Tuesday, November 3, 2009

A while back I took a look at the league ERA leaders and compared their ERA to their FIP to gain perspective on how well each pitcher was pitching independent of his defense.  Now that the PEBA season has concluded I ran the FIP numbers for all starters with at least 80 total innings pitched and 12 games started to compare with their ERA and draw conclusions regarding who may be in line for a bit of a correction next season.

The following are 10 starting pitchers listed with the largest difference between their ERA and FIP in their favor (i.e. they were “lucky” because their ERA was lower than FIP):

I talked a little bit about Adrián Reséndez already in my previous report; his K:BB and HR/G numbers are simply not strong enough to support the ERA he had before his injury-shortened his season came to an abrupt end.  His BABIP is low (.217) as well, and all of this points to a bounce-back in the other direction.  Now the positive news is that he is young and can improve his peripheral numbers as he ages through his peak years.

Howard Good benefited from a low .221 BABIP but was an above-average pitcher in regards to his FIP (league average FIP was 4.24) anyways.  He started 23 games for the Bakersfield Bears but somehow only accrued 113.1 IP.  His 2009 numbers seem out of line with his previous two seasons where his WHIP was over 1.50, so there is some concern there.  He’s probably not going to post an ERA this good next season, but if his newfound ability to strike batters out continues he’ll be above average again.

Ryuichi Yamauchi had a terrible K:BB but was able to keep the ball in the park relatively well and lucked out with .244 BABIP.  Like Reséndez, he’s young and still has room for improvement, but of the top three on the list thus far I think he is the most likely to crash next year because of his walk rate.   His minor league track record does suggest that he has much better control than this; if he can replicate those minor league numbers, he's a safe bet to be above average.

Dustin Moyer had a fantastic year but did it with relatively mediocre K and BB rates.  He’s good, just not sub-3.00 ERA good.  Craig Rogers has a few more years to develop and he’ll need to increase his K rate and hope for more favorable HR numbers next season; otherwise he’ll be a below-average starter.  Juan Hernández, already 27, will have to reduce his HR rate to maintain league average or better numbers.  His Ks and BBs aren’t too bad, but aren’t all that great either.

Felipe Lara pitched an excellent age 35 year, and although he wasn’t quite as good as his ERA would have you believe he was still quite good.  Heck, he pitched a no-hitter against the Omaha Cyclones on September 12^th.  He’s not quite the value of some of these younger pitchers, as the Codgers are paying him $12.5 million over the next three seasons (yikes… he’ll be 38 by the end of his contract!).  It will be interesting to see how well he handles his plus-35 years.

Tetsu Takuda was lucky to post a league average ERA (exactly league average, actually), but he was giving up HRs at a very unhealthy pace and not showing much in the K:BB department.  Mitsukuni Sato is a rookie who pitched very well in his half season-worth of starts.  His K:BB sits around 2, so there is room for improvement, but his HR rate was excellent.  Yukio Fujita, a former PEBA IL Wunderkind Award winner (2007), ate up a nice number of innings.  There’s value in that, but his K:BB was below-average and his HR rate was mediocre.  Watch for a regression with him next year unless he can improve his ability to strike out hitters.

Next are a few starters that had an unfavorable ERA relative to their FIP.  Because most of the pitchers who were on this end of the list were actually really bad in both FIP and ERA relative to league average for both, I am selecting five starters who were above-average according to FIP but suffered through some bad luck and posted an ERA .50 points above their FIP.

Kirby Gibson and Javier Encarnación both put up decent to well above-average ERA numbers, but expect more from both next season.  Both did an excellent job of limiting HRs and walks.  Encarnación was dominant against hitters, striking out more than a batter per inning.

Tim Higgins, Dan Burhoe and Mark Cannon all put up similar ERA and FIP.  Cannon made his rookie debut this season after posting solid sub-4.00 ERA in the minors over the past few seasons.  Yuma would be served well by giving him a shot going into next season and ignore the ugly “5” that starts his ERA number from this past season.  He looks as though he could provide cheap (pre-arb) league average numbers.  Higgins and Burhoe are both older players, although Burhoe is just 28.  Like Cannon, both these pitchers have the potential to perform at league average.  Higgins is at a higher risk to regress/collapse as he is now entering his mid-late thirties.  He’s owed over $9 million next season and will certainly hope for a better result next season as he enters what may be his last chance at a multi-year contract.  Burhoe suffered an almost .050 point jump in his BABIP, and his 2008 season ERA of 4.11 is a better representation of his abilities.  Expect a moderate regression towards league average for him. 

Steve Youngblood

Fargo Gazette