Marquis signs with Nationals

[Ennder]

What you are suggesting is that best way to predict a pitcher's future HR/FB is to simply use the league average HR/FB, no matter what the sample size is

 

No, I was saying that Suppan's career xFIP and FIP probably aren't that meaningful at this point. If I were just looking at HR/FB I'd probably look at career rates for it since even with age it jumps all over the place but in this case the two are pretty much even, his 3 year average is 11.7% and his career is 11.8%. Not sure what you are getting at here. His career ERA is 4.68 and his career xFIP is 4.65 so at this point I'd guess that xFIP is a pretty good way to measure the quality of his seasons. There isn't a bunch of noise between the two stats like you'll find with a few isolated pitchers.

 

For a single season the HR/FB has such a huge effect on FIP that it just doesn't mean much to me, why would I correct 2 out of 3 high variance stats and completely ignore the 3rd, just makes no sense. Both FIP and xFIP have various flaws and I still think it is useful to always look at ERA as well because if you look at the ERA trend vs the xFIP trend you can figure out the real story usually. BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB% are all skills, just skills that have a pretty narrow range and that are subject to extremely high variance year to year.

 

Trend? If you appreciate the statistical noise associated with small samples, I would think you should appreciate that looking for trends in that small sample won't get you very far. Unless I know for a fact that a player was significantly hurt, I just throw it all into the data bucket.

 

Imo that is exactly the opposite of how you should look at it. With a large sample you can ignore the context, with a small sample you pretty much have to look at because the data itself is pretty useless without it. This is basically what regression is, it is assuming a big jump outside of the norm isn't going to be sustained. That Chone projection is assuming that Suppan was significantly worse last year and that trend will continue and he will be even worse this year. Looking more closely at the sample I don't really agree with it, I think it is a bad projection. Something between his 3 year average and last season I could see, but not a jump worse than last year.

[Roderick]

First of all offensive lineman don't deserve to be drafted that high under any circumstance

Obviously, Mandarich wasn't a good decision. But I disagree with your statement. Considering that player movement wasn't as prevalent back then as it is now, it would be a very wise decision to draft an OT that will start for 12 years instead of a tailback that might only have 3-5 years of tread left on his tires. Now that players are more free to chase the dollars after their rookie contract, making this argument not as strong, but still a factor.

[rluzinski]

For a single season the HR/FB has such a huge effect on FIP that it just doesn't mean much to me, why would I correct 2 out of 3 high variance stats and completely ignore the 3rd, just makes no sense.

 

Which is why I would prefer xFIP to FIP for ONE season's worth of data. I looked at three years and 546 innings worth of data, however. Your preference for xFIP over FIP no matter the sample is what has me utterly confused.

 

BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB% are all skills, just skills that have a pretty narrow range and that are subject to extremely high variance year to year.

 

Absolutely. That's why you use multiple years worth of data and a regression factor. With HR/FB, for a quick and dirty estimate, you could just use the average of FIP and xFIP over maybe three years. That would effectively regress a pitcher's HR/FB rate 50% towards league average. FIP regresses 0%. xFIP regresses 100%.

 

Imo that is exactly the opposite of how you should look at it. With a large sample you can ignore the context, with a small sample you pretty much have to look at because the data itself is pretty useless without it.

 

What is the context of the last two starts that justifies weighting them less (or removing them altogether)?

[Ennder]

What is the context of the last two starts that justifies weighting them less (or removing them altogether)?

 

Well I said first 2 starts, but in general the first 2 weeks of baseball are a weaker data set than the rest of the year. April generally is the 'goofiest' month for lack of a better word when it comes down to statistics. If someone gets off to a slow start the first week and then plays just like normal the rest of the season I tend to be more aggressive with my regression with him. Regardless the Chone projection doesn't seem to be regressing at all, it is seeing a pattern and assuming it goes 1 step further this year.

 

Which is why I would prefer xFIP to FIP for ONE season's worth of data. I looked at three years and 546 innings worth of data, however. Your preference for xFIP over FIP no matter the sample is what has me utterly confused.

 

Because FIP is fixing 2 stats and not the 3rd, it makes no sense. BABIP and LOB% aren't somehow different than HR/FB. If you are going to look at 3 years of stats I'd either look at some combination of xFIP and ERA or just xFIP by itself. FIP is a stat that makes no sense at all, it is correcting for some factors but not others. Why should I change how HR/FB works with 3 year's data but not how LOB% or BABIP works? Am I to assume after 3 years HR/FB has normalized but BABIP and LOB% still haven't, because that is what FIP is telling me isn't it?

[LouisEly]

Ennder and Russ, I think we can simplify your argument in about five sentences:

 

Jeff Suppan is crappy and 35. Each of the last four years he has gotten worse, thus there is no reason to expect him to improve on his crappiness.

 

Meanwhile, Jason Marquis is 31 and has gotten better each of the last three years. It would seem to make sense that one could expect from him what Suppan did when he was 31, which was Suppan's 2006 season of 4.12 ERA, considering that Suppan also peaked at the age of 30.

 

The thought of a 35-year-old Suppan pitching roughly the same as a 31-year-old Marquis is laughable.

 

Debate over.

[Ennder]

The thought of a 35-year-old Suppan pitching roughly the same as a 31-year-old Marquis is laughable.

 

Debate over

 

I will gladly make some friendly forum bet that Marquis does not pitch $7.5M better(2 WAR I guess for lack of a better stat) than Suppan on the season assuming both are relatively healthy. The difference in their xFIP will be between 0.25-0.50 as both regress towards 2008 and 2009 proves to be more of an outlier.

[RockCoCougars]

Marquis is no great shakes, but he looks like a right handed Sandy Koufax compared to Suppan. It's very frustrating that for the price of Suppan/Randy Wolf, the team likely could have signed three serviceable starters to go with Gallardo next year.

[rluzinski]

Because FIP is fixing 2 stats and not the 3rd, it makes no sense. BABIP and LOB% aren't somehow different than HR/FB. If you are going to look at 3 years of stats I'd either look at some combination of xFIP and ERA or just xFIP by itself. FIP is a stat that makes no sense at all, it is correcting for some factors but not others. Why should I change how HR/FB works with 3 year's data but not how LOB% or BABIP works? Am I to assume after 3 years HR/FB has normalized but BABIP and LOB% still haven't, because that is what FIP is telling me isn't it?

 

xFIP fixes some stats but not others, so by that logic, "it makes no sense" as well. The questions FIP and xFIP asks are:

 

1. For a given sample size, how representative is the player's stats (walk rate, K rate, etc...) representative of his true talent?

2. For a given sample size, how representative is the league average stat representative of his true talent?

 

Over whatever sample tangotiger used (one year?), FIP determined that only for BB/IP,HP/IP,K/IP and HR/IP, was a pitcher's stats more representative of his true talent than the league average rate. The guys at Hardball Times did some research and came to the conclusion that it was best to us a pitcher's true FB% but league average HR/FB. They used year to year correlations though. What about the 3 prior years to the following year? I'm contending that over a 3 year sample, for a starting pitcher's HR/FB is more representative of his true talent than using league average. If you actually have to regress 51% towards league average, then my contention is incorrect.

 

As for BABIP, I know you need an extremely large sample to even start picking up the pitcher's talent. I would be surprised if you regressed less than 50% over 3 years. And isn't LOB% largely a function of the pitcher's overall ability (component ERA or whatever you use)?

 

I wish I knew the regression factors for 3 years of data. I have seen them for y-t-y correlations many times.

[Ennder]

The guys at Hardball Times did some research and came to the conclusion that it was best to us a pitcher's true FB% but league average HR/FB

 

This is basically what xFIP does and you may very well be right that after 3 years you are better off using HR/FB, but if that is the case you are probably better off using his real BABIP and LOB% as well and if you are doing all of that you probably are better off just looking at ERA than xFIP or FIP because at that point you are basically saying ERA is telling more of a true story than regressions do.

 

Obviously ERA can never tell the whole story since defense, park, league, opponents etc all play a factor but they play a factor in HR/FB as well as all the others so even at that point I prefer xFIP over FIP. At some point you are going to have to dig deeper into the context of the games played to understand how talented a pitcher is, we haven't developed a stat that is so good to just do it on its own. Heck we haven't even been able to make a useful park factor yet which we would have to do to ever neutralize home stadium to a useful level. So what I usually do is look at xFIP and ERA and then just look at the career and see if there is some compelling reason they should be different in the rare cases that they actually are significantly different. In most cases they end up being very close to each other.

[owbc]

Throwing projections aside, Marquis looks like the typical free agent to avoid. He's coming off a career year with an AS/playoff appearance and is nearing the end of the prime of his career (or has possibly already reached the peak). He is a good bet to duplicate his 2009 numbers in 2010 but is more likely to regress than improve, especially in 2011.

 

Another concern is the huge increase in IP. He pitched 49 more regular season innings in 2009 compared to 2008. Also, he has a relatively low K/BB ratio and had one of the best defenses in the league behind him in 2009.

 

Seems like a good fit as a back end of the rotation innings eater. I'll take Wolf for an extra $2.5m/year.

[valpocrewsader]

I'll take Wolf for an extra $2.5m/year.

Because of Brewers-colored glasses? Otherwise, I don't understand where this conclusion comes from, your post doesn't really seem to lead up to it. Wolf is also coming off a career year, but is two years older and has more significant history of injury. And not only are we paying him 130% of Marguis' salary, but we're doing it for three years instead of two. Monumental. I still can't get over how much I hate this Wolf deal.

[TooLiveBrew]

Because of Brewers-colored glasses?

 

I'd guess that it's because, over the course of their careers, Wolf has been significantly better.

[trwi7]

I'm not a huge fan of the Wolf deal, but even I would take it a million times out of a million over Marquis' deal.

[owbc]

It doesn't matter what glasses I'm wearing or what stats you use, it's $7.5 million/year for Jason Marquis!!! Yes, the Brewers overpaid for Wolf, but at least we overpaid for a good player. People keep getting upset when mediocre teams sign mediocre players to mediocre contracts. Players like Jason Marquis, Rich Harden, Jason Duchscherer are mediocre #4/#5 starters that can be filled with much cheaper pitchers than $5+ million/year risky contracts. The Brewers made a smart decision by signing a much higher quality pitcher instead of 2 mediocre ones. It doesn't matter if Suppan makes $10 million/year or $400,000/year, he's not helping the team either way.

[RockCoCougars]

It doesn't matter what glasses I'm wearing or what stats you use, it's $7.5 million/year for Jason Marquis!!! Yes, the Brewers overpaid for Wolf, but at least we overpaid for a good player. People keep getting upset when mediocre teams sign mediocre players to mediocre contracts. Players like Jason Marquis, Rich Harden, Jason Duchscherer are mediocre #4/#5 starters that can be filled with much cheaper pitchers than $5+ million/year risky contracts. The Brewers made a smart decision by signing a much higher quality pitcher instead of 2 mediocre ones. It doesn't matter if Suppan makes $10 million/year or $400,000/year, he's not helping the team either way.

So in your opinion, Wolf is good and Harden is mediocre? Actually, I feel just the opposite is the case. Going further, I would call the Wolf signing a perfect example of a "mediocre team signing a mediocre player to a mediocre (bad) contract".

[TooLiveBrew]

Harden's talented, but he can't stay off the DL. Hasn't even reached 150 IP since 2004.

[Ennder]

It doesn't matter what glasses I'm wearing or what stats you use, it's $7.5 million/year for Jason Marquis!!! Yes, the Brewers overpaid for Wolf, but at least we overpaid for a good player. People keep getting upset when mediocre teams sign mediocre players to mediocre contracts. Players like Jason Marquis, Rich Harden, Jason Duchscherer are mediocre #4/#5 starters that can be filled with much cheaper pitchers than $5+ million/year risky contracts. The Brewers made a smart decision by signing a much higher quality pitcher instead of 2 mediocre ones. It doesn't matter if Suppan makes $10 million/year or $400,000/year, he's not helping the team either way.

So in your opinion, Wolf is good and Harden is mediocre? Actually, I feel just the opposite is the case. Going further, I would call the Wolf signing a perfect example of a "mediocre team signing a mediocre player to a mediocre (bad) contract".

Wolf has put up 6.7 WAR over the last 3 years and 2.64 per 200 IP

Harden has put up 6.6 WAR over the last 3 years and 4.2 per 200 IP

 

So the better pitcher really comes down to health there. Wolf has been as valuable as Harden overall the past 3 years, Harden has been more valuable per IP. Wolf has shown a positive growth in his WAR, Harden a negative growth. To me the real problem is Harden was significantly worse last year than in the past, he lost velocity on his FB and he can no longer throw his slider or splitfinger. He has gone from a 4 pitch guy to a 2 pitch guy. He is mostly at the whim of his change up at this point, he has to setup the fastball with it. Harden is not the same pitcher he was 2 or 3 years ago and Wolf most likely is that pitcher or better.