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Pitching

by Steve Slowinski
February 15, 2010

Pitching is a ridiculous thing when you stop and think about it. It quite literally taxes the human arm to its biological limits, yet demands incredible precision and relentless repetition. As a result, pitchers can be quite fickle commodities and prone to injuries and irregular career paths. Some pitchers don’t figure everything out until they’re past 30 (e.g. Randy Johnson) while others achieve dominance at an early age but are unable to maintain that level (think Scott Kazmir). All these factors makes evaluating pitchers tricky, but there is plenty of exciting work being done these days in this area, especially with Pitch f/x data.

When evaluating a pitcher, rely mostly on the golden trifecta of FIP/xFIP/tERA. Batted ball data, BABIP, homerun rates, LOB%, and rate statistics are all very important too, though, and can shed light on individual players. Scouting data is invaluable as well, although unfortunately we have very little of this publicly available for use.

Links for Further Reading:

Voros McCracken’s Groundbreaking DIPS Theory – Baseball Prospectus

How Can we Tell if a Pitcher is Any Good? – The Book Blog

Sabermetrics 101: Pitching – Lookout Landing

Evaluating Pitcher Talent – U.S.S. Mariner

The Injury Zone – Hardball Times/Josh Kalk





Defense
 
wOBA

Steve is the editor-in-chief of DRaysBay and the keeper of the FanGraphs Library. You can follow him on Twitter at @steveslow.

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Alex MungerJohn HancocknichoveDaveGallo Recent comment authors
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Sean Severns
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Sean Severns
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I am trying to find out what PFR, and ERC are in sabermetric stats.

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9 years ago
Friedman
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Friedman
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PFR (Power/finesse ratio) = (K + BB)/IP

ERC = Component ERA. Too lazy to type it all but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_ERA

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9 years ago
sportsfreak0217
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sportsfreak0217
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what does E F stand for

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8 years ago
Mark
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Mark
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When I click on Glossary, I get this page. It doesn’t look like a Glossary. Where is it hiding really?

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8 years ago
Dave
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I agree. I don’t understand why there is no centralized repository of stat definitions/abbreviations used on this site. Its insane.

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8 years ago
Neb
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Where can I find “PitchFxType” abreviation meanings?

TIA

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8 years ago
Gallo
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http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/misc/pitch-fx/

FA = fastball
FF = four-seam fastball
FT = two-seam fastball
FC = fastball (cutter)
FS / SI / SF = fastball (sinker, split-fingered)

SL = slider
CH = changeup
CB / CU = curveball
KC = knuckle-curve
KN = knuckleball
EP = eephus

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8 years ago
nichove
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Does anybody know where to get 2010 siera projections?

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8 years ago
John Hancock
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John Hancock
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What do the stats “Starting” and “Relieving” measure?

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3 months ago
alemunger
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alemunger
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They are Runs Above Replacement (RAR) splits depending on whether the pitcher was starting or relieving.

For example: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=c%2c54%2c55%2c56%2c57%2c58%2c59&season=2020&month=0&season1=2020&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=19361%2c16502&startdate=2020-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31

Corbin Burnes was a much better starter than reliever this year, while Ryan Yarbrough accumulated almost 40% of his value in only 9 innings of relief (~15% of his total IP).

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2 months ago
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