White Sox pitching #1 in fWar from 2005 to 2013

[southsider2k5]

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...=&players=0

[Eminor3rd]

Yep, our guys have ALWAYS given us a ton of solid innings, which is a big factor in fWAR.

[witesoxfan]

During the mid to late 2000s, Williams made an organizational shift in philosophy to shape his team around high velocity, high-quality stuff types of pitchers and then he let Don Cooper shape those guys into studs. It's worked. My confidence in this team developing pitching is at the point where I almost hope they never sign or trade for high priced pitchers.

 

Hitting is bad.

[ILMOU]

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...=&players=0

 

Not too surprising. And the future bodes well with the system depth and Coop at the helm.

 

I happen to love Tyler Danish and think he'll be special, soon. Think Uehara with a starter's repertoire. Movement>>>velocity.

[Jake]

The responsible parties

 

[Jake]

I should point out, in regards to that list of leaders in fWAR, a just as important group of players are those not listed. The White Sox are remarkably good at not having highly negative value pitchers. We pull them out of the rotation before they really cause them damage, we keep our guys healthy to keep random call-ups out the rotation.

[nickofypres]

Too bad the hitting has been bad for the most part. Two playoff appearances with that kind of pitching is an embarrassment.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

The responsible parties

 

 

Isn't that amazing that once Chris Sale reaches Javy Vazquez's # of IP, he will likely have the same WAR that Javy did for us. Javy was kind of a victim of being born 5-6 years too early. If he was putting up that string of 4.9, 5.0, 4.9 WAR seasons with the Sox NOW instead of from 06-08, he would have been making a lot more money than he did. He was considerably valuable, despite his 6th inning meltdowns.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Chilihead90

[southsider2k5]

Isn't that amazing that once Chris Sale reaches Javy Vazquez's # of IP, he will likely have the same WAR that Javy did for us. Javy was kind of a victim of being born 5-6 years too early. If he was putting up that string of 4.9, 5.0, 4.9 WAR seasons with the Sox NOW instead of from 06-08, he would have been making a lot more money than he did. He was considerably valuable, despite his 6th inning meltdowns.

 

Vasquez might be the ultimate stats versus eye test argument.

[Eminor3rd]

Isn't that amazing that once Chris Sale reaches Javy Vazquez's # of IP, he will likely have the same WAR that Javy did for us. Javy was kind of a victim of being born 5-6 years too early. If he was putting up that string of 4.9, 5.0, 4.9 WAR seasons with the Sox NOW instead of from 06-08, he would have been making a lot more money than he did. He was considerably valuable, despite his 6th inning meltdowns.

 

Interesting indeed.

[witesoxfan]

The thing with FanGraphs is that they use peripherals (FIP) in their WAR equation rather raw numbers (ERA), which is what B-R does, because they believe it to be a better indicator of individual success and a better predictor of future numbers. This is the point of contention where I legitimately have not decided which side of the fence I am on. Pitchers can pitch to their defense...if you have a good shortstop, throw changeups and sinkers to lefties down and away and sliders on the outerhalf and sinkers down and in to righties. That will hurt their peripherals (to some degree) but it's a legitimately smart and efficient way to pitch. Then sometimes there's dumb luck where a green pitcher will hang a breaking ball and a veteran will see it, line it up, and simply mis-hit and roll over it into a double play. It's the same result on the page but one was done intentionally and one was done basically by accident. At the same time, if he did not have a good defensive shortstop, he could still look to do that and the balls would end up in CF for singles. It is involving the team, rather than what he is independently capable of.

 

What Javy's fWAR suggests is that he's an incredibly talented pitcher and that, in a vacuum, he would be a #1 or #2 starter. He has been that good in the past both for the Sox and other teams. Baseball is not played in a vacuum, and he would leave pitches over the middle of the plate far too often and when he did, they got hit very, very hard. With his stuff, he could have been a contender for multiple Cy Youngs. He simply didn't have SOMETHING right, and it resulted in him failing miserably. Meanwhile, Mark Buehrle never should have made the majors, but here he is, best Sox pitcher of the last 15-20 years.

 

This is the most obvious case of fWAR not being the end all, be all. It's still a great statistic.

[Balta1701]

The thing with FanGraphs is that they use peripherals (FIP) in their WAR equation rather raw numbers (ERA), which is what B-R does, because they believe it to be a better indicator of individual success and a better predictor of future numbers. This is the point of contention where I legitimately have not decided which side of the fence I am on. Pitchers can pitch to their defense...if you have a good shortstop, throw changeups and sinkers to lefties down and away and sliders on the outerhalf and sinkers down and in to righties. That will hurt their peripherals (to some degree) but it's a legitimately smart and efficient way to pitch. Then sometimes there's dumb luck where a green pitcher will hang a breaking ball and a veteran will see it, line it up, and simply mis-hit and roll over it into a double play. It's the same result on the page but one was done intentionally and one was done basically by accident. At the same time, if he did not have a good defensive shortstop, he could still look to do that and the balls would end up in CF for singles. It is involving the team, rather than what he is independently capable of.

 

What Javy's fWAR suggests is that he's an incredibly talented pitcher and that, in a vacuum, he would be a #1 or #2 starter. He has been that good in the past both for the Sox and other teams. Baseball is not played in a vacuum, and he would leave pitches over the middle of the plate far too often and when he did, they got hit very, very hard. With his stuff, he could have been a contender for multiple Cy Youngs. He simply didn't have SOMETHING right, and it resulted in him failing miserably. Meanwhile, Mark Buehrle never should have made the majors, but here he is, best Sox pitcher of the last 15-20 years.

 

This is the most obvious case of fWAR not being the end all, be all. It's still a great statistic.

"You like this".

[Eminor3rd]

Roughly, for reference:

 

fWAR = Sacrifice completeness for the sake of accuracy

bWAR = Sacrifice accuracy for the sake of completeness

[witesoxfan]

Roughly, for reference:

 

fWAR = Sacrifice completeness for the sake of accuracy

bWAR = Sacrifice accuracy for the sake of completeness

 

Yes. It's really only in pitching where you will see such varied results too.

 

There's a comic somewhere in the universe plotting both ERA and FIP where ERA is full of peaks and valleys and is otherwise an ugly, sloppy mess where FIP is basically a level line throughout. You can see if in Vazquez's time with the Sox too

 

2006 - 4.9 fWAR, 2.7 bWAR

2007 - 5.0 fWAR, 6.1 bWAR

2008 - 4.9 fWAR, 3.1 bWAR

 

 

[Jordan4life_2007]

Roughly, for reference:

 

fWAR = Sacrifice completeness for the sake of accuracy

bWAR = Sacrifice accuracy for the sake of completeness

 

 

Yes. It's really only in pitching where you will see such varied results too.

 

There's a comic somewhere in the universe plotting both ERA and FIP where ERA is full of peaks and valleys and is otherwise an ugly, sloppy mess where FIP is basically a level line throughout. You can see if in Vazquez's time with the Sox too

 

2006 - 4.9 fWAR, 2.7 bWAR

2007 - 5.0 fWAR, 6.1 bWAR

2008 - 4.9 fWAR, 3.1 bWAR

 

Silence you statniks...

 

[Jake]

I have some qualms with FIP, though I still prefer it to ERA if I have to choose one. FG has a very good discussion somewhere about why they dislike ERA and it is certainly compelling. I think FIP will sometimes consistently deviate from a pitcher's ERA over the course of years and I'd like to find a way to remedy that - some pitchers actually pitch differently in a different situation; advanced statistics are essentially predicated on the idea that one event doesn't influence another. The timing of the strikeout or walk is essentially irrelevant to FIP. We can think of lots of pitchers that are more or less likely to walk/strikeout batters depending on the situation. Some (Javy) habitually get worse in bunches, others (Nolan Ryan, Brian Wilson) respond positively to their own poor play

[caulfield12]

If you look at all the guys in the Top 10-15 in terms of innings pitched, how many of them would you consider overachieved with the Sox?

 

Thornton? Jenks (based on where he was career-wise when the Angels dumped him for personal issues)? Contreras? Santos?

 

Mark Buehrle, clearly would be one. Clayton Richard, in his time here.

 

Floyd, but then he leveled off.

 

Quintana and Santiago, to a lesser extent, are the recent successful case examples. And maybe Nate Jones. Edwin Jackson as well.

 

 

On the other side of the ledger, you have the inability of Cooper to get anywhere with Javy (no surprise) and Francisco Liriano.

 

You have the team impatiently trading Brandon McCarthy (that worked out) and Daniel Hudson...which can be partly blamed on Cooper, especially in Hudson's case.

 

Some pretty terrible evaluation in the case of Zach Stewart and Molina, although that's mostly on KW.

 

Cooper did a great job with the bullpen in 2012, and didn't have much to work with last year.

 

 

 

All in all, I think he's done a very good job, but I'm not buying the guru/greatest pitching coach in the world stuff. He's also had a ton of talent to work with, in all fairness, a lot of former 1st round draft picks and players signed to huge bonuses. Still, he's gotten the most out of the majority of them, in many cases after their former teams already gave up on them.

 

And, if nothing else, it just proves that every coach can struggle with guys like Masset, Sisco and MacDougal, to name a few, as well as Linebrink and Dotel, who went on to be come a better pitcher elsewhere. Jason Grilli's yet another guy whose career Cooper kind of saved, bounced around and then ended up an "elite" closer for most of 2013, almost a decade after he pitched with the White Sox.

 

 

Just waiting for Dick Allen to put his two cents in here.

 

And I'd like to thank him for his best job of all-time, Esteban Loaiza, because it ended up netting us Jose Contreras, who was the single biggest factor in the White Sox winning it all in 2005 in my humble opinion.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2013 by caulfield12

[daggins]

Looking at the worst offenders on the hitting side and its no surprise the Sox are dead last in production from 3B and CF over that time span. They're in the bottom five in nearly every position. Those non-awful positions are also no surprise - 1B, SS, C, DH. Of those, only SS is not in the bottom 10.

 

There has to be some balance here. That is unforgivably poor.

[caulfield12]

Looking at the worst offenders on the hitting side and its no surprise the Sox are dead last in production from 3B and CF over that time span. They're in the bottom five in nearly every position. Those non-awful positions are also no surprise - 1B, SS, C, DH. Of those, only SS is not in the bottom 10.

 

There has to be some balance here. That is unforgivably poor.

 

3B has been a wasteland ever since Crede's back went out and Uribe left after 2008 as well. Mark Teahen, Morel, Orlando Hudson, Keppinger, etc.

 

As far as CF, well, we know that the Sox haven't found a permanent answer since the Rowand trade...not that trading for Thome was bad, it's just that Brian Anderson never developed, they traded away Chris Young...and we know all about the long list of players like Mackowiak and Darin Erstad that they stuck out there.

 

Later on, you have the Nick Swisher disaster...which forced more players who were spare parts into the position, like Wise.

 

But yeah, along with catcher now being a huge organizational-wide issue, 3B and CF/leadoff are probably the two biggest issues that KW failed to figure out a solution to.

[Jake]

3B has been a wasteland ever since Crede's back went out and Uribe left after 2008 as well. Mark Teahen, Morel, Orlando Hudson, Keppinger, etc.

 

As far as CF, well, we know that the Sox haven't found a permanent answer since the Rowand trade...not that trading for Thome was bad, it's just that Brian Anderson never developed, they traded away Chris Young...and we know all about the long list of players like Mackowiak and Darin Erstad that they stuck out there.

 

Later on, you have the Nick Swisher disaster...which forced more players who were spare parts into the position, like Wise.

 

But yeah, along with catcher now being a huge organizational-wide issue, 3B and CF/leadoff are probably the two biggest issues that KW failed to figure out a solution to.

 

Our CF/leadoff hitter has been one of our team's best players for three seasons in a row

[daggins]

Those are only the worst offenders. The Sox have top-15 production in only one position, and bottom 3 in 5 or 6 positions.

 

The numbers make you appreciate KW's unique approach. Its sort of a miracle they even had any winning seasons.

 

[LittleHurt05]

Our CF/leadoff hitter has been one of our team's best players for three seasons in a row

 

Dump him! Trade him! He is the reason the Sox suck!

[caulfield12]

Our CF/leadoff hitter has been one of our team's best players for 2 1/3rd seasons in a row

 

 

But that stretch goes back to 2005, right?

 

DeAza has gone from a 920 OPS (limited time at the end of 2011) to 759 to 728.

 

His WAR has been on the decline, from 2.4 (only 152 at-bats) to 2.1 to -0.3.

 

Basically, the last two seasons, he's been around a slightly below average CF offensively and below average defensively. Out of the 10 qualified AL CFer's in 2013, he would be ranked 8th, ahead of only L. Martin and Michael Bourne. If you expand to all of MLB, he's 12/17, ahead of Jay, Blanco and Denard Span.

 

If you go back to 2012, he was 10th out of 19 in terms of OPS.

 

 

We can keep saying he was one our of better players, but would the Cardinals say J. Jay was one of their better players? Or the Rangers, Leonys Martin? Martin had a +3.4 WAR value. In fact, all of the qualified 16 players in CF were in positive territory except for DeAza. He was actually 1.8 WAR points behind the 16th ranked player in Jon Jay.

 

At least Viciedo had a positive number, even if it was only 0.1.

Edited November 2, 2013 by caulfield12

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

But that stretch goes back to 2005, right?

 

DeAza has gone from a 920 OPS (limited time at the end of 2011) to 759 to 728.

 

His WAR has been on the decline, from 2.4 (only 152 at-bats) to 2.1 to -0.3.

 

Basically, the last two seasons, he's been around a slightly below average CF offensively and below average defensively. Out of the 10 qualified AL CFer's in 2013, he would be ranked 8th, ahead of only L. Martin and Michael Bourne. If you expand to all of MLB, he's 12/17, ahead of Jay, Blanco and Denard Span.

 

If you go back to 2012, he was 10th out of 19 in terms of OPS.

 

 

We can keep saying he was one our of better players, but would the Cardinals say J. Jay was one of their better players? Or the Rangers, Leonys Martin? Martin had a +3.4 WAR value. In fact, all of the qualified 16 players in CF were in positive territory except for DeAza. He was actually 1.8 WAR points behind the 16th ranked player in Jon Jay.

 

At least Viciedo had a positive number, even if it was only 0.1.

 

 

I think the problem here is that you are using bWAR, when everyone else is using fWAR. Because De Aza had something like a 2.2 fWAR this year, not -0.3

[ILMOU]

It's a pitching thread guys, not to be a d**k. De Aza truly is the hot-button, most polarizing player these days and I can understand his value while not underestimating the frustration of his abject dumbness at numerous times last year. He was so much better defensively in 12 and on the bases (not so much in SB % but otherwise) that I can see him having a turnaround season, and possibly be more valuable in trade next July. One thing that might help him is focusing on CF only - I thought he was better there than left. Nonetheless, he's not an ideal leadoff guy for the Hahn regime due to OBP, so I'd like to see him in a 7 or 8 role eventually, if not at the start of the 2014, because right now, there may not be any better options for us.

 

His speed is still an asset in various ways and his occasional power is also nice, so I don't mind seeing him stick around for a little while, while still keeping a year and a half of arb-time for trade value. I believe we're going to see a dramatic increase in the valuation of speed in the next few seasons, and perhaps even the Sox could be a leader in preparing for such a trend.

 

Now I'm guilty. Dude's a conundrum.