I’m back, and ready for the stretch run! By the way, Theodore Roosevelt Island is my new favorite spot in D.C.
@Dodgers 8, Rays 2 — Clayton Kershaw picked up his shortstop on both ends, with 8 innings of 3-hit ball (getting a DP right after 2 of the 3 Dee Gordon errors), while stroking the game’s biggest hit, a 2-out, 2-run single in the 2nd after Gordon whiffed with 2 in scoring position.
- Since June 22, the Dodgers have five win streaks of 5+ games, going 37-8 since a 30-42 start. At 67-50, they’re 2 games ahead of the Miracle Braves at the same point (65-52 after a 30-41 start), and 4.5 games behind Atlanta for the best record in baseball this year. Some related notes from David Schoenfield.
- Kershaw leads the majors with 182 innings, 1.88 ERA and 190 ERA+. He trails Miguel Cabrera in total WAR, 6.6-6.5 (tied with Mike Trout). He would be the first qualified Dodger with a sub-2 ERA since Sandy Koufax’s swan song, and just their 2nd with such a season in the live-ball era.
- With about 8 starts left in his age-25 season, Kershaw is already 10th in WAR for ages 21-25 in the modern era. With one more WAR this year, he’ll pass Roger Clemens and Robin Roberts for the #7 spot in that age group.
- The Correction Reaper has come for Alex Torres: 5 runs and 5 hits in 3.1 IP over 2 games, rocketing his ERA from 0.26 to 1.43.
__________
Rangers 6, @Astros 1 — Martin Perez came within a strike of his first shutout, broken up by Chris Carter’s home run. Perez dominated Houston with 80 strikes in 115 pitches for his first complete game, in his 17th start.
Dallas Keuchel fell one strike short in his bid for Houston’s first CG this year. Keuchel trailed 2-0 with 2 outs and 2 on in the 9th, but he hit Craig Gentry with a 1-2 pitch, and then suffered 2 hits plating 4 runs. It might have become the first time since last August that opposing pitchers each had a 9-inning CG — but then, without the extra cushion, Perez might not have been allowed to finish.
- Texas has won 12 of 13 to erase a 6-game deficit and move a game up on Oakland, who are tied with Tampa for the wild card.
- Against lefty starters, the Rangers have hit .287 and slugged .445 (going 23-13 in those starts). But against lefty relievers, they’ve hit .210 and slugged .311.
- Perez and Anibal Sanchez are the only Venezuelans with a CG this year. King Felix, who led the AL with 16 CG over 2010-12, has yet to go the route this season.
- Ron Washington started Jurickson Profar at SS and Elvis Andrus at DH. Playing the bat but not the glove of Andrus is puzzling; he’s hitting .257 with a .628 OPS overall (.258/.669 against lefties), and if he were needed as a defensive replacement, they would lose the DH spot.
- Adrian Beltre‘s last calendar year:
— .332 BA (2nd among the 146 batters with 502 PAs);
— .963 OPS (3rd); and
— 42 HRs (just 3 others have 40+).
Since 2010 began, Beltre is 3rd in total WAR (25.0, trailing Cabrera and Cano); he’s also 3rd in WAR over the last 10 years, behind Pujols and Utley, and ahead of all pitchers in both spans. Soon he’ll pass Scott Rolen for #8 in WAR among all 3rd basemen, and he might also catch Ron Santo for the #7 spot this year. This would be his 4th qualified season hitting at least .320 with 20+ HRs, which only Cabrera and Chipper Jones can match among 3Bs. He’s already 8th all-time in games played at the hot corner, and among all-time 3Bs he ranks 8th in hits, 7th in HRs and total bases, 5th in doubles…. You see where this is leading.
__________
@Reds 3, Padres 2 (13 inn.) — San Diego sent 17 men to the plate with someone in scoring position and got one hit, a non-scoring single. Cincinnati went 0-2 with RISP, but they got Xavier Paul’s tying 2-run HR in the 8th, and Joey Votto’s winning sac fly, set up by Shin-Soo Choo’s double after a walk to Jack (.213, no HRs) Hannahan.
__________
@Yankees 5, Tigers 4 — About Mariano Rivera:
- It’s the first time Mo has blown 3 saves in a row. He’s blown 2 in a row 8 other times.
- It’s the first time he allowed multiple home runs in a save chance. Twice before, he allowed 2 HRs in relief, once when he entered a tie game (Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria), and once in a blowout win (Mike Stanley and Ed Sprague). He also had a pair of 2-HR games among his 10 starts in 1995.
- It’s the 6th time Rivera allowed a HR in consecutive appearances, and the 4th as a reliever. The last time was exactly 2 years ago, to the games — 2011, August 9 (Bobby Abreu) and August 11 (Russell Branyan), against the Angels.
- This is the first time Mo allowed a HR in consecutive blown saves. Once before, he gave up a HR in consecutive save chances — August 15-16, 2003 — but he converted one of those.
- Miguel Cabrera’s Sunday HR was the 9th off Mariano on a 1-2 count, out of about 860 PAs settled on that count.
- In Rivera’s 78 blown saves, the Yankees are 33-45, and Mariano’s record is 18-25.
About Miguel Cabrera:
- With 2 HRs in 7 PAs against Rivera, he’s tied with 4 others for the career HR lead. Evan Longoria has 2 in 17 PAs, Aubrey Huff 2 in 21 PAs, Edgar Martinez 2 in 23 PAs, and Rafael Palmeiro 2 in 34 PAs.
- Both Palmeiro and Cabrera have just 1 strikeout against Mo. They’re also the only ones with two 2-strike HRs off Mo.
- Cabrera’s .459 OBP this year would be the AL’s best since 2001 (Jason Giambi, .477). The last AL player at .450+ was Manny in 2002.
- Miggy and Chris Davis are on pace for 50 HRs/153 RBI and 58 HRs/150 RBI, respectively. There are only eight 50/150 seasons in MLB history — 2 each for Ruth, Foxx and Sosa, one for Hack Wilson and A-Rod — each in a different year.
__________
@Nationals 6, Phillies 0 — Stephen Strasburg crossed off a trio of “to-do” items — pitch into the 9th inning, complete a game, and book a shutout. Strasburg needed just 99 pitches to blank the Phils on 4 singles and a walk, with 10 strikeouts, in his first win since July 7. The Nats had scored 3 runs or less in losing his last 5 starts.
- All four Strasburg games of 8+ innings came this year.
- Seven pitchers younger than Strasburg have a shutout this year — Shelby Miller, Randall Delgado, Matt Moore, Chris Sale, Wily Peralta, Matt Harvey and Chris Archer (2).
- Jayson Werth is hotter now than in the anomalous year that landed him his absurd contract — 47 for his last 106 with 9 HRs, now hitting .328/.931 for the year. He was at .265/.756 when this torrid stretch started on July 4.
- Washington’s won 3 in a row, but they’re still 8 games out of a wild card, with 45 to play, and only 3 left against either current wild-card holder.
__________
@Royals 4, Red Sox 3 — K.C. took 3 of 4 at home for their 7th straight series win. They’re 11-7 against the AL’s three division leaders, and they sit 4.5 games from both wild cards. They get 3 more at home to Miami before starting a 5-game set in Detroit on Thursday.
__________
@Rockies 3, Pirates 2 — Pittsburgh has been swept in 3 series this year, all on the road. They haven’t lost 3 in a row at home all season.
__________
Orioles 10, @Giants 2 — One remarkable aspect of Chris Davis’s 109 RBI through 117 games is that he bats 5th, right behind Adam Jones, a slugger with a so-so OBP and 85 RBI of his own. The Orioles rank 1st in HRs and RBI from the cleanup spot, with a .327 OBP that’s below the AL average. Yet they’re also 1st in RBI from the #5 spot (by a margin of 105-77). A partial explanation for Davis’s RBI count (besides, y’know, the 42 HRS): Their table-setters have been good (tied for 5th in OBP from the #1-2 spots, 1st in doubles), while their #3 men haven’t cleared the decks at all (last with 47 RBI).
- Adam Jones is on track to join Brady Anderson as the only Orioles/Browns center fielders with a 100-Run/100-RBI season. Anderson did it in 1996, with 50 HRs.
__________
@Braves 9, Marlins 4 — Freddie Freeman crashed a 3-run HR for a 4-3 lead in the 5th, after Justin Upton inexplicably bunted into a force play with 2 on and no outs. Atlanta later broke a tie with 4 in the 7th, as they trimmed their magic number to 31 with 44 games to play.
- With RISP, Freeman is 43 for 95, .453. With 2 or more on base, he’s 28 for 54.
- Freeman is generally viewed as an RBI man, but he stunk in that role over the prior 2 years, batting .219/.733 with RISP in 2012 and .267/.727 in 2011, both times well below his overall season marks.
- In 15 games leading off, Jason Heyward has a .439 OBP and 18 runs, and the Braves are 13-2.
__________
Mets 9, D-backs 5 — New York scored 4 unearned runs in the 1st (3 on Paul Goldschmidt’s error), and were never headed. Ike Davis is on a walking spree. Three walks Sunday gave him 22 in his last 22 games, and at least one in his last 8 starts (14 total). Since returning from the minors on July 5, Ike has just 1 HR, but he’s 25 for 82 (.305) with 28 walks, for a .482 OBP.
- Wilmer Flores hit his first home run. After an oh-fer debut, he has at least one RBI in 5 straight games (9 total). He’s the fastest Met ever to reach 5 games with an RBI. Flores, who turned 22 last week, was leading the PCL with 86 RBI in 107 games before his call-up.
- The Mets have gone 5-3 since David Wright’s injury.
- Goldschmidt has drawn 18 walks in his last 20 games, double his prior season rate, and he’s already topped last year’s total (67-60). The careful treatment may intensify with another DL stint for Eric Chavez, the only Diamondback who has sustained production from the cleanup spot (.320 with 22 RBI in 25 games). Goldy has hit .236 in those last 20 games, but he’s remained productive, with 6 HRs and 14 RBI, and a .391 OBP leading to 15 runs scored.
__________
@Indians 6, Angels 5 — Cleveland returned from the dead with 6 runs and 3 HRs in the 6th and 7th innings, redeeming another poor outing by Justin Masterson. Michael Bourn drove in the go-ahead run with a single on the only pitch thrown by southpaw Nick Maronde, who was summoned just for him. Four Tribe relievers blanked the Angels over the last 5 innings, with big bailouts by Rich Hill and Matt Albers to keep the deficit at 5-0 before the comeback.
- Josh Hamilton‘s last calendar year: .235 BA, .299 OBP, .751 OPS, 173 Ks in 151 games. Out of 146 batters with 502 PAs in that span, Hamilton is #134 in BA, #128 in OBP.
__________
@Mariners 2, Brewers 0 — Felix Hernandez blanked Milwaukee for 8 innings, after they had opened the series with a pair of ten-spots. In his 12 wins, Hernandez has an 0.91 ERA, trailing only Kershaw (0.80) in that split among the 36 pitchers with 10+ wins. His performance broken down by run support:
- 0-2 runs (10 G) — 3-3, 2.43 ERA
- 3-5 runs (7 G) — 3-2, 2.02 ERA
- 6+ runs (8 G) — 6-0, 2.32 ERA
__________
Twins 5, @White Sox 2 — Casey Fien is the 2nd pitcher in searchable history with a 5-batter appearance of 3 strikeouts and 2 home runs. The first to do it was Francisco Rodriguez, nine days before.
- For this 4-game series, Alexei Ramirez moved to the #3 spot in the order, coming in with 1 HR and 29 RBI in 112 games, but responding with 2 HRs and 5 RBI.
” Felix Hernandez blanked Milwaukee for 8 innings, after they had opened the series with a pair of ten-spots.”
It’s the first time the Mariners have done that – allow 10+ runs twice and then shutout the same opponent, in consecutive games.
Another Mariners’ oddity from last week was starting Henry Blanco and Raul Ibanez in the same game (noticed because I was at the game, though Seattle had done so several times before). The Mariners are thus just the 9th team since 1916 to start a game with two 41+ year-old non-pitchers in the line-up. The first four of those teams were for the same two players: Pete Rose and Tony Perez in 1983-86. Can you name the other four teams to do this? (3 of them should be pretty easy; the fourth is hard).
Well, I whiffed with the 1928 A’s — Eddie Collins didn’t start any games that year, and Tris Speaker was only 40.
Unless I missed one, the first team to do this was the 1983 Phillies with Rose and Perez. Those Phillies are the only team to do this in the post-season.
Ricky Henderson and Tony Gwynn did it for the Padres in 2001.
2006 Giants, Barry Bonds and Steve Finley
2007 Mets, Sandy Alomar Jr and Jeff Conine (I suppose this is the hard one?)
By “41+ year-old” do you mean “players in their age 41+ seasons”, or more literally “players who were 41+ by the calendar”?
If the latter, then here’s another qualifier:
On Oct 4 2001 the Orioles starting lineup included Tim Raines Sr. and Cal Ripken Jr. – Ripken was in his age-40 season, but with a DOB of 8/24/60 he was in fact 41 at the time.
The O’s starting lineup also featured Tim Raines Jr.; but, alas, not Cal Ripken Sr….
Good one, David.
P-I was running really slowly today and wouldn’t do my Game Finder search. So, yes, I was referring to players in their age 41+ season, which I can find using a P-I season search.
P-I is still running slowly, so I did the season finder for age 40+ – I think you’ve found the only other team. However, the 2007 Mets picked up yet another player to start a game after his 41st birthday – Moises Alou. He and Conine started together a number of times, but no games with Alou and Franco, or Alou and Alomar. That’s a total of 6 players age 41+ on that Mets club – Alou, Alomar, Conine, Franco and pitchers Tom Glavine and Orlando Hernandez. Three of those 6 (one of the pitchers plus two others) started in 5 Mets games that season.
Yes, the 2007 Mets was the tough one. Alomar and Conine started in the same game just once. Julio Franco also started 7 games for the Mets that year (none with Alomar) and had been released before Conine was acquired.
Just one other team not mentioned so far to do this.
2004 Mariners, Pat Borders and Edgar Martinez.
Can I go back to my life now?….
That’s the one.
Meanwhile, something interesting is happening in Houston: Yu Darvish retired the first 17 men, then issued a walk via 4 straight balls after an 0-2 count. His catcher, A.J. Pierzynski, was then ejected, and Darvish bagged his 12th K with Geovany Soto behind the plate.
http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=330812118
MLB-TV is showing it now.
Ridiculous strike-three call on a full count leading off the 8th gifted Yu his 14th K. Carlos Corporan hit the next pitch into the RF stands. Hey, ump — the outcome of the game is what really counts here. That should have been a game-tying HR.
The blown call was a curve inside to a righty batter that never came close to the strike zone — not even judging by where it was caught. Even Eric Gregg would have blanched.
Hope you had fun in DC! I lived in the area for 7 years and I still love visiting. And Teddy Roosevelt Island is great!
Had a great time in DC, Ed. With just a couple of days to spend, and pretty good weather, we did everything outdoors — the MLK and FDR memorials at night (where a fox crossed our path); the Eastern Market, T.R. Island (saw a big turtle sunning in the Potomac, then a snake slithered across the trail right in front of us), the Sculpture Garden and the Butterfly Habitat (no flutterbys, alas); and a few hours of baseball/football/frisbee in Lincoln Park. Liberally sprinkled with frozen yogurt stops, of course.
re. Miguel Cabrera and Chris Davis being on pace for the 9th and 10th
50/150 season in MLB history.
Recent comments and a great link about Lou “Tarzan” Gehrig and a possible
sighting of the bottom of his three-piece-set, got me thinking about
the original Iron Man.
Lou Gehrig had four seasons where he came close…
1927-47/175
1931-46/184
1934-49/165
1936-49/152
Babe Ruth also had four near misses…
1926-47/153
1929-46/154
1930-49/153
1931-46/163
1931 was Ruth’s age 36 season.
He hit .373 and with 10.3 WAR
had his tenth and final season of 10+ WAR.
Note: In 1919 Ruth had 9.5 WAR as an everyday player.
I added the 0.8 WAR he achieved on the mound
that year, to conclude that 1919 was his first
season of 10+ WAR.
In Regards to Mo blowing three saves in a row for the first time ever…
Is there any way to figure out if this is a record. Or has any reliever with
at least 150 saves, or some other number, never blown more than two in a row?
Jason Z — I’ll check the other career saves leaders:
— Trevor Hoffman never blew 3 save chances in a row. Blew 2 in a row 7 times.
— Lee Smith blew 3 in a row 3 times.
— John Franco technically blew 5 in a row from 2001-03, though he missed all of 2002 and he wasn’t a closer by 2001. As a closer, he blew 3 in a row 4 times.
— Billy Wagner blew 5 in a row in May 2000 (and went out for the year a month later), and 3 in a row 2 other times.
— Dennis Eckersley blew 3 in a row twice.
FWIW, Wagner’s 5 is the most I found scanning the (largely meaningless) list of blown save streaks in P-I. I think he’s our man.
Others closers to blow 5 straight:
– Jay Howell, 1987
– Norm Charlton, 1997 (during the streak, he lost his closer role to Benny Ayala, and the last two in the streak were of the “technical” variety; but Charlton got the closer’s job again, briefly, before surrendering it a second time, to Heathcliff Slocumb)
Jonathan Papelbon and Jim Johnson each had 3 consecutive BS earlier this year.
I just can’t resist.
Craig Kimbrel only has 125 career saves, but he has yet to blow two in a row in 141 career save opportunities.
I thought Justin Masterson might be having somewhat of an unusual season, what with his 1.05 ERA in wins and 8.14 ERA in losses. Using the split search and looking at the difference in ERA in wins and overall ERA, Masterson comes in 82nd with a difference of 2.54 ERA.
Masterson’s 2012 season actually comes in 3rd overall with a difference of 3.63 (1.30 in wins, 4.93 overall). The only seasons with a greater difference are Sammy Ellis in 1966 (1.48 in wins, 5.29 overall, 3.81 difference) and AJ Burnett in 2010 (1.08 in wins, 5.26 overall, 4.18 difference).
And Sammy Ellis’ 1965 season shows up first on the list if you look at it the other way (i.e., difference between ERA in losses and overall ERA). In 1965, Ellis had a 13.64 ERA in his 10 losses but an overall ERA of 3.79.
Ed, out of curiosity, what other criteria did you use? E.g., years, minimum number of wins, etc. I tried a wins threshold of 10, 11 and 12, and I can’t match the results of your 2nd paragraph. The wins threshold can’t be higher than 10 if it’s to yield Burnett 2010, but that threshold brings in one guy with a higher differential (Pat Caraway, 1931), and several more between Burnett 2010 and Masterson 2012.
Here’s the P-I’s description of my 10-win search:
For single seasons, From 1916 to 2013, in Wins (within Game Outcome for Pitcher), (requiring W≥10), sorted by greatest difference between Earned Run Average for this split and the overall total
John – I don’t remember exactly what I did but one other criteria I used was GS greater than or equal to 10. I wanted to eliminate relievers from the search as best as I could. It seemed like a reasonable way though if you have other thoughts on that, let me know.
I must have done something else as well since I’m now getting Burnett 1st, Ellis 2nd, Harry Bryd (1953) 3rd, Lincecum (2012) 4th and Masterson 5th. But I don’t remember what it was.
So my current search looks like this:
For single seasons, From 1916 to 2013, in Wins (within Game Outcome for Pitcher), (requiring W≥10 and GS≥10), sorted by greatest difference between Earned Run Average for this split and the overall total.
By the way, looking at the overall list, I’m surprised how many recent seasons are near the top. I can’t think of why that would be.
Ed, re: many recent seasons on your list — I’m guessing that the long trend towards fewer SP decisions makes this particular split more volatile.
For example, last year, Cliff Lee started 30 games and had just 15 decisions; such a season never happened until 1995. Mat Latos had 33 starts and 18 decisions; such a season happened twice before 1993, 6 times since.
I’m just thinking out loud, but if the percentage of no-decisions goes up, wouldn’t the outings that wind up as wins or losses tend to get pushed towards the extremes? At the same time, the fewer decisions there are, the more randomness they contain. So, in the last 20 years or so, there are probably far more extremes on both ends of the ERA split comparing wins to overall, and losses to overall.
On a tangent re: splits for ERA in wins vs. overall — I did a split search with a 20-win minimum. Three of the seven *smallest* differentials belong to Lefty Grove:
— In 1935, Grove had a 2.61 ERA in his 20 wins, 2.70 overall. (And 2.60 in his 12 losses!)
— In 1927, Grove had a 3.03 ERA in his 20 wins, 3.19 overall.
— In 1931, Grove had a 1.81 ERA in his 31 wins (!), 2.06 overall.
That 1965 season by Sammy Ellis showed up in my post last year on “Jekyll and Hyde Pitchers”. Ellis had 22 quality starts to go with 11 disasters (more RA than IP).
After a weekend filled with the dazed purposelessness and fitful anxiety that afflicts so many who go cold turkey on Game Notes, I couldn’t help affixing every ounce of mental strength on the very first lines of JA’s much celebrated return. Unfortunately, my mental strength only shines beside my physical abilities, and in tracking Clayton Kershaw’s wonderfulness through B-R, I came across yet another demonstration of why I simply don’t understand WAR. This is a plea for guidance (not an attempt to bash WAR).
What I was looking at was the field Kershaw beat for the 2011 CYA, the top five in that competition being:
Kershaw (21-5): IP 233.1; WHIP 0.977; ERA+ 161 — WAR 6.53
Halliday (19-6): IP 233.2; WHIP 1.040; ERA+ 163 — WAR 8.86
Lee (17-8): IP 232.2; WHIP 1.027; ERA+ 160 — WAR 8.61
Kennedy (21-4): IP 222; WHIP 1.086; ERA+ 137 — WAR 4.78
Hamels (14-9): IP 216; WHIP 0.986; ERA+ 137 — WAR 6.58
What I can’t understand is how to think about the divergence of WAR figures for two sets of pitchers with very similar IP and ERA+. I checked to confirm that this wasn’t skewed by batting stats (if anything, they would skew things the other way for Kershaw), Ks, etc. Nothing visible seemed to account for it.
What thoughts should be in my head? — I’m thinking of sentences of the form, “Oh, we can probably account for these huge differences by realizing that WAR considers . . .” Any guidance would be much appreciated. The B-R explanations of WAR probably give all the answers, but that sort of heavy lifting requires that you get a grip (something my kids often urge me to do, but . . .).
Thanking you in advance for not laughing,
Yrs. Truly, Etc.
epm — I’m not able to answer that, but I’ll throw out a couple of facts which might be relevant:
1) By the “BIS Defensive Runs Saved” metric, the 2011 Dodgers were a good defensive team, while the Phillies were awful. BAbip numbers were .305 for Halladay, .293 for Lee, and .274 for Kershaw.
2) Fangraphs’ WAR for those 3 leading 2011 NL CYA candidates: Halladay 8.0, Kershaw 6.6, Lee 6.5.
Thank you, John. That gets me on a useful track. I picked up from the B-R guide that DRS was a component, but your response took me to the BIS site to get clearer, and then to the lines of the B-R Player Values chart that I had previously studied only while playing loud doo-wop in my head. Now I see these stats are likely far more than minor components in the WAR formula and I’ll turn the volume down in the future. For these five CYA guys, DRS does seem to be a key: Kennedy is “hurt” by even better team defense.
(I also saw B-R’s note on differences with Fangraphs. If I recall, BAbip doesn’t figure at all in Fangraphs, so something else must account for Halladay there, Lee and Kershaw now being aligned.)
Notable are Halladay and Lee, on the same team and with similar IP, ERA, ERA+, BB and SO. So, their very close WAR rings true.
Kershaw, had similar stats (a bit better ERA, more SO, but also more BB) but played in a pitchers’ park, for a low offense team (664 runs vs 713 for the Phils), and in front of league average defense, but better defense than the Phils (2nd to last in DRS). ERA+ would (I think) only adjust for the park factor, while WAR adjusts for park factor, team offense (presumably, the statistical whizzes have figured out how to separate out those two inter-related factors) and team defense (not sure if there is a further adjustment to reflect how how team defense is influenced by park factors).
Hamels has a higher ERA, which probably accounts for his different ERA+ compared to his teammates. Hamels’ ERA was a touch lower than Kennedy’s, but the D-Backs play in a better hitter’s park, hence their equal ERA+ scores. The D-Backs scored a few more runs than the Phils (731 to 713), perhaps not enough more to account for the difference in their park factors but still not a big difference in team offense. But, the D-Backs had superior team defense (best in NL in DRS and UZR; Phils were 2nd worst in DRS and middle-of-the-pack in UZR) which appears to be the factor ratcheting down the WAR for Kennedy.
EPM – You can actually see how it all works by looking at the section labeled “Player Value – Pitchers” on each player’s BR page. Hover over each of the red columns gives an explanation for what’s in the column.
1) Start with the column labeled RA/9 (remember that WAR is based on all runs, both earned and unearned). Halladay had 2.50, Kershaw 2.55.
2) Next comes the RA/9 for the pitcher’s opponents, adjusted by ballpark, etc. Halladay’s opponents scored 4.17 runs per 9 innings, Kershaw’s 4.14.
3) Next comes an adjustment for defense. Philly had a lousy defense that year (-0.34 runs per 9 innings), the Dodgers were basically average (+0.02)
4) Next there’s an adjustment for the ERA difference for starters vs. relievers. For some reason Halladay has a slightly bigger adjustment (0.16 vs 0.15) though I doubt it makes a difference in the final numbers.
5) Next comes a park factor, weighted by innings pitched in each park. Halladay pitched in parks with a factor of 101.6 whereas Kershaw’s was 96.4.
6) Next comes an estimate of what an average pitcher would do against these opponents, with this defense and in these parks. This is basically a culmination of steps 2-5. For Halladay it’s 4.74 runs/9 innings; for Kershaw it’s 4.12.
From there, things get translated into runs above average, wins above average, WAR, etc.
Bottom line is while they had similar ERAs and RAs (2.50 vs 2.55) Halladay did it under tougher circumstances. An average pitcher under Halladay’s circumstances would have given up 4.74 runs but only 4.12 runs under Kershaw’s circumstances.
Doug and Ed, While I was busily following up on JA’s reply, your more detailed responses came in. John gave me some momentum, and your discussions and explanations/glosses have moved me through the process.
Thanks! I’m glad I asked, and I hope that – like the kid in the back of the class – my dumb question may wind up helping a few others.
It did. Also, thanks everybody for all the great replies! I actually have a partial handle on what WAR is doing now, instead of just assuming black magick.
epm, I spent the weekend up in the attic, huffing the fumes of long-since-opened boxes of old baseball cards to get by.
Never go cold turkey.
bstar, I would have inhaled my own cards, from scattered ’55 Bowman TVs through complete sets of Topps ’59-’63, carefully sorted in cardboard whiskey cases, if only I hadn’t been off gallivanting at college in the late ’60s, when my mother (sainted though she be) allowed the neighbor boy who was so eager to help her create closet space to . . .
Talk about cold turkey! I’m still shivering.
The Royals’ run puts them at 61-54, and right on their Pythag. Last time they reached 61 wins in their first 115 games was in 2003 and, before that, in 1994 (their season-ending record was 64-51). Since their inception, they’ve reached this level in only 14 of 45 seasons.
The Royals’ schedule looks very favorable the rest of the way. To finish first or second, they have 11 more with Detroit and 6 with Cleveland to prove their mettle (but, the Tigers will be tough, hosting 8 of those 11). Other than that, the Royals have only 4 games (3 with Texas, 1 with Tampa) against teams now above .500, but 26 against sub-.500 teams, with the White Sox (7), Mariners (7), Twins (3), Blue Jays (3), Marlins (3) and Nationals (3).