Friday, August 5, 2011
Clowns Are Only Funny When They Swing Away
From Season 3, Episode 16 of Futurama. I nearly laughed myself a coma.
I'm Like FIP You And FIP Him Too
As submitted to CloserNews.com -
As you dissect your fantasy bullpen and consider possible upgrades, one often suggested metric is FIP (Fielder Independent Pitching). The formula used to calculate the value is fairly simple [(13*HR + 3*(BB+HBP - IBB) - 2*K)/IP + C] with C being a constant that averages FIP (by league and by year) at the same level as ERA. Basically, FIP takes the same number of earned runs and assigns them out based on what should have happened rather than what did happen. Take a second and wrap your mind around that.
Statistical anylses agree that FIP is useful, reporting that it is around 20% more accurate in predicting future ERA than ERA itself. Even so, the role of the relief corps on any fantasy team is to deliver in just a select few categories, with FIP being poorly predictive thereof. Most obvious of these is saves, which, like wins, has much more to do with the team around the reliever than the player himself. While it is certainly helpful to a reliever's success, a strong FIP does not directly lead to the compilation of saves. Given the huge disparity in innings pitched between starters and reliever's, the ERA category will certainly be dominated by the starters. Your relief corps will likely make a solid impact on the K category, given the penchant to put big strikeout guys at the back end. FIP takes strikeouts into account, but it is much more efficient to evaluate K/9. The only tossup is the WHIP column and, in that case, the BABIP line is a much more appropriate defense independent statistics to examine.
To tie on a pretty bow, take a gander at the FIP, but dig into other, more useful stats. Above all, do not blindly rely on FIP as a complete or dominating evaluation of relief pitchers for your team.
As you dissect your fantasy bullpen and consider possible upgrades, one often suggested metric is FIP (Fielder Independent Pitching). The formula used to calculate the value is fairly simple [(13*HR + 3*(BB+HBP - IBB) - 2*K)/IP + C] with C being a constant that averages FIP (by league and by year) at the same level as ERA. Basically, FIP takes the same number of earned runs and assigns them out based on what should have happened rather than what did happen. Take a second and wrap your mind around that.
Statistical anylses agree that FIP is useful, reporting that it is around 20% more accurate in predicting future ERA than ERA itself. Even so, the role of the relief corps on any fantasy team is to deliver in just a select few categories, with FIP being poorly predictive thereof. Most obvious of these is saves, which, like wins, has much more to do with the team around the reliever than the player himself. While it is certainly helpful to a reliever's success, a strong FIP does not directly lead to the compilation of saves. Given the huge disparity in innings pitched between starters and reliever's, the ERA category will certainly be dominated by the starters. Your relief corps will likely make a solid impact on the K category, given the penchant to put big strikeout guys at the back end. FIP takes strikeouts into account, but it is much more efficient to evaluate K/9. The only tossup is the WHIP column and, in that case, the BABIP line is a much more appropriate defense independent statistics to examine.
To tie on a pretty bow, take a gander at the FIP, but dig into other, more useful stats. Above all, do not blindly rely on FIP as a complete or dominating evaluation of relief pitchers for your team.
A Quest Called Tribe
- Justin Masterson's 4 strikeout second inning. The man is filthy.
- Finally, a little bit of GD luck! Both Eric Bedard's failure to cover first on Matt LaPorta's 2nd inning RBI "single" and Carlos Santana's rib-eye blooper in the 3rd were gifts that that baseball gods have been awfully stringy with lately.
- How about that 4-9? 12-for-26 (.462) with 6 RBI. Strange how that equals a win, huh? We will go back to analyzing 5-8 tomorrow, assuming the medical reports on Michael Brantley are accurate.
- All of these facts about Jason Kipnis' home run binge, which, sadly, ended tonight. Grazie to Elias.
- Kipnis is the first player in major-league history to homer in four consecutive games within two weeks of his debut.
- Kipnis is the first Indians second baseman in franchise history to homer in four straight games.
- Kipnis' fourth homer in as many games came in his 10th career game. The last player to do that was Minnesota's Graig Nettles, who homered in four straight games within his first 10 big-league games of his career.
Here's to Ubaldo Jimenez pitching a no-no in his Tribe debut.
Cheers.
P.s. Word on the street (literally this time) is that Mr Perfect, Justin Germano, has signed a big fat contract to play in Taiwan. It is very possible that I am breaking this story on all of the inter-web.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)