Welcome back to another exciting episode of “Punting The W” where we look to move beyond the Win as a pitching category in fantasy baseball. You’ll recall from my first installment (Read HERE), I’m not a big fan of chasing the “W” because I think it’s a poor way to rank and differentiate pitchers. In fact, I think we can look across the typical 5×5 pitching categories and come up with a new set that better scores pitchers while keeping it just as fun and competitive.
For today’s effort, I’ve scoured the 2022 pitching data and will show you just how far the “W” misses the mark in evaluating starting pitchers. Here are the parameters I’ve set for this analysis:
- SPs with 164 or more IP in 2022
That’s it, we’ll be looking at all 45 SPs who pitched > 164 innings. Because the threshold is at 164 IP, you won’t be seeing the likes of:
Why did I cut it off at 164 IP, you ask? Well, for no particular reason other than to provide a manageable sample size to speak to and still make my point.
Sure, I could make a good argument that Spencer Strider or Max Scherzer (both with 11 wins) are fundamentally better pitchers than Tony Gonsolin or Carlos Carrasco (16 and 15 wins, respectively). But you don’t need my help for that. It goes without saying that SPs have more chances to score Ws when they pitch more. So, 45 pitchers to select from are enough in my book.
In last week’s article, I started out comparing two pitchers in their first start of 2023. Their basic stat lines looked comparable but that’s about where the similarities ended. One got the W and the other got a QS but neither got both. Peeling back the onion with the Statcast data showed one had very good command of his pitches while the other was a bit scattered. Ironically, it was the SP with poor control that received the W for his fantasy owners. Is that what we want our pitching categories to be in fantasy baseball? I say “HELL NO”!
As alternatives to the W, I suggested a number of possible changes – not only in this category but the rest of the normal P categories as well.
Standard categories: W, K, SV, ERA, WHIP
Proposed categories: IP, K-BB, W/SV/HLD, SIERA, BABIP
I’m not particularly married to these proposed categories as a whole but it provides a good place to start the discussion. Foreshadow…by the end of the article, I’ll have thrown out one of the proposed categories completely.
Let’s get into the good stuff…
Using 2022 pitching data for our 45 SPs, let’s see how they stratify, compared to the normal categories we are scoring now.
Alternatives
Command ratio (Cmd) – Cmd is a measure of a pitcher’s ability to get the ball over the plate and is generally used as an advanced metric to predict other categories like ERA and WHIP. Cmd is measured as K/BB. Here are the 2022 top 12 leaders in Cmd (K/BB):
Clearly, a SP with excellent Cmd helps their team toward a W but does not have a strong correlation for the pitcher himself for fantasy. Note, the list of top Cmd captures the consensus top SP draft picks in 2023 (Cole, Burnes and Ohtani) but at the same time, includes others who were not (Kluber and Taillon).
How about a deeper dive for the #1 SP from this table?
Here are some illustrations for Aaron Nola’s two most prominent pitches in 2022, as another way to visualize Cmd:
Now look at how few of these pitches were considered “wasted” over the course of the season:
Numbers tell one story, but the illustrations really drive home the point.
It’s clear Aaron Nola was really good last season. Unfortunately for his fantasy owners, he only tallied 11 Ws, ranking 31st in our control group of SPs with 164+ IP.
Tragic!
Strikeout Rate minus Walk Rate (K-BB%) – I wrote a piece back in February on why this analytic is so important to differentiate between pitchers (Read the article HERE). In that article, I included a quote from a fellow Razzballer who once shared, “The top fantasy pitchers almost always have top 10 finishes in IP, K-BB% and SIERA rates.”
Here are the top 12 SPs in K-BB%:
Unlike the Cmd table above, this list is a literal Who’s Who in top SP for 2022. Again, there isn’t a lot of direct correlation with total W. It also helps validate the statement that the top fantasy pitchers almost always have top 10 finishes in IP, K-BB% and SIERA rates.
Looking at this another way, here is a snapshot of the K-BB% for the top pitchers in the W category:
Like the Cmd table above, total W does not correlate very well with K-BB%. I much prefer to pick my SPs from the previous K-BB% table, than this one. I trust you do as well!
Let’s move on to the other advanced metric that helps quantify the top 10 SPs – SIERA.
Skill-Interactive ERA (SIERA) – Remember, SIERA attempts to determine the underlying skill level of the pitcher. Unlike the FIP (we’ll discuss FIP later), SIERA attempts to more accurately model what makes a pitcher successful. As FanGraphs puts it, “SIERA tells us more about the how and why of pitching.” Here’s how pitchers have been rated in this category:
Pop Quiz: Do you think the top 12 list of pitchers for SIERA more closely aligns with the K-BB% table or the snapshot of the top W table? If you guessed the former, you are correct.
Another impressive list of SPs. If you look closely though, only two of these SPs made it on the previous table with 16 or more Ws. Once again, here is that snapshot table of the top W producers:
You guessed it, W and SIERA aren’t playing nicely on the playground.
Fielding Independent Pitching/expected Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP/xFIP) – FIP is another analytic that may be useful in fantasy baseball. FIP attempts to eliminate the influence of defense on the pitcher’s statistics by judging only on HRs, BBs, HB (hit batsmen) allowed, and Ks. xFIP takes it a step further by assuming a league-average HR rate and incorporating a pitcher’s fly balls allowed. We can even take it another step further with the FIP-/xFIP-, which provides adjustments for home park and specific league’s average FIP/xFIP.
You know the routine by now, here are the FIP leaders (with corresponding xFIP):
As a reminder, here are the approximate ratings for FIP/xFIP for reference:
Once again, there is very little direct correlation between W and FIP/xFIP for SPs.
Adjusting for home park and specific league’s average FIP/xFIP, giving us FIP-/xFIP- as follows:
And here are the approximate ratings for FIP/xFIP for reference:
Comparing the FIP/xFIP and FIP-/xFIP- shows 10 of the 12 listed in both. In fact, there is very little reordering in the top 10 on both lists. The experts say if you’re going to use FIP, you should make the park/league adjustments and go with FIP-/xFIP-. I tend to agree but based on the limit sample here at the top of the zone, it may not matter all that much for the top 20-30 pitchers either.
Let’s finish off the analysis by looking at BABIP.
Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) – BABIP measures how often a ball in play goes for a hit. A ball is “in play” when the plate appearance ends in something other than a K, BB, hit batter, catcher’s interference, sacrifice bunt, or HR. There are several variables that can affect BABIP rates, such as defense, luck, and talent of the hitter. Because hitters have more control over their BABIP than pitchers do, I’m not really a big fan of it as a fantasy category. However, if my league commissioner wants to use this in place of W, he has my attention.
Despite my misgivings though, let’s see what the 2022 BABIP numbers tell us in relation to Ws:
We see some new names appearing here. In fact, 4 of the 6 names from the snapshot of top W producers discussed earlier are also on this table. This helps validate that pitchers’ BABIPs, much like Ws, are less under their direct control than the other analytics discussed above. Again, I’m not a big fan of BABIP, and I’m going to remove it from my proposed categories, but I would take it over the W any day.
Need I go any further? Looking at 2022 pitcher data clearly shows there are much better measures to rate individual SPs as a fantasy category than including a somewhat arbitrary W category.
The W is so ingrained in our collective fantasy mindsets it will be hard to break away. Perhaps the answer is to include a “Team” category where we can stash the W, much like we do with Team Defenses in fantasy football. Hmmm…
Anyway, thanks for indulging me on my campaign to identify better fantasy categories for pitchers. Let me know if you want to join my merry band of crusaders. If we grow large enough, maybe we can make a difference!
Before I sign off, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter: @Derek_Favret.
Until next time, my friends!
