Royals Starting Pitcher Rankings Sorted by ERA

by djk royal on Jul 3, 2008 12:17 PM EDT

I sorted all AL pitchers who had thrown a minimum of 60 innings by ERA to determine how we stacked up to the rest of the league. There were 66 pitchers who met this threshhold. The results are as follows:

Greinke - 23rd out of 66

Meche - 51st out of 66

Bannister - 54th out of 66

Hochevar - 56th out of 66

Tomko - 66th out of 66 (Congratulations San Diego Padres!)

This was more surprising to me than the offensive rankings and frankly quite alarming to me.

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AL Rankings

By ERA+

Greinke 116 (20th)
Meche 89 (50th)
Bannister 87 (53rd)
Hochevar 86 (54th)
Tomko 61 (65th Miguel Batista was worse)

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Jul 3, 2008 12:47 PM EDT 0 recs

Well Tomko has that going for him anyway. Which is nice.

by djk royal on Jul 3, 2008 12:52 PM EDT up 0 recs

ERA

While I think OPS is a pretty good single stat for looking at hitting performance, ERA is not a good single stat for evaluating pitching performance. Considering how little pitchers can affect what happens to balls in play (usually), you have to at least include a defense independent stat like FIP, DERA or PERA. In pitching, the peripherals are extremely important. So just giving ERA doesn’t really tell you much.

This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.

by NYRoyal on Jul 3, 2008 12:53 PM EDT 0 recs

FIP provides a somewhat brighter outlook

Here are the rankings by FIP, with Line Drive percentage (where 17% is good, 19-20% is average, and 23% is poor) and Ground Ball percentage (where 39% is low, 43-44% is average, and 48% is high). FIP is based on K/9, BB/9, and HR/9, so looking at the batted ball data gives a more complete picture.

33. Meche: 4.05 FIP (4.74 ERA) , 22.2 LD%, 39.8% GB%. Meche has been better than his ERA, but with the high LD% has not been as good as his FIP.

37. Greinke: 4.17 FIP (3.65 ERA), 15.8% LD%, 42.4% GB%. Greinke’s HR rate has brought his FIP up, but his LD% is excellent (although it likely will regress toward 17%) and he has nearly remade himself into a neutral pitcher as to groundballs/flyballs. He is clearly the best starter on the team.

45. Bannister: 4.35 FIP (4.88 ERA), 21.1% LD%, 38.9% GB%. He is in the same situation with Meche, as his LD% is a little high.

53. Hochevar 4.52 FIP (4.91 ERA) 14.9% LD%, 53.5% GB%. Hochevar’s LD% and GB% are both excellent, so he has outperformed his FIP somewhat and his ERA substantially. Like Greinke, the LD% will likely regress toward 17%.

56. Tomko 4.66 FIP (6.97) 20.7% LD%, 45.0% GB%. Tomko was not as bad as his ERA, but still deserved his one way ticket back to the NL West.

Four of the five starters have ERAs higher than their FIPs (not surprisingly, the pitcher with the highest K rate, Greinke, is the one with a lower ERA than FIP—less balls in play, less reliance on factors outside his control). Some of it is due to their batted ball tendencies (Meche and Bannister are giving up more line drives, which go for hits about 75% of the time). Some of it is good or bad luck. But another culprit is the defense. According to the Hardball Times team defensive rankings, the Royals have not been very good defensively this year:

Plus/Minus System: -23 plays below average (12 out of 14 AL teams)

RZR (revise zone rating): .825 (8 out of 14 AL teams)

OOZ (out of zone outs—which measures extended defensive range): 171 (13 out of 14 AL teams).

The RZR/OOZ discrepancy suggests that while the Royal defenders do fine with the balls near them, they generally lack the range to get to the same number of balls as other teams do.

While the pitchers have performed somewhat below expectations, the defense this year has been more disappointing.

by Gopherballs on Jul 3, 2008 1:12 PM EDT 1 recs