Newbie Question: Is WHIP misleading?

[Tbadder]

Can anyone tell me why WHIP is a misleading statistic. I've seen a few people disparage it. I just figured it had to be valuable because it measures the two things that pitchers most want to avoid.

[RyDogg66]

Maybe think about retitling this to "Is WHIP a misleading statistic?"

[Brian the Automator]

Can anyone tell me why WHIP is a misleading statistic. I've seen a few people disparage it. I just figured it had to be valuable because it measures the two things that pitchers most want to avoid.

I don't think it's misleading, but like most statistics, I wouldn't want to rely on it completely. To me, WHIP, ERA, and K:BB are a pretty good trinity of stats... IP is also very important to me for starters, and W-L to a much lesser extent.

It can be misleading if you have a porous defense, I guess, or if a lot of the hits that are falling in are fluky... but the walks are inexcusable.

[Thurston Fluff]

Part of any stat is what purpose it's used for. Some do a great job of predicting future perfromance while some do a better job of explaining what happened in the past. Some show certain qualities but not others. For instance quality starts shows a pitcher's consitancy but not how dominating a pitcher is. Sheets and Soup could have the same number of quality starts but one is clearly more dominating. Eventually the reason there are so many differant stats is because there are so many differant qualities one might be looking for. So far no single stat manages to show all the qualities so in that sense they are all flawed.

[sbrylski]

WHIP is slightly more descriptive than predictive, IMO. BB are all pitcher, however H are largely a function of K rate; the hits will fluctuate according to luck and ballpark. Not all K rates equal the same hit rate exactly, but if you see a player's WHIP drop and his BB and K's stayed the same, it means very little to me.

[TooLiveBrew]

FIP & xFIP (expected FIP) are nice stats - Fielding-Independent Pitching. Check these stats out, and you'll notice that many pitchers fluctuate in many other areas/categories, while FIP/xFIP are more consistent. I'm not a guru, so I'm not really sure if FIP is predictive or descriptive, but I've found it to be a more (if only slightly) accurate barometer.

[Ennder]

ERA and WHIP are heavily luck based, they vary extremely from year to year and are heavily influenced by defense. WHIP by itself is almost completely useless as a stat, but like every stat has its uses when combined with other stats.

 

When I look at a pitcher the big things I look at are K/9, BB/9 and GB%, those stats don't vary all that much from year to year and are mostly out of the defenses control.

[Tbadder]

Thanks guys--that even makes sense to me!

[The Game Master]

WHIP is a pointless stat that basicly was made up for Fantasy Baseball.

[mothershipconnection]

WHIP is good as a secondary stat, but is pretty weak on its own. Counting all hits equally is your first problem. A big time flyball pitcher and extreme grounder pitcher with the same WHIP may produce quite different results in other measures.

[1992casey]

As Ennder said, luck can cause hits to fluctuate, meaning WHIP can also fluctuate based on luck.

 

The biggest problem I see is that hits are all weighed the same. A single counts the same as a homer.

 

Still, I find WHIP useful as something to glance at along with some of the other conveniently available stats. If WHIP and ERA corroborate each other, for instance, chances are you're seeing something more accurate than if they don't.

 

The bottom line is that I'll look at WHIP, but handle it with care and give it some breathing room. You can't say with certainty, for instance, that a pitcher with a 1.15 WHIP is having a better season than one with a 1.30 WHIP. You're probably on safe ground if you're looking at WHIPs of 1.15 vs. 1.55, though.