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=== WAR, What Is It Good For ===
Dr. D is a fan of the WAR statistic. He fears, however, that many casual readers may be under the impression that it gives a "correct" return to the question, "Who was the best pitcher?"
In reality, the WAR f(x) formula inputs a lot of arbitrary opinions. Should we "correct" for a pitcher's defense, and normalize his BABIP? WAR does that. Should we "correct" for a pitcher's HR per fly ball rate, and normalize his HR rate? WAR doesn't do that. And many other such subjective factors are part of the WAR effort.
Glancing at the AL leaderboard for pitchers before Monday's game, Dr. D was puzzled by something: Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez have virtually identical stats in every category, but Verlander had a big lead in WAR:
| IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | GB% | WAR | |
| Verlander | 238 | 9.0 | 2.3 | 0.72 | 42% | 6.8 |
| Felix | 227 | 8.6 | 2.1 | 0.56 | 48% | 5.9 |
They're dead ringers on Three True Outcomes, except Felix is better at avoiding HR's, both theoretically and in terms of actual results. Felix' FIP is lower, and WAR is built on FIP.
Yet Verlander has 3% more innings thrown, versus 15% more WAR. Here's a simple honest question, because I didn't have the time or inclination to tear apart the WAR formula to figure it out: why does Verlander have so many more WAR?
You could say that Felix' ERA is blessed by Safeco. But Safeco has nuttin' to do with K's, BB's, or GB's, honey. Going into Monday, Felix had simply outpitched Verlander both for quality and for [quantity x quality], albeit not by very much.
I like the Wins Above Replacement formula, provided only that people are clear about the fact that it is not a "correct" final word on player value. I am curious as to what drives Verlander's big WAR gap.
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=== Monday ===
Going into the game, Dr. D was interested in the Cy Young race. Alas, he settled into his Safeco seat and .... where was Felix' personal catcher?! Dr. D buckled his seat belt. I mean, Felix could pitch even if his catcher were that 9-year-old in "Trouble With the Curve" who was catching Clayton Kershaw. But this was a mail-in game to start with and ..... sigh. We'd popped for pricey seats.
A few innings into the game, an obviously dejected Felix had coughed up 7 hits. By the time he left, he'd coughed up 7 runs. Dr. D was outraged that his baseball card, for 2012, will show an ERA north of 3 ... the one thing we wanted was for Felix to protect his 2.86 ERA. Was not to be. 3.06 is where he finished the year. gRRRRRRrrrrrr.
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=== Black Ink ===
For a guy in Felix' position -- racking up HOF seasons for a loser -- the back of the baseball card is worth playing for. The "Black Ink" and "Gray Ink" tests are the ones where at the end of a pitcher's career, you count the stats categories in which he led the league or finished top 10.
This is his 7th full season, and in every season he's racked up 30+ starts. He had only two seasons with 2+ ERA's, was going to be three seasons, but neh. One nice thing about the back of the baseball card: instead of being 9-13, 3.06, he converted it to 13-9, 3.06 with the rampage of 1-0 victories.
In 2012, subject to tweaks in the last few days, Felix added to his Gray Ink thusly:
Entering Felix' fourth season, he was still the 9th-youngest player in the AL. He enters 2013 as his generation's Tom Seaver / Roger Clemens. Back in the 1990's, M's fans had the satisfaction of watching Ken Griffey Jr. equal the McGwires, Thomases and Sosas of the game using just his pure, natural-born talent. It was a whale of a contest, Junior's DNA against the other celebrities' training methods. The Kid, against all logic, battled them to a draw.
M's fans now watch Felix Hernandez re-create a Roger Clemens career, using only the natural 94-MPH fastball that he had as a 14-year-old.
I can't imagine a pitcher who, at age 26, would have better chances to make baseball's Hall of Fame. We imagine that the Mariners might be capable of winning their next pennant with this particular Opening Day starter.
Is, as I understand it, due entirely to park factors. Safeco does actually boost strikeouts; the ball breaks better in the humid sea-level air (remember Hultzen's struggles in Colorado Springs?), so he loses some credit for that. They also adjust for the dingers... though to be honest, if they wanted to do that, I've got no idea why they don't just use xFIP. Would make more sense that way.
Doug Fister obviously saw his Safeco-boosted K's go up in smoke when he moved from Seattle to Detroit.
;- ) no, I know what you mean. If Coors affects K's there's no theoretical reason you shouldn't adjust all parks for K's, I guess. There go the three "True" outcomes, apparently.
That's actually the first I heard of adjusting K's and BB's per park; my suspicion would be that there would be more noise (quirks of player personnel in transition, off-field distraction level, and 1,000 other things) than signal (actual atmospheric effect on the baseball, batters' eye etc) so I'd be slow to buy in to K normalization per ballpark. But I couldn't say it's wrong.
Also, Felix' home/road K split is only a little wider than Verlander's, career, so we're talking about adjusting a handful of strikeouts. And here we are talking about 7 WAR vs 6, so as is often the case with WAR, the sense of proportion is askew. But! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction amigo.
The reason that DNRA did not account for the park's impact on BB and K and adjusted HR totals using a smoothed, long-term park HR factor rather than a single-yea HR factor (and made this adjustment based on the actual number of batted balls per ballpark for each pitcher rather than an arbitrary "well the home park has this impact so give the pitcher a counter-adjustment of half of that" guess) was because of situations like this. The basic claim is that Safeco increased the K rate by some factor intrinsic to Safeco. My view is that, should such an impact truly exist, it would be very subtle (nearly invisible except in extreme environments like Coors Field) because there's nothing physically relevant about the park that should cause these changes other than the atmosphere...and we're talking about the atmosphere giving perhaps an inch more break to your breaking pitches. Does anyone here REALLY think that Felix Hernandez is going to fan only 8.2 per 9 instead of 8.6 because he gets a tiny bit less break? Sorry Charlie...that's nonsense.
Wouldn't be shocked to see Mr. Rodney sneak in and steal it from them both. Probably the best RP performance of the post-steroids era.
If you try to park adjust for TTO while also applying a park/defense-neutral in-play slate and then also currect for expected HR/Fly and expected results on balls in play of given trajectories...you're going to overpenalize guys in good pitchers parks - most of which have one or two key things that make them pitcher-friendly that impact the OTHER things you're trying to adjust. The K rate at Safeco may be higher because balls in play wind up outs more often and thus batters dial up their aggression. That is a choice by the batters and not something that guarantees success by the pitcher or that should be corrected away from the pitcher's stat line.
I prefer to limit park analysis to the concrete and physical because, to me, park factors are based on assumptions anyway and the more you assume, the more you're departing from reality.
I would definitely lean towards your paradigm. Easy to think of 1,000 things that could put noise into a K rate, such as the M's young, anxious hitters pressing at home and performing worse because of confidence situations. Are you going to say that Safeco intrinsically boosts K's by 10% if it is an INTIMIDATING place to hit? Huh.
Does anybody predict that Safeco will, in the future, boost K's by consistent amounts across various roster constructions?
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BTW, I'd be pretty amazed if the atmosphere boosted the break on a curve by an inch relative to neutral parks; there are a lot of parks close to water, but of course I'd be open to it...
Matt, if atmosphere increased break on a curve, through increased friction, wouldn't it also slow down a fastball?
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Am open to the debate, but park-adjusting for K's strikes me as losing the proverbial sense of proportion. Sounds clever in math class. Sounds cheesy from field level.
Dialed up Pitcher aggression rather than dialed up batter aggression. For instance, a higher rate of fastballs up in the zone because even if hitters catch it, there's a high chance that it hangs in the atmosphere. Similarly, a pitcher might be less worried about walks because a base runner is a lesser threat to score for the same reasons. I also don't think that King Felix would be affected by such things for the same reason Giancarlo Stanton wouldn't be affected by Safeco. The talent overcomes the park. For the non-Hall of Fame part of the team though...This year's split for instance, has the Mariners' Pitching Staff at 7.5 K/9 at home and 6.9 K/9 whereas the rest of the AL is almost no split: 7.5 vs. 7.3.
Mariners' pitchers walk more at home than on the road (2.9 vs 2.3) than the AL (2.6 vs 2.2)
They are moving the fences in left field in next year to make it more inviting to right-handed hitters.
The brothers Upton, perhaps? Never been a huge fan of either, but both would be upgrades for our short and long-term outfield options, other than Saunders.
I don't like either of the brothers Upton, as you mentioned. The only right-handed free agent option who stands out to me is Swisher, to the extent that he counts as a righty. Craig is the most attractive trade prospect, to me. He's blocking other great prospects in St. Louis, and they might be willing to deal him because of that plus his injury struggles plus their aging rotation and middle infield. He can play corner outfield and first base, which gives you the versatility to start the season with Smoak or Carp and if they struggle move Craig to first and put the Wells/Thames platoon in the outfield. He's established himself as a top ten hitting outfielder, right-handed, and he's paid the minimum. He'd by my #1 target, and I'd probably be willing to deal one of Cerberus plus Franklin to get him.
If possible, I think he deserves a POTD. He would definitely require a hefty sum to acquire.