Tangotiger Blog

Total quibble, but isn’t it WAR per 27 outs (or WAR per 225 IP) that we want to use to compare pitchers, rather than per 1000 BF?

That’s a good quibble.  I was thinking about that too, and the list works out very similar either way.

However, what I really wanted was not IP, but “adjusted IP”, since after all, we’re adjusting for outs by fielders, etc.  Voros goes through this huge process when he does DIPS, and that’s the best way to do it.

Basically, by NOT using IP, I was leaving that question open.

I just read another “albatross” note, this time about Verlander.

Let’s say you have these two payouts for the next 7 years:
20 34 1
20 31 2
28 28 3
28 25 4
28 22 5
28 19 6
28 16 7

With a 4% discount rate, both are present-value 158MM$.

After 5 years, the first deal has 56MM$ to go, while the second deal has 35MM$ to go.  But it doesn’t matter!

That’s because the first deal had a huge discount.  They “backloaded” the first deal.  Just because it’s the same payout doesn’t matter.

It’s like when you pay your life insurance.  It’s HUGELY front-loaded.  If you went year-to-year, you wouldn’t pay say 200$ every year.  You’d probably start at something low like 50$, and by the 10th year, you’d be paying 500$ (or whatever).  But by paying the same annual premium, it’s actually front-loaded.

Similarly, all these baseball deals are backloaded.  There is no albatross.

The problem is years 1 and 2 were already locked in. This not a 7/180 contract, it is a 5/140 extension. So this is what the two deals actually look like;

28 28 1
28 25 2
28 22 3
28 19 4
28 16 5

I just want to point out that because the AL has had much the stronger pitching over the last several years (at least since 2009), that you cannot really fairly compare the AL and NL pitchers on this list, unless there is a league adjustment in the WAR numbers? Is there?

I suspect not (or at least not enough) since the NL pitchers dominate the list and especially dominate the top of the list.

At a glance, I’d say this list is about 60:40 in favor of the AL. Don’t forget, Santana threw half of his innings in the AL during this period (and 3 of his 4 top WAR years), Halladay over 60%. Lee was over 2:1 in the AL and Greinke over 3:1. Johnson and Kershaw have gaudy per PA totals, but have faced the fewest batters on the list.

rwp: it’s an illustration.  The point stands.

Do they adjust for the league? If so, by how much? Last year, the AL was probably around .1 to .2 rpg better in pitching and in 2011, it was likely a lot more than that (estimated from IL play and looking at pitchers who changed leagues).

I think Sean does.  I don’t remember if David does.  For the last ten years, I give a blanket +.01 wins per 9IP to AL pitchers, and -.01 to NL pitchers.

So, it’s about a quarter win per season per full-time starter adjustment, up or down.

So around a .2 rp9 difference over the last 10 years. That sounds about right, although it actually varies a lot from season to season.

Right.  I mean, even just Halladay and Lee moving from the AL to the NL, and the AL filling them up with replacement pitchers, and that’s going to be enough to explain about 40% of the gap on the pitching side.

Right one rough and interesting method of estimating the change in relative strength between the two leagues from year to year is to look at players who change leagues, as in your Lee/Halladay example (you figure 2 runs per 9 innings as the difference between an ace and a replacement pitcher, times 25 (225 IP per pitcher), so a 50 run gain or loss for each league, which is .04 rpg, figuring an average of 1215 games per league).

I hope I did that right. The AL loses .04 rpg (run scoring goes up) in pitching, and the NL gains .04 rpg.

Then you look at players who debut, and either how they performed.

Then you look at players who retired (usually bad players), or were unexpectedly injured.

That will give you a rough idea of the change in relative strength between the two leagues from one year to the next.

You can also look at average age of the players, weighted by PA of course. For hitters, the older the worse they will be the next year. For pitchers, it is not as clear.