An interesting stat by which to rate starting pitchers

Rating the skill of a starting pitcher is very subjective. Many people look at the big three—Wins, ERA and Ks—in order to get an idea of how well a pitcher is doing. The clear problem is that wins are very reliant on the team as a whole. Also, a pitcher can record a high number of Ks, but still allow long balls, walks, run, et cetera. ERA is a bit better, but a starter can have a low ERA but not go very far into games, which would be an asset for any starter.

There's also the Baseball Writers of America system, whereby they use a random number generator to choose the best pitcher in the NL and AL at the end of each season.

I've always found Quality Starts (QS) to be a good way of rating a pitcher's performance, it has nothing to do with his team's performance but focuses only on a pitcher's performance and ability to go at least six innings into a start.

Recently, I read about a very interesting stat: Game Score. Game Score is designed to measure a starting pitcher's dominance over the game. It's much more in depth than QS, making it more complicated, but it takes a lot more into account. A pitcher starts the game with a "score" of 50. Points are then added or subtracted:

+1	Each out recorded
+2	Each inning completed after the 4th
+1	Each strikeout
-2	Each hit allowed
-4	Each earned run
-2	Each unearned run
-1	Each walk

Therefore, a high GS is good and a low GS is bad. Unfortunately, I can't find any database information for the GS of individual pitchers over the season, but FYI, the Jays currently sit 13th in the league with an average GS of 50.0 dead on. The Giants lead the majors with 54.6 and the Indians are bringing up the rear with 44.3.

UPDATE:

Today Halliday had a GS of 55; Price had a GS of 62.

I'm going to try and keep track of the GS for Jays' pitchers after each game.

Jason Frason explained

Jason Frasor stared the season as the Jays' best and most consistent relief arm. Through April and May, Frasor boasted a minuscule ERA, a very respectable WHIP and rock-solid dependability. However, Frasor's numbers began to slide around the end of May and have continued on a downward trend.

This was very puzzling to me, so I decided to do some research. I believe the key to Frasor's demise is best illustrated in graphical form:



I have concluded that Jason Frasor's collapse can be directly correlated to being picked up by team Neverland Lost Boys (by owner Joseph Van der Jagt) on May 20 in my fantasy baseball league. In a league that rewards innings pitched, wins, and saves, Jason Frasor had no idea how to contribute. This confusion clearly lead to Frasor's performance plummeting into oblivion. There was one bright spot; an injury to Scott Downs gave Frasor a glimmer of hope: he could contribute in the save category. This bliss was short lived, as Frasor realized he was by no means a closer.

Fuck you Van der Jagt; it's science, and you can't argue with science.

Scott Rolen got fucking ripped off

It's that time of the season in Major League Baseball when fans act like Major League Douchebags—that's right, the all-star team selection. It's that time of year when the Hollywood players (e.g Derek Jeter) make the team regardless of current season stats and performance. Although, offensively Jeter is having a good season. Lucky for him it seems like the all-star selection process in no way takes into account defence, which for every player but pitchers comprises of one-half of his performance.

Now, I know that there are many players who get the blind-eye from the fans each year, but this year's selections at third base really pissed me off: How did Scott Rolen not get the nod? Instead, Longoria was selected in a landslide and Michael Young was selected on the reserve roster. Well, fuck the fans for selecting Longoria and fuck Major League Baseball, fuck the Major League Baseball Player's Association, fuck the players, fuck the coaches, fuck the owners and especially fuck Bud Selig—like every atrocity to hit baseball since '92 I'm sure he had something to do with this one too.

Let's take a look at the vote:

1	Evan Longoria, Rays	4,315,210
2	Alex Rodriguez, Yankees	2,350,496
3	Mike Lowell, Red Sox	1,759,195
4	Michael Young, Rangers	1,741,982
5	Brandon Inge, Tigers	891,112
6	Scott Rolen, Blue Jays	850,033

First off, fuck everyone who voted for A-rod; his 0.240 average is really doing my fantasy team wonders. Mike Lowell is a fucking bum and he's now injured—karma. Michael Young is a fucking bum; I was at a game when we threw two balls over the head of the first basemen on routine plays. Fucking Brandon Inge? What a fucking joke.

Let's take a look the raw statistics. Compare Rolen to the two pieces-of-shit selected to the AL team:

Rolen

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
72	268	44	88	24	0	6	30	24	31	4	0.328	0.389	0.485

Longoria

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
78	286	45	83	25	0	16	64	34	73	2	0.290	0.369	0.545

Young

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
77	315	45	99	26	1	10	33	30	53	4	0.314	0.373	0.498

Good for Longoria and his 64 RBIs; I'm sure that does something to offset the K-train he's been riding all season long—choo choo. One could argue, and I really stree could, that Rolen is slightly lacking in the power department over Logoria and Young. But, come on! He's been flirting with the Major League's number 4-5-6 spot for average all season. The man is a 7 time gold glover! Cito Gaston said he made the best play he has ever seen from thrid-base. What more do you want?

The man deserves to be at the show, and fuck you if you think otherwise.

(An honourable mention has to go out to Marco Scutaro. With the Jeter lock on the SS position, a 4th place finish in voting in his first legitimate season is well-deserved. For those of you who care, Jason Bartlett, who's having a stellar season in TB, was selected on the reserve squad at the SS position)

For those of you keeping score at home...

I decided to take those famous words uttered by Jamie Campbell to heart and attempt to keep score during yesterday's game featuring the Jays at New Yankee Stadium. First off, a copy of the scorecard can be found here.

I read up on the basics of scoring, found a decent scorecard online and sat down in front of the game with my laptop. Scoring the actual game wasn't too bad at all. There were a few instances when I had no idea what the fuck was going on, and I had to revert to the sports.yahoo.com boxscore for some help. One major mistake that I made was giving Yankee starter Chamberlain 7 earned runs instead of three on 8 runs scored) due to an error committed by third basemen Ransom; a sharply hit grounder by Rios was mishandled by Ransom, allowing Rios to first and Overbay to advance to second on an E5. At the time there was one out, so should the play had been made by Ransom—the ball was hit well enough for the 5-4-3 double play—the inning would have ended. The Jays proceeded to score 5 runs that inning, all of which were unearned because of the error. I incorrectly only scored the Rios run as unearned, my logic being that he should ot have been on base because of the error. The official ruling was that ALL runs score after the error were unearned—another example of how baseball is more fair than life itself—because the inning should have ended.

All-in-all, I'd say the scoring experience was interesting. I spent a lot time trying to sort things out: with the scorecard I was using; getting used to the rules of scoring; getting used to the abbreviations used... Although I was forced to watch the game more intensely, it seemed like I wasn't watching the game as closely as I normally would. It was a fun experience, and I'm going to try it again for today's series finale. I found a new scorecard that is slightly more detailed and I spent a considerable amount of time modifying it last night to make my life a lot easier, which should allow me to watch the game a little more closely.

We'll see how it goes...

The 'Bee' delay.

Today my subscription to MLB.tv paid for itself. The Blue Jays had the day off and I just happened to be watching the Houston Astros take on the San Diego Padres (mostly because Wandy Rodriguez from my fantasy team was staring the game). In the bottom of the 8th inning Kyle Blanks, the left-fielder for the Padres, threw his hands up in surrender and began to trot into the infield—seemingly in the middle of play. The problem? The 6'6" 285lbs behemoth had been chased by a swarm of bee. Yes, I kid you not: thousands of bees were flying relentlessly about left-field. Most of the bees eventually took refuge in the jacket of the left-field ball-girl.

The ensuing delay lasted about 45 minutes and was ended when a beekeeper sprayed the absolute shit out of the jacket with some type of chemical agent, killing the majority of the bees; a tragic end to such hilarity. The highlight of the entire event was when a grouping of about eight groudkeepers stood in left-field, one was holding a green garbage bag and another was holding a roll of duct tape. They were all arguing about the logistics of the situation: who was going to hold the bag open; who was going to drop the jacket—now bee's nest—into the bag; who was going to duct tape the garbage bag shut, containing the new nest. Kudos goes out to the Padres' announcing crew: they made the delay very enjoyable with about 15 minutes of bee related trivia.

All this because of mlb.tv, clearly worth the 19.99 usd/month.

What the fuck happend to Michael Barrett?

Seriously, what the fuck happened to the one-time catching prodigy of the Expo's? He injured his shoulder when he fell on a warmup bat-weight in the on deck circle while chasing down a David Purcey wild pitch. That was on April 17. Since then, Barratt has been perpetually activated on the 15-day DL (muscle tear in his right shoulder), and the Jays have been doing a great job keeping things quiet on a possible return date.

Barrett—who signed with the Jays in the offseason to help fill the massive void left when Greg Zahn was released—would have probably started 40-50 games this year, giving aging battleship Rod Barajas some much needed rest. Although, Barajas has shown that he can hold down the fort at the backstop position for at least the time being while the Jays wait for their young catching prospect, J.P Arencibia, to develop in Las Vegas.

A video of the injury can be found on this page.

Romero: the kid has got Big League stuff.

The month of June was unkind to the Blue Jays' duct tape pitching rotation and the Jays' record for the month (13W-14L) began to reflect the ad hoc promotion of youngsters to the starting lineup: Clearly, Brett Cecil is still recovering from a tanned backside courtesy of the May 20 spanking he received from Ortiz et. al; Robert Ray is no where near ready to be a consistent starter in the Big Leagues and is now where he belongs: developing a couple 'plus' pitches in Las Vegas with the 51's—where Cecil belongs too, frankly.

This is not the case for Ricky Romero.

For a guy who only had a chance to be in the lineup because Marcum and McGowan were out of the picture this spring, Romero fought hard for his well deserved spot in the roster. He's shown something that only Doc Halliday has brought to the struggling pitching staff—consistency. Sure Tallet—when he can keep his 88mhp heater down in the strike zone—and Richmond—if he can get through the first few innings of the ballgame without giving up more than 5 runs—throw good games here and there, but it just seems like Romero always has a good outing; he's exciting to watch.

The kid went into the 7th with a no hitter last week, for Christ sake. But, I was most impressed with his start today, and especially his pitching in the Top 7. With one out, runners on second and third and Ben Zobrist at the dish (who already had a single and a double in the game), the kid showed composure. Rather than pitch hard to Zobrist to try and get an out, Romero pitched around him; an unintentional intentional walk to load the bases. The result? Pitching the much easier Pat Burell (0-2 in the game at that point) into an inning ending double-play.

Most youngsters might have gotten themselves into serious trouble. Not Romero. I'm really looking forward to watching this kid pitch for many years to come.