Jacob DeGrom has almost no shot at the HOF, discuss...

[BobC]

Originally Posted by steve B

Numbers like that with a sub 500 record to me means maybe a couple things.
That his team is not good offensively.
Or their relief pitching is not at all good.
Or that he's consistently matched up against other teams aces and comes away lacking.

That last one in some ways makes WAR pointless as it's typically figured.
If it was done based on comparing not to the league overall, but to other pitchers in a similar position - like only including first or first and second starters- it would probably be much lower.

Which to me would indicate a lot of it comes down to luck and simply being in the right place at the right time or situation.

I wonder, in regards to starting pitchers, has anyone ever tried to come up with a statistical measure to take into consideration the position players and relief pitchers on their teams from year to year to see if there is any way to possibly filter at least some of those variable factors out of the equation so as to more objectively be able to measure a starting pitcher's true worth/value, and how he more realistically rates against other pitcher's from his own time?

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by BobC

I wonder, in regards to starting pitchers, has anyone ever tried to come up with a statistical measure to take into consideration the position players and relief pitchers on their teams from year to year to see if there is any way to possibly filter at least some of those variable factors out of the equation so as to more objectively be able to measure a starting pitcher's true worth/value, and how he more realistically rates against other pitcher's from his own time?

WAR adjusts for strength of opposition, league, team defense, and park factors, so it can be used to compare pitchers both within and across eras.

It tries to take things the pitcher can't control out of the equation, like who's pitching on the other side or how many runs the pitcher's team scores.

A pitcher who loses 2-1 did more to help their team win than one that wins 7-6 (assuming the same IP)...which is why pitching wins is an increasingly poor measure of performance.

The reason the Mets squandered so much of deGrom's prime is their offense...if your pitcher is giving up 2.5 earned runs per 9 IP, and you're not winning the majority of those games, that means you're scoring below 2.5 runs per game on the regular. That's lousy offense no matter who's pitching!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

WAR adjusts for strength of opposition, league, team defense, and park factors, so it can be used to compare pitchers both within and across eras.

It tries to take things the pitcher can't control out of the equation, like who's pitching on the other side or how many runs the pitcher's team scores.

A pitcher who loses 2-1 did more to help their team win than one that wins 7-6 (assuming the same IP)...which is why pitching wins is an increasingly poor measure of performance.

The reason the Mets squandered so much of deGrom's prime is their offense...if your pitcher is giving up 2.5 earned runs per 9 IP, and you're not winning the majority of those games, that means you're scoring below 2.5 runs per game on the regular. That's lousy offense no matter who's pitching!

So the answer is NO then, there really isn't an effective statistical measure that takes into account the offense behind a starting pitcher.

Statistics don't look at the offense you have behind you at all then it seems like. I would think that is a much greater factor behind a pitcher's success than defense. Most all MLB players are exceptional athletes to start with, and likely wouldn't ever be on a major league roster if their fielding pct. wasn't over .900 to start with. Plus you don't have opposing teams making pitcher and other player changes because of a particular player's defensive abilities. Doesn't surprise me if there really isn't a viable measure trying to take into account a starting pitcher's offense behind him. In fact, I would think that from a statistical standpoint for evaluating starting pitchers, you should be factoring in not only the offense behind you, but the offenses you are facing, and the starting pitchers you are facing as well.

As you said, statistics like WAR can at best only TRY to take out factors outside a pitcher's control, but really don't seem to succeed very well. And when trying to extend the meaning of such statistics to even attempt a meaningful comparison of pitchers from different eras.....now you're talking a pipe dream as the context and all the different variables between eras make it virtually (and probably literally) impossible to effectively account for all the factors that could ever be involved in such comparisons. And worst of all, there's no way to ever truly prove which pitcher across different eras was better, so all everyone ever ends up doing is arguing.

I understand that because of the variables and things out of a pitcher's control that it is argued that wins aren't that important of a statistic in regards to pitching, but when the whole, sole reason you play the game is to win, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that being able to win is not factored in a bit more. Especially for pitchers who somehow always seem to be able to help their teams win a lot. It is the beauty and the curse of statistics, they can help try to explain many things, but they can never fully explain anything either when it comes to comparing ballplayers, especially pitchers. Makes for lively debates, that is for sure.

[Mike D.]

I guess I don’t understand why a pitcher’s teams offenses effects his pitching ability? They have no control over that. The way to remove that from the stats is easy…ignore W/L record.

FIP only counts those things a pitcher can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs) and tries to ignore those it can’t (non-HR batted balls), but you are right that it’s hard to completely remove every variable from baseball. No stat is perfect.

Baseball is a funny game. If there’s a runner on third with 1 out and the hitter flies out to CF, he has succeeded. Same situation, except with two outs, and he’s failed.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

I guess I don’t understand why a pitcher’s teams offenses effects his pitching ability? They have no control over that. The way to remove that from the stats is easy…ignore W/L record.

FIP only counts those things a pitcher can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs) and tries to ignore those it can’t (non-HR batted balls), but you are right that it’s hard to completely remove every variable from baseball. No stat is perfect.

Baseball is a funny game. If there’s a runner on third with 1 out and the hitter flies out to CF, he has succeeded. Same situation, except with two outs, and he’s failed.

That's the funny thing though, especially in today's modern game where starting pitchers are routinely pulled from games, unlike 60+ years ago and further back. If you have a better (or worse) offense, and then take into account the bullpen as well, I think it would directly effect a manager's decision as to when to pull or leave in a starting pitcher, thus potentially impacting how well they do and what goes into their statistics. Also, someone pitching with a strong offense will likely pitch differently when they more often pitch from a lead, or have confidence their team can score and get them back into a game if they go down a run or two. It is simple human nature that anyone would likely be affected to some degree by their knowledge and confidence in the offense behind them, and the relievers following them. And the manager's also have a huge impact. If a starting pitcher knows his manager has a quick or slow trigger on pulling him early, depending on the game situation, that will likely impact a pitcher's performance as well.

And starting pitchers are arguably the player with the most impact on whether or not a team wins or loses a game, like quarterbacks in football, yet statistics try to remove the importance of wins in measuring pitchers. I fully understand the thinking and logic behind that rationale, but also know that regardless of all the variables, the fact that some pitchers win more often than others tends to demonstrate they have some ability that is superior to, or lacking in others. I've long felt that statistics can't effectively measure this "it" factor that some great pitchers have, so these statisticians simply put down such pitcher's undeniable success when it comes to being able to win, and try to attribute it to other factors they have less, or no, control over. And this is especially true when looking at pitchers from back in the days when relief pitchers were rarely used. And in those instances where starting pitchers went for complete games, they had a decidedly much greater impact on whether or not their teams won a game than if they only pitched 5-6-7 innings of a game. Yet, is there any statistical measure that can give starting pitchers who finish games and get the win their "due" over other starters who almost always pitch fewer innings, and then have to rely upon their offense and bullpen to insure they get the win? Unfortunately, I don't believe so. And this is likely a function of the bias built into statisticians who look at the modern game as a basis for their statistical formulas and equations, and through stubbornness or ignorance (or likely a combination of both) have likely greatly discounted (or outright ignored) the contributions of early pitchers who pitched complete games to make sure their teams won.

People talk about there being a nostalgic bias that gives players from long ago more due than they are truly deserving off, especially when comparing them to modern players and the way the modern game is played. A lot of people, especially statisticians and so-called data scientist types, will tell you that players from earlier eras are absolutely and without a doubt nowhere near as good as modern players of today. But I've often wondered if this isn't the result of an equal, or even greater, modern bias, as opposed to the often maligned nostalgic bias, that all baseball statistics seem to inherently contain, especially when it comes to pitchers!

When the whole, sole purpose of playing the game is to win, how can anyone go along with statistics that seek to remove the importance of a starting pitcher from earlier eras going the distance to get that all important win in comparing them to modern pitchers who don't have the same impact on a game's outcome? It is a true modern bias that statisticians will argue is correct, simply because it fits the era they are from and fulfills the narrative they want it to be. On some level I look at this type of modern bias as similar to how many people may view the value of modern cards, where you have Trout, Brady, and Lebron James cards going for millions of dollars for artificially created rarities. Whereas I would think many on this forum would argue that there are so many more vintage cards that are deserving of higher values than these modern cards due to the fact their rarity is not a prefabricated occurrence, and that there is an inherent bias with these current superstar athletes and players because everyone knows and still sees them competing today. Unfortunately, the world today is all about the here and now, social media, and what/who is known as being hot today, like James, Brady, and Trout. Not everyone knows, or ever cared, about the history of the game, and the people that played back in the day. It demonstrates a similar modern bias, much like modern statistics, IMO.

[nat]

"That last one in some ways makes WAR pointless as it's typically figured.
If it was done based on comparing not to the league overall, but to other pitchers in a similar position - like only including first or first and second starters- it would probably be much lower."

People have looked into starter matchups, and have found that once you're more than a few weeks into the season, aces don't match up against aces with any regularity any more. (Nor 2nd starters with 2nd starters, etc.) Different teams have different days off, different pitchers get rested at different times, some teams have a rookie they want to see, so they slot him into the rotation for a couple weeks, and so on. Once any of those things happen, the aces don't match up with the aces any more. Once you're more than a few weeks into the season, who the opposing pitcher is, is mostly just random.

As for a recency bias in WAR for modern pitchers: totally not. Here's the all-time top 10 in pitching WAR (baseball-reference version):

Cy Young
Walter Johnson
Roger Clemens
Kid Nichols
Pete Alexander
Lefty Grove
Tom Seaver
Greg Maddox
Randy Johnson
Christy Matthewson

Give or take a player here or there, that's the list basically anyone will give you of the greatest pitchers of all time. By my estimation we've got players who peaked in the:

1890s
1910s
1990s
1890s
1920s
1930s
1970s
1990s
2000s
1910s

The next ten feature Tim Keefe, Eddie Plank, and John Clarkson, and Pud Galvin is 21st. The advantage that the old guys had is that they pitched tons of innings, and they're getting credit for all of those innings that they pitched. Basically, if a modern pitcher is pitching five innings, and an old guy was pitching nine, at the same rate of performance, the modern player is going to accumulate only 5/9ths the WAR. (Pitchers do, on average, pitch better in shorter stints, but as the list above indicates, not enough to make up for the lower workload.)

The reason that WAR allows cross-era comparisons is that it compares players to how well they performed against their contemporaries, and you can compare those comparisons against each other. For example, newly elected HOFer Jim Kaat's best season (1975) was worth 7.7 wins above replacement; this means that if you dropped him into an American League team in 1975, you could expect them to win about 8 games more than they would have had he not been on the team. This is a pretty good match for Tim Lincecum's 2008. What that means is that you should expect Kaat's pitching in 1975 to win as many games for a team as Lincecum's pitching would have won for a team in 2008.

That is, you're comparing Kaat against other pitchers in 1975, and Lincecum against other pitchers in 2008. You find that in their respective contexts they were each worth about 8 wins to a team. And looking at that, you can see that, in their respective contexts, they were about equally valuable.

It doesn't tell you what would happen if you put Kaat in a time machine and sent him to 2008. You really can't know that with any certainty, and that's the kind of "cross era comparison" that WAR can't (and doesn't try) to do. When people talk about modern players being so much better than the old guys, this is what they have in mind. In Honus Wagner's day players often didn't have proper nutrition, they certainly didn't have kinesiologists plotting out optimum workout routines, and medical care didn't compare. Wagner was probably as naturally talented as any modern player, but if you put an adult Wagner in a time machine and told him to suit up for the Pirates, he wouldn't be a superstar, just because he wouldn't have the advantages of modern training and nutrition. That's what people are talking about when they say the old guys weren't as good. But that's not very interesting - it's just a remark about how science and technology have advanced, it doesn't really tell you anything about baseball players. So it's really not a weakness of WAR that it doesn't allow THAT kind of cross era comparison. The kind it DOES allow - about how much a player meant to the league he played in - is important and interesting, from a baseball perspective.

[Mike D.]

And I don't think anyone is trying to take the effect a pitcher has on his team winning "away", but taking the "pitching win or loss" away as the strongest measure of a pitchers greatness, since there's only so much a pitcher can do to control it (other than pitching a complete game shutout every time out, I suppose).

[BobC]

Originally Posted by nat

"That last one in some ways makes WAR pointless as it's typically figured.
If it was done based on comparing not to the league overall, but to other pitchers in a similar position - like only including first or first and second starters- it would probably be much lower."

People have looked into starter matchups, and have found that once you're more than a few weeks into the season, aces don't match up against aces with any regularity any more. (Nor 2nd starters with 2nd starters, etc.) Different teams have different days off, different pitchers get rested at different times, some teams have a rookie they want to see, so they slot him into the rotation for a couple weeks, and so on. Once any of those things happen, the aces don't match up with the aces any more. Once you're more than a few weeks into the season, who the opposing pitcher is, is mostly just random.

As for a recency bias in WAR for modern pitchers: totally not. Here's the all-time top 10 in pitching WAR (baseball-reference version):

Cy Young
Walter Johnson
Roger Clemens
Kid Nichols
Pete Alexander
Lefty Grove
Tom Seaver
Greg Maddox
Randy Johnson
Christy Matthewson

Give or take a player here or there, that's the list basically anyone will give you of the greatest pitchers of all time. By my estimation we've got players who peaked in the:

1890s
1910s
1990s
1890s
1920s
1930s
1970s
1990s
2000s
1910s

The next ten feature Tim Keefe, Eddie Plank, and John Clarkson, and Pud Galvin is 21st. The advantage that the old guys had is that they pitched tons of innings, and they're getting credit for all of those innings that they pitched. Basically, if a modern pitcher is pitching five innings, and an old guy was pitching nine, at the same rate of performance, the modern player is going to accumulate only 5/9ths the WAR. (Pitchers do, on average, pitch better in shorter stints, but as the list above indicates, not enough to make up for the lower workload.)

The reason that WAR allows cross-era comparisons is that it compares players to how well they performed against their contemporaries, and you can compare those comparisons against each other. For example, newly elected HOFer Jim Kaat's best season (1975) was worth 7.7 wins above replacement; this means that if you dropped him into an American League team in 1975, you could expect them to win about 8 games more than they would have had he not been on the team. This is a pretty good match for Tim Lincecum's 2008. What that means is that you should expect Kaat's pitching in 1975 to win as many games for a team as Lincecum's pitching would have won for a team in 2008.

That is, you're comparing Kaat against other pitchers in 1975, and Lincecum against other pitchers in 2008. You find that in their respective contexts they were each worth about 8 wins to a team. And looking at that, you can see that, in their respective contexts, they were about equally valuable.

It doesn't tell you what would happen if you put Kaat in a time machine and sent him to 2008. You really can't know that with any certainty, and that's the kind of "cross era comparison" that WAR can't (and doesn't try) to do. When people talk about modern players being so much better than the old guys, this is what they have in mind. In Honus Wagner's day players often didn't have proper nutrition, they certainly didn't have kinesiologists plotting out optimum workout routines, and medical care didn't compare. Wagner was probably as naturally talented as any modern player, but if you put an adult Wagner in a time machine and told him to suit up for the Pirates, he wouldn't be a superstar, just because he wouldn't have the advantages of modern training and nutrition. That's what people are talking about when they say the old guys weren't as good. But that's not very interesting - it's just a remark about how science and technology have advanced, it doesn't really tell you anything about baseball players. So it's really not a weakness of WAR that it doesn't allow THAT kind of cross era comparison. The kind it DOES allow - about how much a player meant to the league he played in - is important and interesting, from a baseball perspective.

It is all part of what makes the debate fun because you can only do so much with pure statistics, and it is literally impossible to effectively measure and account for all the variables that are out there. I've just seen how modern statistics for pitchers are based, or at least seem to be skewed, on today's starting pitchers not going for complete games anymore, and disregarding wins as an important statistic. Some of today's statisticians then claim that modern pitchers are all so much better than pitchers from earlier eras because today they're all bigger, stronger, and throw faster than pitchers ever used to. I've questioned though how these modern pitchers would fare if they had to pitch complete games like their predecessors, and how well they would hold up with the added stress, wear, and tear their bodies and arms would face pitching like the old-timers did. But statisticians can't really account for that in their formulas, nor do they have a way to give more credit to old-time pitchers for their wins that they were certainly way more responsible for by pitching complete games, than their modern counterparts who may only pitch 5-6 innings before turning it over to their bullpen and defense to get them the W.

If you hadn't seen the Greatest Lefthander of All Time thread from a couple months ago, go check it out and you'll see how some some statistical experts were blatantly saying how pitchers like Grove and Spahn would barely be just a little above average compared to today's pitchers. So their point was that WAR was not a good cross-era measure at all, and Spahn being the the all-time winning-est lefty in history, by a wide margin despite losing three prime years in the service, basically didn't mean anything. That is where I'm kind of coming from.