Eminor3rd Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 (edited) http://bloggingfromthebleachers.wordpress....stics-part-two/ The tables aren't pasting very well, my apologies. Link above. Interesting to see the Sox pitching staff (MB, Danks, Floyd, Jackson, Peavy in the post above) coming out so mediocre in terms of the standard DIPS-like rate stats, but so totally elite in terms of bWAR. The likely explanation for this highlights one major strength of our rotation that often gets overlooked: the propensity to pitch a ton of innings. If you really think about it, our guys are really good at (1) not getting blown out of games early, and (2) staying off the DL, Peavy notwithstanding. What does this mean? For one, it means we'll do a good job of protecting the bullpen, hopefully minimizing the impact of it becoming worse this offseason. It also means that if someone DOES get hurt, it significantly diminishes the value of the group as a whole. Obviously, there a a million different ways to rank and evaluate pitching rotations, but I thought the post above raised an interesting thought. Edited January 10, 2011 by Eminor3rd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chw42 Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 (edited) bWAR is very different than FIP-based WAR. They don't use FIP, they use a method of taking ERA and adjusting it to the team's defense. That said, the White Sox rotation last season was 1st in fWAR, which uses FIP. The fact that the Sox pitch in a park with a 105 park factor for pitchers raises their value considerably. I've ran the entire projected Sox staff's CAIRO, Bill James, and Fan projections through this program I made. This is what came out. The program is not 100% accurate since there are so many dynamic variables in calculating WAR. But I find the error to be around .3 WAR at most. 20 WAR isn't bad, but it's a 5 WAR downgrade from last season. Edited January 10, 2011 by chw42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSqwert Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Totally Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 11:00 AM) 20 WAR isn't bad, but it's a 5 WAR downgrade from last season. Can you be more specific as to which spots we've downgraded @? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chw42 Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 10:04 AM) Can you be more specific as to which spots we've downgraded @? The projection systems don't like any of the Sox starters. I think they're probably the most pessimistic projections I looked at. They thought all the starters were going to sport FIPs around 4. Which I find kind of unrealistic since Floyd has been around the 3.5 range the past two years. I can see it for Danks and Jackson, but those are probably the base projections. Danks had one bad year FIP-wise and that was 09. Jackson's probably going to end up in the high 3s. I can definitely agree with Buehrle's projection though. They also lose 1.5 WAR in Putz and replace him with Crain, who is at .7 WAR. Thornton's not projected to be a 2 WAR pitcher like he was last year. Jenks also had an uncharacteristically high WAR despite being bad. This is where bWAR and fWAR differ since one looks at FIP and the other looks at ERA. Also, you can add in a possible regression for Sergio Santos. It's not huge losses across the board, but these things add up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 11:09 AM) The projection systems don't like any of the Sox starters. I think they're probably the most pessimistic projections I looked at. They thought all the starters were going to sport FIPs around 4. Which I find kind of unrealistic since Floyd has been around the 3.5 range the past two years. I can see it for Danks and Jackson, but those are probably the base projections. Danks had one bad year FIP-wise and that was 09. Jackson's probably going to end up in the high 3s. I can definitely agree with Buehrle's projection though. They also lose 1.5 WAR in Putz and replace him with Crain, who is at .7 WAR. Thornton's not projected to be a 2 WAR pitcher like he was last year. Jenks also had an uncharacteristically high WAR despite being bad. This is where bWAR and fWAR differ since one looks at FIP and the other looks at ERA. Also, you can add in a possible regression for Sergio Santos. It's not huge losses across the board, but these things add up. I figured it was a number of things, but I also figured that somewhere in there it was projecting worse years from a number of our starters, which I wouldn't buy, and you've confirmed that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chw42 Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 (edited) QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 10:13 AM) I figured it was a number of things, but I also figured that somewhere in there it was projecting worse years from a number of our starters, which I wouldn't buy, and you've confirmed that. When you consider that Danks and Floyd were 4+ WAR pitchers last year, I'm not sure I buy the projections either. But they're more or less base line projections, something that's safe. The three systems I used aren't the best. When ZiPS and Marcel come out, I think it'll be a little clearer. Edited January 10, 2011 by chw42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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