FanShot

Felipe Paulino and SIERA

29

I was reading up on FanGraphs' new SIERA statistic, which is kind of what I've been waiting for. FIP and xFIP were nice, but they didn't take into account the pitcher's ability to induce weak contact, or the full effect of strikeouts, or the full effect of limiting walks. This statistic seems to do that and much more, especially because it has been proficient at predicting a pitcher's BABIP despite the volatility of that statistic. So I was curious. I pulled up MLB rankings sorted by SIERA. If you click the link, make sure you click the SIERA column to sort. Starting Pitchers w/ 50 IP ranked by SIERA for 2011: 1. Zack Greinke 2. Roy Halladay 3. Brandon Beachy 4. Clayton Kershaw 5. Cliff Lee 6. Justin Verlander 7. Cole Hamels 8. David Price 9. James Shields 10. Felipe Paulino Paulino ranks 12th in MLB Starters in xFIP. The next Royals starters to show up were much further down, but ended up being Danny Duffy, Jeff Francis, Kyle Davies, and Luke Hochevar. Hochevar and Davies were a virtual tie, however.