Originally Posted by lollipopcurve
All my posts are my opinion - just like yours are. If I forget to state it and you're too dense to see the obvious, look here!
For reference on Arroyo:
It turns out that, to paraphrase Denny Green, Arroyo is who we thought he was. Now, I'll admit, I'm surprised by Arroyo's ERA compared to his FIP -- and it's twice the differential we've seen for his career (given that his time with the Reds are more than 50%, that means prior to coming to the Reds, his ERA was higher than his FIP). I'm guessing it doesn't get much more off than that, given his league average BABIP and 800+ IP. The only real aberration I see statistically in that his LOB% is a good deal higher than league average, which floats between 70-72%.Code:IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 ERA FIP BABIP LOB% WAR Dollars 2006 240.7 6.88 2.39 1.16 3.29 4.15 .279 78.0% 4.2 $15.5 2007 210.7 6.66 2.69 1.20 4.23 4.57 .318 74.0% 2.7 $11.2 2008 200.0 7.34 3.06 1.31 4.77 4.50 .321 70.1% 2.4 $10.2 2009 220.3 5.19 2.66 1.27 3.84 4.78 .270 76.5% 1.8 $8.1 Average 218.0 6.51 2.68 1.23 4.00 4.49 .296 74.8% 2.8 $11.4 Career 1459.7 6.15 2.77 1.12 4.24 4.44 .297 70.6% 19.2 $71.3
200 IP of a 4.00 ERA is definitely valuable -- to the tune of about $11M a year. Suffice it to say that Arroyo has been a bargain during his time as a Red. And unless his performance falls off a cliff, he'll be paid fairly through the end of his contract. And if you judge a player by the value he provides his team relative to his compensation, Arroyo has been a good deal for the Reds. He seems very much to be a high floor/ low ceiling type guy. He's not going to be worth 5 wins in any season, but you can count on him being worth a few wins per -- and that sort of reliability usually costs a premium.
All that said, I'd be remiss if I didn't observe that his production has dipped each year, as measured by WAR. It's probably not completely fair to use his career season as the starting point for the trend line, but it does suggest that his current skill level is that of a ~2 win player.
Last edited by RedsManRick; 03-21-2010 at 11:16 AM.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Agree with your post in general though I'm not sold on all the numbers in the chart. When I'm evaluating a pitcher I look at BB/9, K/9 and HR/9 just like the FIP guys do, along with IP, BABIP and his actual ERAs from the previous years. I think the formulas though, stick to strictly to the theory of pitching being fielding independent. So things like K/9 are a little over valued and while just getting outs is not getting enough credit. BABIP and DER aren't all about luck and the defense. A pitcher giving up ropes all over the place is going to have a higher BABIP and lower DER but the formula will chalk it up as bad luck or poor defense and be a little too forgiving. OTOH, a guy who keeps hitters off balance and induces lots of weak grounders and lazy fly balls gets passed off as being lucky or owing his success to his defense. I think the formula is missing the mark. Its OK for looking at an odd season that sticks out from the others, but ignoring 800+ innings of actual results in favor of the theoretical ones seems way off base to me.
The real value of Arroyo is the large number of competitive innings he throws. It goes beyond his innings and effects the innings of the rest of the staff. There is no way to know, but I'd say guys like Cueto, Bailey and Volquez may have already washed out without guys like Arroyo and Harang to absorb the burden of laying down the inning foundation of the staff. Its one reason that I'm not in favor of throwing all the kids in the rotation at once and dealing off say Harang and Arroyo and turning it over to Chapman and Leake. Let Bailey and Cueto spend the year working up to becoming the inning guys while Harang and Arroyo are still around before introducing the others. I wish there was a vet for the 5th spot in spite of all the young talent.
All my posts are my opinion - just like yours are. If I forget to state it and you're too dense to see the obvious, look here!
So they had three people at 3b, none at the time above AA, two who shouldn't even bother bringing a mitt with them when they get to the field and you're willing to set your future on that?
Now if Rolen gets hurt, Frazier is a perfectly acceptable replacement. Before you were staking your next 3 years to Frazier being good enough which he may or may not be.
Is there any proof that Stewart is going to be better than Leake, Maloney or Wood? Because if not he wasn't going to make the Reds rotation anyway.
Every analysis that's been done to try to tease out the impact a pitcher can have on runs has shown that they really don't have control over "just getting outs" beyond strikeouts and batted ball types. If they did, it would show up in the stats -- and it just doesn't. And even in so far as pitchers can control LD%, it's a very small ability. Most of their control of batted balls is in GB and FB.
So let's take a look at Arroyo's batted ball types. Arroyo's LD% as a Red is 21%, slightly above league average. His GB/FB ratio as a Red is 1.10, again very average. Here's something interesting however, let's look at his IFFB% (Infield fly ball %): Among pitchers with 150+ IP:BABIP and DER aren't all about luck and the defense. A pitcher giving up ropes all over the place is going to have a higher BABIP and lower DER but the formula will chalk it up as bad luck or poor defense and be a little too forgiving. OTOH, a guy who keeps hitters off balance and induces lots of weak grounders and lazy fly balls gets passed off as being lucky or owing his success to his defense. I think the formula is missing the mark. Its OK for looking at an odd season that sticks out from the others, but ignoring 800+ innings of actual results in favor of the theoretical ones seems way off base to me.
2006: 11.5% (25th in MLB of 92)
2007: 15.4% (1st of 92)
2008: 17.2% (2nd of 99)
2009: 12.3% (15th of 87)
Hopefully, hit f/x will give us some more insight in to this. Maybe it's true that some pitchers allow weaker hit balls on average (even within the type of hit). I think it's quite likely that his inducing infield fly balls at a very high rate is playing a significant role in his lower than expected ERA. The question then goes to exactly how much control pitchers have over IFFB%. We should be careful in attributing this performance to a skill (and thus repeatable and predictive). I think it's reasonable to suggest pitcher's do have some control over it, probably related to movement which makes it difficult for batters to square up the ball, but we should be cautious in assuming just how much of the variance is due to skill vs. random variation.
(As to your point about value, sure, value goes beyond just what a guy does on the field. But that can be said about any player; it's not something special we should give Arroyo extra credit for.)
I'm going to take a look at BP's new SIERA (skill interactive ERA) stat and see if that sheds any light. For those not familiar, it's basically a super FIP, based on the same principal of only looking at those things which a pitcher can control. However, it includes more information than FIP, including batted ball types (includes pop ups).
At least for Arroyo, it looks like SIERA has done a better job at predicting ERA than FIP, though he's still been "lucky". Again, hit f/x should be quite illuminating and allow us to better describe batted balls and increase the accuracy of stats like this which attempt to remove the noise of park and defense.Code:IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 GB% LD% FB% IFFB% LOB% BABIP ERA FIP SIERRA 2006 240.7 6.88 2.39 1.16 38.2% 21.2% 40.6% 11.5% 78.0% .279 3.29 4.15 3.99 2007 210.7 6.66 2.69 1.20 35.3% 20.9% 43.8% 15.4% 74.0% .318 4.23 4.57 4.28 2008 200.0 7.34 3.06 1.31 41.5% 22.9% 35.6% 17.2% 70.1% .321 4.77 4.50 4.06 2009 220.3 5.19 2.66 1.27 44.8% 18.5% 36.7% 12.3% 76.5% .270 3.84 4.78 4.61 Average 218.0 6.51 2.68 1.23 39.9% 20.8% 39.2% 14.0% 74.8% .296 4.00 4.49 4.23
Last edited by RedsManRick; 03-21-2010 at 12:22 PM.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Well said.
Fly balls are the easiest types of batted balls to convert to outs. If they are induced without giving up square contact most of the time, they are harmless lazy fly balls. Jay Bruce 2009 should be ample evidence of how harmless a bunch of fly balls can be when not hit squarely. Sure there will be HR as a side effect but it gets a lot of outs in the process. Bert Blyleven probably makes the HOF next year with that as one of his main strengths while putting up similar K/9 and BB/9 numbers to Arroyo's 4 years in Cincy. Arroyo gave up more HR but I think parks and eras can probably explain most of that. Arroyo's 4 seasons in Cincy aren't HOF worthy by any means (but if he did it for 22 years and amassed 250+ wins and 3000ish K's you might think twice), but he's not garbage either which seems to be the most common misconception on Redszone.
I do think his contract is a little steep, but its not out of line with a lot of other guys. Fact is the Reds could have probably let Arroyo go and tried to get a similar mid-rotation replacement who can throw all those innings to keep the team from overtaxing the kids, but it would have cost at least as much and its doubtful that the team would have actually been able to lure one here and if they did, it would probably have been more of a 170 inning type than the 220ish that Arroyo provides. Those 50 innings are huge for a team with a lot of kids and question marks filling out the staff. I've never looked at that contract as the massive mistake that so many others on here have.
Last edited by mth123; 03-21-2010 at 12:32 PM.
All my posts are my opinion - just like yours are. If I forget to state it and you're too dense to see the obvious, look here!
Exactly.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
I think this is a bit of a strawman. People here value him, they just see him as a league average guy instead of a TOR type. I think the big misconception is that he's overpaid because he's making $10M as a league average starter. But the reality is that he's being paid what the market would bear for his production. Whether or not the Reds should pay market price for production is another conversation entirely, but the arguments that he's overpaid are not well supported by facts.
I agree. My only complaint about his contract is that it gave up one more year where we had him extremely cheap. However, as you point out, it's hardly guaranteed that the Reds could have replaced his production at his price in FA at the time the contract was given.I do think his contract is a little steep, but its not out of line with a lot of other guys. Fact is the Reds could have probably let Arroyo go and tried to get a similar mid-rotation replacement who can throw all those innings to keep the team from overtaxing the kids, but it would have cost at least as much and its doubtful that the team would have actually been able to lure one here and if they did, it would probably have been more of a 170 inning type than the 220ish that Arroyo provides. Those 50 innings are huge for a team with a lot of kids and question marks filling out the staff. I've never looked at that contract as the massive mistake that so many others one here have.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
I mentioned this in another thread about Arroyo. Here's an article that talks about his breaking ball as being one of the best in baseball last year. Funny quote:
DR. H gets an honorable mention for his off-speed offerings.Bronson Arroyo is to pitch classification systems as Bronson Arroyo's name is to Tim McCarver's brain. Nevertheless, his curveball(s?) are good pitches.
I think SIERA is a step in the right direction, though I think it's illuminating that we're always comparing new pitching stats to ERA. Note that we don't do that with pitching wins and RBIs. For instance, no one's comparing RC/27 to RBI or looking to predict RBI with RC/27.
I get a bit of kick when people (not you or anybody here, just people out in the baseball stats community) use ERA as a punching bag and then tether everything to it.
Push comes to shove, ERA and ERA+ are pretty decent basic representations of how well a pitcher performed in the past. You're always going to want to dig beneath that to figure out well a guy will do in the future. That would be true of any broad past performance representation. Yet something has to stand in and take the heat for when we want to say a guy did X well.
Also, whenever we talk about how well we expect a pitcher to do in the future, it translates to ERA. If someone thinks Johnny Cueto is going to have a breakout season the expectation is that will be represented by a good ERA at the end of the season. Obviously ERA is not the means to the end (and I don't recall it ever being treated as such), but a good ERA is a desirable end.
Anyway, whenever I look at broad set of numbers concerning Bronson Arroyo (like what you've posted), it reminds me that he's complex, tough to sum up. I think lollipopcurve is right to move beyond that and note that Arroyo's been worthy of appreciation no matter how people may want to dissect him.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Very much so, especially since he was brought on with such a cheap contract. He's made what, roughly $22MM as a Red in 4 years here?
That still doesn't mean the extension made sense.
Arroyo can start being valuable again by keeping his ERA, FIP, xFIP, BABIP, at a level better than a replacement pitcher for the months of April, May, and June.
Yes, those months matter more to a franchise like the Reds; they mean things get added or subtracted on July 31. The Yankees can afford to let a guy work through his guitar-induced carpal tunnel. The Reds can't; they gotta play two seasons, not one.
“And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject.” Jamie Galbraith
It's a fair critique, M2. Good post. But unfortunately, I think it's one of necessity. People simply will not accept FIP or SIERA or what-have-you as ways to measure performance outside of the context they're already familiar with. They make the argument that it is "not reality" or something along those lines. And to a certain degree, that's true. But by tethering it to ERA, you bypass the math-based argument to give the stat some credibility.
The attraction of ERA, supposedly, is that it only uses real runs. But what's interesting, as you infer, is that ERA itself is uses a process to try to only judge the pitcher based on what he's responsible for. It categorizes all runs scored in earned and unearned runs using an extremely soft, unscientific process. But to most people, it is still valid because those runs were actually scored, regardless of how you categorized them.
So to that extent, FIP and SIERA and the like are simple extension of the same logic of using ERA instead of RA. But the leap that upsets people is going from actual runs scored to the average run values of individual events. So many of the new saber stats use this approach -- and the average fan just doesn't understand and/or isn't willing to accept the validity of this method.
I think a better way to move forward, rather than comparing to ERA, would be to simply reframe the conversation. Forget the ERA comparisons. ERA is a measurement of what happened given actual runs scored. Fine. FIP, SIERA, etc. is about recognizing that a pitcher doesn't have much control over the timing of things, so we need to give him credit for the outcome each plate appearance. Yes, the defense-isolating part of it matters too, but ERA proponents argue that ERA does this too (if only roughly).
The big logical jump is more the use of more granular information. The public clearly has some capacity to do this, as QB rating shows. They recognize that just measuring yards and TDs ignores the nuance of being a QB. So they blindly use a convoluted formula which nobody understands to provide a general assessment of QB performance. It gets used on every broadcast and even in the video games. But FIP, SIERA, etc are much better as they actually use the currency of the game, runs.
I'd be fine using just IP and SIERA to generally discuss how well a guy pitch or can be expected to pitch in the figure, absent the full exhortation I just went through with Arroyo. Of course, that's the beauty of using skill based stats -- because skills don't fluctuate much and tend to follow general aging curves, past performance becomes a darn good predictor of future performance. But I digress, I doubt many others around here or elsewhere would be willing to do the same. They're too hung up on the nuances of what these stats don't measure -- and prefer to stick to things that they're comfortable with and can more easily understand, regardless of how accurately they actually answer the questions being asked.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
100% correct. Having him pitch like Cy Young in Sept means absolutely nothing for this franchise if he pitches like Anthony Young in April, May and June.
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