Tiger Tales: A Detroit Tigers Blog

With the trade deadline finally passed, I'll now present my second installment of sabermetric pitching leaders.   

There is no surefire way to determine the best pitchers in baseball, 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 measures are discussed in more detail in an earlier post.  After computing them, you can aggregate them using weights depending on which measures you trust the most.  Here, they are calculated using a simple average.

The 2015 American League leaders as of July 31 are listed in Table 1 below.  Astros southpaw Dallas Keuchel is first in Pitching Runs (30), Adjusted Pitching Runs (29), second in Base Runs (29) and third in FIP Runs (25).  That gives him a league-leading 28 runs prevented compared to an average pitcher.  Athletics ace right hander Sonny Gray is second with 27 Runs Prevented.  

The leading Tiger before the deadline trades was David Price with 18 Runs Prevented, good for sixth in the AL.  All of the other Tigers with at  least 75 innings are below average - Anibal Sanchez (-5), Alfredo Simon (-8) and Shane Greene (-18).  Greene is last among AL qualifiers.

Table 1: AL 2015 Run Prevention Leaders
Data source: Baseball-Rerence.com


The 2015 National League leaders as of July 31 are listed in Table 2 below.  Dodgers right hander Zack Greinke leads in Pitching Runs (42), Adjusted Pitching Runs (39) and Base Runs (36) and is fourth in FIP Runs (22)  That averages out to a league-leading 35 Runs Prevented..  Nationals fire baller Max Scherzer is second with 28 Runs Prevented.   

Table 2: NL 2015 Run Prevention Leaders

Data source: Baseball-Rerence.com