Masahiro Tanaka Leads AL in Run Prevention

Yankees right hander Masahiro Tanaka is good at preventing runs by any measure
(Photo Credit: Tom Szczerbowski, Getty Images)

With the month of May now complete and the season about a third of the way done, it's a good time to update the Tiger Tales sabermetric pitching 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 measured are discussed in more detail in an earlier post.  After computing each measure, I then take the average of the four.

The current American League leaders are listed in Table 1 below.  Yankees rookie right hander Masahiro Tanaka leads the league with 17 pitching runs, and 20 adjusted pitching runs, and is third with 13 Base Runs and 16 FIP Runs.  That gives him an average of 17 runs prevented compared to an average pitcher.

The leading Tiger is ace Max Scherzer with an average of 10, good for ninth in the league.  He is fifth in Adjusted Pitching Runs, but only 16th in Base Runs.  Other Tigers in the top 20 are Anibal Sanchez (8 runs prevented) and Rick Porcello (4).  Drew Smyly and Justin Verlander are exactly league average , that is, 0 runs prevented.  

Table 1: AL Run Prevention Leaders as of May 31, 2014

Pitcher	Team	IP	Pitching Runs	Adjusted Pitching Runs	Base Runs	FIP Runs	Average
Masahiro Tanaka	NYY	78.2	17	20	13	16	17
Dallas Keuchel*	HOU	76.2	13	15	13	14	14
Yu Darvish	TEX	61.1	13	17	9	14	13
Felix Hernandez	SEA	84.0	9	7	16	18	13
Scott Kazmir*	OAK	68.2	14	12	14	9	12
Sonny Gray	OAK	74.0	15	13	11	7	11
Mark Buehrle*	TOR	73.1	13	15	7	10	11
Corey Kluber	CLE	80.0	9	12	6	18	11
Max Scherzer	DET	72.0	11	13	5	10	10
C.J. Wilson*	LAA	76.2	10	9	11	5	9
Collin McHugh	HOU	45.0	7	8	9	9	8
Anibal Sanchez	DET	43.1	5	6	10	10	8
Garrett Richards	LAA	66.2	5	4	10	11	8
Phil Hughes	MIN	61.1	6	9	4	11	8
Jered Weaver	LAA	72.1	10	9	10	1	7
John Lackey	BOS	71.2	6	9	2	11	7
Jose Quintana*	CHW	67.1	2	6	5	11	6
Jesse Chavez	OAK	68.0	7	5	5	5	6
Jon Lester*	BOS	73.0	0	3	4	14	5
Hisashi Iwakuma	SEA	43.2	6	4	6	1	4
Rick Porcello	DET	63.2	3	6	2	3	4
Chris Archer	TBR	63.0	2	3	2	7	4

Data source: Baseball-Reference.com