Reds Starter Johnny Cueto has been best in the NL in run prevention in 2014.
(Photo credit: Sports.Yahoo.com)
To follow up on my post on run prevention in the American League, I will now present the National League leaders. There is no surefire way to determine the best pitchers in the league, but a pitcher's job is to prevent runs. So, it's useful to estimate how many runs pitchers saved their teams compared to an average pitcher. In the past, I have explored four different ways to do this:
- Pitching Runs - Runs Saved Above Average based on innings and runs allowed.
- Adjusted Pitching Runs - Pitching Runs minus estimated Runs allowed by fielders.
- Base Runs - Runs Saved Above Average based on batters faced and hits, walks, total bases and home runs allowed.
- FIP Runs - Runs Saved Above Average based on innings, bases on balls, hit batsmen and home runs allowed and strikeouts.
These statistics are discussed in greater detail in the previous post. The National League aggregate leaders headed by Johnny Cueto are shown in Table 1 below
Pitcher
|
Team
|
IP
|
Pitching
Runs
|
Adjusted
Pitching Runs
|
Base
Runs
|
FIP
Runs
|
Average
|
Johnny
Cueto
|
CIN
|
55.0
|
16
|
15
|
12
|
5
|
12
|
Jose
Fernandez
|
MIA
|
46.2
|
7
|
7
|
10
|
12
|
9
|
Adam
Wainwright
|
STL
|
50.0
|
10
|
8
|
9
|
7
|
9
|
Jeff
Samardzija
|
CHC
|
50.0
|
10
|
11
|
6
|
5
|
8
|
Tim
Hudson
|
SFG
|
45.2
|
8
|
6
|
9
|
5
|
7
|
Jon
Niese*
|
NYM
|
39.2
|
9
|
8
|
6
|
2
|
6
|
Julio
Teheran
|
ATL
|
50.0
|
9
|
6
|
8
|
0
|
6
|
Jason
Hammel
|
CHC
|
40.2
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
1
|
5
|
Jordan
Lyles
|
COL
|
44.2
|
5
|
6
|
5
|
5
|
5
|
Gio
Gonzalez*
|
WSN
|
43.1
|
5
|
6
|
4
|
6
|
5
|
Ervin
Santana
|
ATL
|
33.2
|
6
|
4
|
3
|
6
|
5
|
Alfredo
Simon
|
CIN
|
40.2
|
8
|
6
|
6
|
-1
|
5
|
Andrew
Cashner
|
SDP
|
46.1
|
5
|
3
|
6
|
4
|
4
|
Nathan
Eovaldi
|
MIA
|
45.1
|
3
|
3
|
5
|
7
|
4
|
Yovani
Gallardo
|
MIL
|
43.2
|
7
|
6
|
3
|
2
|
4
|
Dillon
Gee
|
NYM
|
46.2
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
-1
|
4
|
Tom
Koehler
|
MIA
|
37.1
|
6
|
6
|
4
|
-2
|
4
|
Michael
Wacha
|
STL
|
42.1
|
5
|
2
|
3
|
5
|
4
|
A.J.
Burnett
|
PHI
|
43.2
|
5
|
6
|
3
|
2
|
4
|
Can FIP runs be considered a real thing for the purpose of this article? I believe FIP is a predictive measure based on past performance, a measure of how many runs the pitcher should have given up based on the peripherals he controls, but it does not contemplate the actual number of runs he prevented, which is the focus of this article, right?
ReplyDeleteGranted, actual runs given up is subject to the vagaries of luck and FIP is designed to iron that out. But in the final analysis, shouldn't a backwards-looking article about runs prevented be about actual runs prevented, rather than supposed runs prevented?
Chuck, FIP can be used retrospectively or prospectively. It's OK to use it to measure of what happened in the past as long as one realizes that it's not a complete measure of performance. It measures how well a pitcher did on what he can control essentially by himself. It leaves out the part that he shares with fielders - batted balls. Base Runs and pitching runs give the pitcher credit for more than what he controls which can be good or bad. Adjusted pitching runs attempts to tease out the fielder's portion of batted ball responsibility but we don't know how well the fielding data work.
ReplyDeleteSo, we've got four imperfect measures of past performance. You can choose one or you can combine them like I did. One good thing about listing the different measures side by side is you can what pitchers might potentially be underrated or overrated by one of the stats.