"It'll only be his fifth win of the season, but that belies how well he's pitched."
This was just said by announcer Jim Palmer on the Angels-Orioles game I'm watching, about Angels pitcher Ervin Santana. Since Santana is on the Charlottesville Meadows, I thought I'd dig a bit more into his season, which I see as borderline "playable" so far in Strat-O-Matic.
When I started watching in the bottom of the eighth, it was 2-0 Angels, with the Orioles having just put runners at first and second with one out.
The replay showed that Angels third baseman Alberto Callaspo had just made a diving stop of an opposite-field liner off the bat of Felix Pie that would have been an easy double, and even though he didn't come up with it cleanly, he held Pie to a single. Literally inches made the difference.
The next batter, rookie Blake Davis, lined the first pitch toward the right-center field gap, but speedy fellow rookie Mike Trout glided over to make the catch from his position in left-center field. Slightly different contact or a less rangy center fielder makes that a one or two run-scoring double.
Then, J.J. Hardy stroked a 95-mph pitch back up the middle for a single to make it 2-1 and knock Santana out of the game, with Hardy at first and the speedy Pie at second.
I changed channels, and when I came back it was the top of the ninth, Trout was on first, and Jeff Mathis was bunting the first pitch I saw. He sacrificed successfully, sending Trout to second. Trout is under four seconds to first base, simply elite speed.
Maicer Izturis walked on four straight pitches next, though two of them were arguably strikes that were not called.
With Torii Hunter at the plate facing a 2-strike count, Mike Scioscia sent the runners. The pitch was another close pitch, this one a called third strike (which Scioscia argued about afterward), but the runners advanced.
Two pitches to Bobby Abreu were called balls (I recall the first "should" have been a strike), so with a 2-0 count the Angels decided to just intentionally walk him to get a righty-righty match-up with Vernon Wells.
He hit a grand slam to make it 6-1, which made it much more likely that Ervin Santana would get the win, though he was out of the game by that point already, and pull his win-loss record to 5-8 with an earned run average (ERA) of 3.69.
In the American League (with the designated hitter), an ERA under 4.00 suggests good efforts, and certainly would seem to merit at least a .500 win-loss record.
The next step is to look at other statistics, including the underlying metrics that have resulted in Santana's record, to assess what kind of season he is truly having.
The first next thing I'd look at (and, in fact, something I typically look at even before Wins and ERA) is WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched).
A good benchmark for WHIP is 1.00.
If a pitcher is surrendering one batter per inning, he's probably doing pretty well.
For Strat-O-Matic, pitchers with WHIP's much above 1.20 tend to have sub-standard and perhaps unusable pitching cards.
After carrying a no-hitter into the sixth, Santana ended up pitching 7-2/3 innings, giving up three hits and one walk. His WHIP for this game, then, was 4/7.67, or a miniscule 0.52.
On the season, this outing lowered his WHIP to 1.23, borderline for a starter in our league, but perhaps alright behind Tommy Hanson, James Shields, and Jhoulys Chacin, Meadows rotation mates who are closer to 1.00 WHIP's.
For his career coming into 2011, Santana had amassed a 76-55 record, with an ERA of 4.39, a WHIP of 1.32, 9.03 hits allowed per nine innings, 2.88 walks per nine, 1.16 home runs per nine, and 7.21 strikeouts per nine.
What's interesting is that WHIP doesn't include batters hit by pitch, though really that is analogous to a walk in that the pitcher puts a runner on by the pitcher's own doing.
Santana's WHAHBIP (walks, hits, and hit batters per inning pitched) was 1.38 coming into 2011.
The 2008 season was Santana's career year so far, as he achieved his highest strikeout rate (8.79 per nine innings) and best batting average against (.237) to go with the 1.12 WHIP, 3.49 ERA, and 16-7 win-loss record.
Santana's 2011 ERA of 3.69 would be his second best, and his WHIP of 1.23 would tie for 2nd best. His 7.32 K/9 would be his third best, and the best since his career-high 2008. All-in-all, a fine season, but will it be good enough to be a quality fourth starter in The Stratomatic League?
Advanced pitching metrics attempt to assess how well a pitcher has pitched independent of luck, defense, ballpark, and other performance-affecting variables.
First, luck.
Voros McCracken found, somewhat surprisingly, that pitcher's vary wildly from season to season in what happens to balls that are put into play (that don't end up being home runs). The statistic he investigated, BABIP (batting average on balls in play) vacillated from season to season, even for premier pitchers.
Whether one agrees with the premise of minimal pitcher control over BABIP or not, an elevated one suggests some bad luck for the pitcher (good luck for the hitter) while a depressed one suggests good fortune.
For example, last year Austin Jackson of the Detroit Tigers had a BABIP of nearly .400. This fueled a good batting average, but many analysts expected a drop-off in 2011, as that BABIP was not thought to be "sustainable."
Santana's BABIP in 2011 is .281, so if Major League average BABIP is around .290 this doesn't suggest extraordinary luck either way.
Another statistic that might represent some element of luck is "Strand Rate." Essentially, this is the percentage of runners "inherited" by subsequent pitchers who are "stranded" on base (i.e., do not end up scoring).
The Major League average strand rate is around 75%, so if more runners are being stranded, and their isn't evidence of an excellent bullpen doing so, that may be expected to regress over time back to average (thereby inflating final statistics).
Santana's strand rate is right on the mark at 75.2%, so no worries there.
Finally, the rate at which fly balls turn into home runs might have some element of luck. The Major League average is about 10-11% of fly balls becoming home runs, and Santana's rate in 2011 is 10.0%. A modicum of luck, perhaps, but since his career mark is actually slightly lower than that, at 9.7%, he's probably okay.
Next might be to take a look at the kinds of balls that are being hit off Santana.
Since ground balls turn into outs roughly 50% of the time and can turn into double plays, pitchers who get a lot of grounders can be very effective (especially with a good infield defense behind them).
Santana's career ground ball percentage entering 2011 was 37.6%...certainly not an extreme ground-baller, and in 2011 he's hit his career highest at 41.1%.
Line drives, on the other hand, turn into hits much more frequently than do grounders (around 75% of the time, compared to roughly 50%).
Santana's line drive percentage this year, 18.0%, would be his lowest since 2006.
Finally, non-home run fly balls tend to be outs most of the time, but since some of them turn into home runs, especially in certain ballparks, it's risky to have a fly ball pitcher. Santana is posting his lowest fly ball mark of his career at 40.9%.
Strikeouts are up, though not at a career high, ground balls are up, line drives are down, fly balls are down...seems like a better season than 5-8 and a 1.23 WHIP.
He's throwing slightly more fastballs than in 2010 (58.8% to 58.1%), and on average they're slightly faster (92.6 MPH vs. 92.5 MPH). He's upped his usage of the slider, a pitch that can be damaging to the throwing elbow, but it is his only positive offering according to pitch type values found at FanGraphs.com.
Santana is getting batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone more than he has in any season other than his excellent 2008, but unlike 2008 when batters made contact only 53.6% of the time on pitches outside the zone, this year they're at 63.1%.
He seems to be pitching more to contact on the one hand, and doing so effectively based on grounder and line drive rates, and striking out guys when he needs to on the other. The other noteworthy aspect of his season is that he is throwing first-pitch strikes 65.1% of the time, which would be the second highest mark of his career if he were to maintain it.
Where does all of this leave us?
Some advanced metrics attempt to "normalize" ERA, and have labels like ERA- (ERA standardized for ball park and league, with 100 being average and lower better), FIP (fielding independent pitching), FIP- (FIP standardized for ball park and league, with 100 average and lower better), xFIP (estimated FIP based on 10.5% HR/FB rate), xFIP- (xFIP standardized for ball park and league, with 100 average and lower better), tERA (an estimator based on batted ball types), and SIERA (skill independent ERA). Whew.
Recall that Santana's ERA this year is 3.69 after last night's game. Here are the other measures.
ERA- (lower than 100 is good): 96
Same as 2010 when ERA was 3.92.
FIP: 3.84 (0.15 higher than ERA)
Better than 4.28 in 2010 (0.36 higher than actual).
FIP- (lower than 100 is good): 99
Better than the 104 posted in 2010.
xFIP: 3.68 (0.01 lower than ERA)
Better than 4.31 in 2010.
xFIP- (lower than 100 is good): 94
Better than the 103 of 2010.
tERA: 4.00 (0.31 higher than actual ERA)
Better than the rather ugly 4.79 in 2010.
SIERA: 3.66 (0.03 less than actual ERA)
Compared to 2010's 4.26 SIERA, which was 0.34 higher than his actual ERA.
In 2011, Ervin Santana is pitching as well as his ERA would indicate, and has generally been effective, but has a win-loss record of only 5-8 to show for it.
Lack of run support must be the answer. Indeed, the Angels have given him 55 runs of support in his 21 starts, just over two and a half runs per game.
In 2010, they provided him with 130 runs in his 33 starts, closer to four runs per game.
And there you have it.
So the premise is that a win like this would build Santana's confidence for the rest of the way...we shall see about that (fingers firmly crossed).
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