but the royals also were terrible defensively…

in my mind i remember ram-ram as one of the better relievers in the AL, but he may not have been that good…

I’m not saying Ramirez is a better pitcher than Soria, and I don’t believe it. But he happened to pitch better than him in 2008, and for more innings. This is all leverage aside — Soria pitched more important innings, of course, but that’s not Ramram’s fault. All stats are 2008.

Start with simple BABIP stuff (that I’m sure can be corrected) (LD% +12)

Soria LD14.5 =xBABIP of .265. Actual BABIP? .215 xBABIP-BABIP = .50

RamRam LD 18.7% =xBABIP of .307. Actual BABIP? .294 XBabip-BABIP = .13

I know that’s very simple, but on the simple version, Soria was considerably lucky with batted balls that Ramirez in 2008.

Let’s do THT FIP, xFIP, and stuff.

Soria’s ERA was obviously better than RamRam’s at 1.60. Awesome.

Good FIP, too, at 3.30, but not as studly as his 2.51 in 2007. FIP-ERA = 1.7

Soria xFIP =3.75. Interesting, didn’t Dave Camerson at Fangraphs, in a post about how Ramram isn’t that good, say that sort of FIP is suitable for a starter rather than a reliever? [Cue withdrawal of earlier endorsements of Cameron’s post] That’s certainly what I think, Dave, but not the way you mean it, or who you mean it for…

RamRam’s ERA was not close to Soria’s awesome mark, but 2.64 isn’t bad.

His FIP was 2.69. So ERA-FIP = .05. A bit luckier there, but nowhere close to Soria’s in that regard.

Ramirez’s xFIP was 3.61k, which indicates more luck, perhaps. But again, that’s better than Soria’s 3.75.

What’ left? Well, I don’t know exacltly how tRA works, but it’s basically as souped-up FIP, adjusted for park and league and I think for batted ball data and stuff. Check it out at www.statcorner.com, although I bet most already h ave. It’s cool… shows how great Greinke, Meche, Soria, Ramirez, and even more ol’ Leo Nunez were this year.

I’ve gone over this before, how both Ramirez and Soria had great tRA stats this year. Soria’s tRA in 2008 was 2.82, for a tRA + of 137.

An associated stat is O-xO, which uses data to show the pitchers “defensive support.” A positive number means the defense gave the pitcher more help than might be expected (thus, the pitcher for more than the expected outs), a negative number shows bad luck. Soria’s number was 7. A bit lucky in that regard. xRR is expected versus recorded runs. Soria was also slghtly lucky there, with 2. It’s amazing, given the Royals defensive struggles this year, that any of their pitchers did well in this.

Also important for measuing total contribution is pRAA, which takes the pitchers tRA relative ot league average and multiples it by IP in otder to give runs above average. Soria was at a healthy 11.8.

Ramirez out-tRAed Soria to the tune of 2.60. Given his greater innings, that means he had a pRAA of 15.1 — highest for any pitcher on the Royals other than Greinke and Meche. As I’ve said many places, this was the third highest total for any reliver in the AL, behind only Rivera and Papelbon. His tRA+ was 142.

How about defense? Ramriez O-xO was minus 3. bad Luck. His xRR was minus 2. Bad luck.

There is one “luck” related stat that shows Ramram was a bit luckier that Soria. It’s tRA*, which uses all sorts of regression to get to the pitchers “true talent,” but just for that one season, whatever that means. Anyway, soria does do better than Ramram there, but it’s close — Soria is at 3.37, Ramram at 3.42.

So, to conclude this boring comment no one will read — Soria is definitely a better pitcher (so good that he should be starting and Ramirez closing, really), and even in this season, his true talent was better. But if one of them was lucky, everythingn I can find says it was Soria.

P.S. Ramirez was bad in 2007, so that is p art of ihs performance history — but it’s not just luck or out of nowhere. His tRA stats were awesome in 2006 as well.

That’s just silly. He didn’t get lucky. He’s good at finding good pitchers. Of course he’s not 100%; nobody is. Moore has a very good track record of success in building a bullpen from many sources: FA, trade, Rule 5, waiver wire, minor league FA. In short, Moore knows what he’s doing with pitchers; hitters, not so much. So there is very good reason to believe he will again build a good bullpen.

than he did this year.

There was also Ken Harvey

What are you people missing here? He’s not replacing Gathright, though it does bump him off the team most likely.

yes we can!

I seriously considered 8.5. No joke.

…don’t have to trade him. We can wait for value. – TL