2010 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions

im arbitrarily removing the first 2 starts, which were brilliant

and looking at the 7 starts since, which have overall been bad

I like Ike

by astromets on Jul 8, 2010 4:03 PM EDT up reply actions

37 innings, 27 runs

he has had 4 great starts, 4 terrible, and one bad inning in his last start

I like Ike

by astromets on Jul 8, 2010 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions

From his game logs

You can actually say he’s been consistent. Two good starts followed by two bad, two good, and then two bad. Someone should put money on his next two starts.

by Lunkwill Fook on Jul 8, 2010 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions

Oh, missed the last mediocre start. Perhaps with mediocre, the cycle starts anew?

by Lunkwill Fook on Jul 8, 2010 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions

also

after your #1 guy, who cares what ‘number’ they are, it matters if they are performing or not

I like Ike

by astromets on Jul 8, 2010 3:39 PM EDT reply actions

I think the idea is that

you can have a sense of how they’re performing against something like “replacement”—more similar perhaps to “Runs Above Average”, where instead of pitcher being one position, it’s 5 positions.

So, in football, clearly you have a WR1, WR2, WR3, RB1, RB2, for example. It doesn’t make sense to stock a team with nothing but stud WRs, because then you don’t have the resources to stock your Offensive Line. Similarly in baseball, you don’t really want to have nothing but Aces, unless they’re homegrown and you get the quality on the cheap. Normally, assuming an efficient labor market (which is NOT a safe assumption in baseball), you get more or less what you pay for. The hope is get more rather than less. So what you might want to see is High 1, High 2, High 3, etc. or High 1, Low 1, Med 2, Med 3, Med 4.

Certainly, one thing we can see is that Dickey has been a revelation (That’s what she said!). Without him, the rotation would be M2, L2, H3, L4, M5. WIth him, the rotation is M1, M2, L2, H3, L4…which stack means our pitching matchups are in much, much better shape. Before, a series might feature the Mets bringing out L4 L5 M2…with Dickey, it’s H3 L4 M1, which is just a whole different class of pitching—if you do the math, it adds up to something like .85 fewer runs per game in a series like that by pushing the stack down. By replacing Maine, he brings the rotation’s ERA down by 0.56 R/9 (not to mention that his knuckleball means he can eat up more innings at his ~3 FIP).

by jadelane on Jul 8, 2010 10:38 PM EDT up reply actions

Everyone should bow down and accept DIckey as their master.

Drink in his glory.

by David G on Jul 8, 2010 3:45 PM EDT reply actions

Ewwwww

Bad visual simulation there.

by Lunkwill Fook on Jul 8, 2010 4:08 PM EDT up reply actions

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNODICKEY

:: clap ::

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Jul 9, 2010 12:22 AM EDT up reply actions

also

how does this break up when there arent people with like 2/3 inning and such. there could be a minimum ip and we would probably see the same/similar results, no?

I like Ike

by astromets on Jul 8, 2010 3:48 PM EDT reply actions

I'd guess more of the top/bottom guys are SSS

without looking. Probably wrong, as usual.

by tmu on Jul 8, 2010 3:50 PM EDT up reply actions

i don't believe nieve has been that good

I want Jerry Manuel fired now, not three years from now. That is my stance.- John Peterson

by Gina on Jul 8, 2010 7:12 PM EDT reply actions

I keep saying this to myself with that deep announcer voice.....

in a world where R.A. Dickey is your #1 starter………. and then, I can’t think of anything else.

One day, this team is going to kill me.

by fxcarden on Jul 8, 2010 8:24 PM EDT reply actions

Vin Scully would turn that into sublime poetry.

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Jul 9, 2010 12:23 AM EDT up reply actions

so are top 5 SP are #4 or better

by Rickfansince76 on Jul 9, 2010 9:32 AM EDT reply actions

I think people forget how bad #5 starters are

Tak2 hasn’t been all that lately but he is still a very serviceable 5th starter.

by Brittannia on Jul 9, 2010 12:32 PM EDT reply actions

Just for reference (and because I have no life), here is how the rest of the division stacks up

Braves:
Hanson: 1
Lowe: 3
Kawakami: 3
Hudson: 3
Medlen: 3
Jurrjens: 4

Marlins:
Johnson: 1
Sanchez: 2
Volstad: 3
Nolasco: 4
Robertson: 4

Nationals:
Strasburg: 1
Olsen: 2
Livan: 3
Martin: 3
Stammen: 4
Atilano: 4
Lannan: 5

Phillies
Halladay: 1
Hamels: 4
Moyer: 5
Kendrick: 5
Blanton: 5

I omitted people suffering from serious SSS. I think this does do a decent job of ranking pitchers but it does highlight a few flaws in FIP as metric. Maybe I’m crazy, but Hamels, “struggles” and all, is a wee bit better than your average #4 starter.

by DogDaysofSummer on Jul 9, 2010 3:48 PM EDT reply actions