Understanding the Math: Part 2

Understanding the Math: Part 2

The Seidman Starting Pitching Effectiveness Model

            Have you ever looked at your team and wondered who’s your team Ace?  Has your team recently signed a player to a contract that you wonder if he’s being paid too much?  Well the numbers during the season are going to determine this but there is a way to see how effective your pitcher has been.  In the second part of this ongoing series were going to look at some stats that are very useful to gauge a pitchers effectiveness during the season.

Quality Start/Adjusted Quality Start

            A Quality Start (QS) is a pitcher that goes at least 6 innings and gives up no more than 3 runs.  This has come under fire from many fans because this would leave the pitcher with an ERA of 4.50 and that doesn’t really define “quality” to many, myself included.  This is where Adjusted Quality Start comes into play where you can adjust the scale to what is more “quality”.  To me I count quality starts as the stat as normal but I also go through the pitchers game log and find games where the pitcher went 7 innings and gave up no more than 3 runs giving the pitcher an 3.90 which seems more quality to me.

WHIP: Walk and Hits per Inning Pitched

(BB+H)/IP

            When your gauging a pitchers value you really want to look at stats that deal more with things a pitcher has control over: walks, hits and HR’s are things a pitcher can control and that’s where WHIP comes in.  WHIP deals with 2 of the 3 common things a pitcher can control and is a far better way to gauge how well a pitcher is doing.  Since a pitcher has far more control what a hitter does than the fielding having a higher WHIP actually shows how the pitcher is doing as an individual and without team influence.  A strong WHIP for a SP would be around 1.33 and for a RP an ideal WHIP would be closer to 1.00 to 1.10.

K:BB ratio

K/BB

            The strikeout is one of the pitchers best weapons and the more strikeouts make for a better pitcher.  Well that’s not always the case and in fact it’s just as common to see a pitcher with a high K% matched by an equally high BB%.  By studying the K:BB ratio you can compare the number of strikeouts a pitcher is getting compared to the walks total.  The higher the number means the pitcher is striking out more hitters while limiting the walks.  A league average K:BB would be roughly 7:3 or any combination like this.

The Seidman Starting Pitching Effectiveness Model

            This is a good way to see what position the pitcher has earned based on his stats.  This system isn’t very efficient when doing current numbers but works very well with after season numbers.  Using this model all you’d need to do is put in the numbers and do a little calculation and see what number you get.

Stats	Scale
Games Started (GS)	30+=5
	25-29=3
	20-24=2
	Under 20=0
IP	230+=8
	220-229=7
	200-219=5
	150-199=3
	100-149=2
	Under 100=0
Innings Pitched/Games Started (IP/GS)	7.0+=8
	6.5-6.99=7
	6.0-6.49=5
	5.5-5.99=3
	5.1-5.49=0
	Under 5.1=-5
Cheap Wins	-1
Tough L	2
Legit W	2
Legit L	-2
Adjusted Quality Start Percent (AQS%)	75% +=5
	67-74.99%=3
	50-66.99%=0
	Under 50%=-3
Adjusted Quality No Decisions (ADND)	1
WHIP	Under 1.00=5
	1.01-1.15=3
	1.16-1.25=2
	1.26-1.30=1
	1.31-1.40=0
	1.41+=-2
K:BB	6.00+=9
	5.00-5.99=8
	4.00-4.99=7
	3.00-3.99=5
	2.00-2.99=3
	1.10-1.99=0
	Under 1.10=-3
Complete Games/Shut Out (CG/SHO)	Every CG=2
	Every SHO=1 (added to CG)
NL	AL
50 or Higher=No. 1 SP	47 or Higher=No. 1 SP
36-49=No. 2 SP	34-46=No. 2 SP
27-35=No. 3 SP	25-33=No. 3 SP
15-26=No. 4 SP	14-24=No. 4 SP
1-14=No. 5 SP	1-13=No. 5 SP
Under 1=Ineffective	Under 1= Ineffective

            The only stat that I think needs explanation is the Legit W and L, Cheap W and Tough L.  These all describe a scenario that a pitcher will likely face quite often; a Legit W is a win when the pitcher gets a QS/AQS and a Legit L is a loss when the pitcher doesn’t record a QS/AQS.  A Tough lose is when a pitcher records a QS/AQS but still gets the loss.  A Cheap W win is a win a pitcher gets when the pitcher doesn’t record a QS/AQS.

            This ends the second installment and hopefully this gives everyone that is interested a nice look at some saber stats.

For more baseball news or if you have questions you can follow me on twitter @Jbiesiada