- Strikeout
- Base on balls
- Hits batsman
- Ground ball
- Line drive
- Outfield fly
- Infield fly
- Strikeout
- Ground ball
- Infield fly
- Base on balls
- Hits batsman
- Line drive
- Outfield fly
RPE% is essentially a fielding independent statistic because, although the end result is not independent of fielders, getting a grounder or infield fly to happen in the first place has nothing to do with fielders. It is as stable or more stable from year to year as FIP ERA but it is not weighted and thus does not explain quite as much about runs allowed. The value of RPE% is its simplicity.
There were 53 American League starters with 125 or more innings pitched in 2008. Table 1 lists the RPE% rankings for Tigers starters. Table 2 lists the top 20 pitchers in the league. In general, the RPE% seems to be good for identifying effective pitchers but sometimes it gives surprising results.
From Table 1, we can see that Nate Robertson (RPE%=51.4) ranked a lot better on RPE% (28th in the
Recently acquired Edwin Jackson posted a low 47.1% RPE% but still managed a 4.42 ERA. In his case, he had a very low strikeout rate (14% versus a league average of 18%) and ground ball rate (39% versus 44%). However, his line drives (.35 runs) and outfield flies (.17) did a lot less damage than Robertson's line drives and fly balls.
What does this all mean for the future? Well, run preventing events are more predictive than runs per line drive/fly ball. Thus, if Robertson and Jackson pitch the same way they did last year, we can expect Nate's ERA to go down and Edwin's to go up.
The raw data used in calculating RPE% were abstracted from The Hardball Times database.
Table 1: Run Preventing Events for Tigers Starters in 2008
Name | BFP | SO | GB | IF | RPE | RPE% | |
24 | Galarraga | 746 | 126 | 241 | 25 | 392 | .525 |
28 | Robertson | 761 | 108 | 262 | 21 | 391 | .514 |
38 | Verlander | 880 | 163 | 246 | 26 | 435 | .494 |
45 | Jackson | 792 | 108 | 237 | 28 | 373 | .471 |
46 | Rogers | 782 | 82 | 257 | 24 | 363 | .464 |
** | Miner | 509 | 62 | 180 | 8 | 250 | .491 |
** | Bonderman | 319 | 44 | 112 | 9 | 165 | .517 |
Table 2: Top 20
Rank | Name | Team | BFP | SO | GB | IF | RPE | RPE% |
1 | Halladay | TOR | 987 | 206 | 392 | 17 | 615 | .623 |
2 | Burnett | TOR | 957 | 231 | 306 | 24 | 561 | .586 |
3 | Hernandez | SEA | 857 | 175 | 309 | 14 | 498 | .581 |
4 | Pettitte | NYA | 881 | 158 | 340 | 12 | 510 | .579 |
5 | Mussina | NYA | 819 | 150 | 306 | 13 | 469 | .573 |
6 | Lee | CLE | 891 | 170 | 313 | 27 | 510 | .572 |
7 | Buehrle | CHA | 918 | 140 | 358 | 19 | 517 | .563 |
8 | Shields | TB | 877 | 160 | 308 | 20 | 488 | .556 |
9 | Lester | BOS | 874 | 152 | 307 | 26 | 485 | .555 |
10 | Santana | LAA | 897 | 214 | 244 | 37 | 495 | .552 |
11 | Hochevar | KC | 566 | 72 | 229 | 9 | 310 | .548 |
12 | Beckett | BOS | 725 | 172 | 208 | 16 | 396 | .546 |
13 | Greinke | KC | 851 | 183 | 260 | 19 | 462 | .543 |
14 | Litsch | TOR | 735 | 99 | 286 | 10 | 395 | .537 |
15 | Lackey | LAA | 675 | 130 | 223 | 7 | 360 | .533 |
16 | Garza | TB | 772 | 128 | 241 | 42 | 411 | .532 |
17 | Danks | CHA | 804 | 159 | 250 | 19 | 428 | .532 |
18 | Sonnanstine | TB | 819 | 124 | 275 | 36 | 435 | .531 |
19 | Marcum | TOR | 630 | 123 | 194 | 17 | 334 | .530 |
20 | Garland | LAA | 864 | 90 | 353 | 15 | 458 | .530 |
No comments:
Post a Comment