Friday, April 25, 2014
Glen Perkins: FIP keeps me sane!
Counterpoint to Greinke:
Perkins, a self-proclaimed numbers guy, started getting into sabermetrics a few years back. While he claims he doesn't necessarily use the advanced numbers during his preparation for a game, he will view the advanced statistics to gauge how he's pitching. He cited the fact that his ERA and FIP -- which eliminates the fielding element by only examining a pitcher's walks, home runs, hit by pitches and strikeouts -- are nowhere close to each other after eight innings of work. His ERA is 4.50, while his FIP is 1.40.
"As that gets to 25 and 30 and 40 and 50 innings, if my FIP's still at 2 something, my ERA's going to be at 2 something eventually," Perkins said. "So it tells me that what I've done so far is the right things. Balls that fell are going to get caught. I think that it gives me an outlook of keep doing what I'm doing and things will even out. It keeps me sane."
Perkins is betting on past history of other pitchers. It's a good bet to make, absent any other information. Colabello also gets it right:
"You start to appreciate, especially as you get older and mature more as a hitter, you start to appreciate how you go about creating the numbers," Colabello said. "People on the outside looking in want to look at, say, your batting average after a week or two in the season or whatever it is. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. It fluctuates so much. I think until you get really 250-300 at-bats under your belt, the numbers are somewhat of a representation, but they're always small sample sizes."?
I mean, he pretty much nails it, that at that point, you get about half noise and half real. And this is probably my biggest fear:
Gibson also said that he felt he sometimes let numbers and scouting reports get in his way of his performance during his first year in the major leagues last season.
"I feel like last year I definitely had paralysis by analysis," Gibson said. "I looked at the numbers on sliders down and changeups away. I feel like I ended up staying away from certain parts of my repertoire just because I thought that Eric Hosmer or whoever could hit this pitch. . . . I feel like I just kind of fell into that rut and changed the way I pitched."
I agree that fielding is tough:
"I put a lot of stock in a lot of different metrics -- the defensive one the least," said Twins assistant general manager Rob Antony. "I believe that it started out with the zone rating. We finally had one, now we've got an answer. We can measure the defense. A year later, now we've got it improved. There's some flaws in that one, so it's the ultimate zone rating. Each year, it seems like that's the one thing that's the hardest thing to measure. The way they calculate and figure it leads me to have the least confidence in the defensive metrics than a lot of the other ones."
Antony was recently discussing his views on defensive metrics after the Twins acquired infielder Eduardo Nunez from the New York Yankees. While sabermetric stats show Nunez as a below-average defensive player, Antony and the Twins believe he's capable of playing multiple infield positions.
In some cases, the eye test is still preferred over number crunching. In the case of Nunez, Minnesota relied on several scouts who saw him play firsthand when they decided to acquire him.
I don't have my WOWY handy, as I'd be interested to see what it shows for Nunez. UZR, DRS, Fans Scouting Report, and Inside Edge are in agreement. It takes alot of faith in the scouts who support going against the numbers. But, that's why we have the scouts to begin with. All the numbers come with an uncertainty level. And in some cases, the numbers will simply not reflect a player's true talent. The Twins scouts believe that's the case with Nunez, and they placed their bets on their opinion. You have to have a certain amount of respect for that.
Anyway, great job on the writer for this article.
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As an aside: msn.foxsports.com hoses my browser every time I open it. If there's a "mobile" version of the site, please post the link below.
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