Of course, the answer to that question is a resounding NO. How unlucky could you be with the contract that Cain just signed? But, contract aside, I want to look at pitcher luck in terms of the results achieved for the quality of work produced. In other words, the relationship between wins and losses, and earned run average.

The traditional benchmark of W-L record for evaluating starting pitchers has now been largely eclipsed by ERA. Case in point is the 2010 AL Cy Young winner, Felix Hernandez, who took the trophy with a 13-12 W-L mark. Nevertheless, W-L is obviously still a prominent statistic. I can again cite Hernandez  as a case in point – there was more than a little criticism of his Cy Young selection, based chiefly on that 13-12 record. Similar reaction attended Cain’s new deal. Even a knowledgeable blogger on this site pointed out Cain’s unremarkable career .486 W-L%, rather than his career 125 ERA+, ninth among active pitchers (min. 1000 IP), and in a tight cluster on that list with such names as CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander.

After the break, I’ll take a look at whether comparison of ERA+ and W-L% can provide clues as to whether a pitcher is lucky or unlucky.

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In his age 20 season, 2010, Jason Heyward produced 5.2 Wins Above Replacement, according to baseball-reference’s formula (5.1 using the fangraphs formula).  That’s All-Star level production for a player of any age, and extremely high production for a twenty-year-old. More on high-WAR 20-year-olds, and their future, after the jump. Continue reading →

This photo was from last night’s game, when the trainer came out to check on Shin-Soo Choo. Please come up with a caption for it.

PRESSWIRE

OK, I have posted another stat challenge, and you can join it right here. As Insert Name Here suggested I have opened it to the public so we may get some competition from folks who don’t read the blog. It is free to enter.

Speaking of the blog, we had some downtime this morning for reasons still unknown, but I am suspicious of the live chat plugin since I just installed that yesterday. I have disabled that live chat for now while we investigate. (You can still post comments on the chat thread.)

I have also entered a $1 challenge that has 1000 entrants and a lot of cash prizes. I didn’t create this league. If you feel like it, you can enter that one here.

As a reminder, if you don’t have a FanDuel account, please use this link to sign up as High Heat Stats gets a referral bonus.

PRESSWIRE

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I have changed the Lobby page to a Chat page. You can still post comments there, but now you can also post chat to talk to anybody else in real-time who might be reading the blog.

As shown in the graph below, over the past 20 years, walk and strikeout rates (as a percentage of plate appearances) have usually gone in the same direction from year to year, and have usually been within 5 percentage points of each other. A couple of notable exceptions: Continue reading →

Richard Chester had a recent guest post concerning George McQuinn, 1st baseman in the 30s and 40s, mostly for the Browns and Yankees. That’s George on the left, with Chet Laabs, Harlond Clift and Wally Judnich, all regulars for the 1940-42 Browns. Looking at McQuinn’s career, specifically his standout 1947 season at age 38 with the World Series champion Yankees, reminded me of something Bill James wrote about in his Abstracts back in the 80s. James called it the “Last Hurrah” phenomenon when aging players, having started their inevitable decline phase, suddenly have a bounce-back year reminiscent of their younger days.

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The Tribe dropped another extended contest to Toronto by 7-4 in 12 innings Saturday, after losing their opener in 16 frames.

But take heart, Indians fans: The last team to start its season with two losses of 12+ innings wound up winning 97 games and easily capturing its division.

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Just looking at Brad Ausmus’ apparent effect on pitchers.

Roy Oswalt in his career: 3.21 ERA, .687 OPS
Roy Oswalt with Ausmus catching: 3.04 ERA, .685 OPS

Shane Reynolds in his career: 4.09 ERA, .742 OPS
Shane Reynolds with Ausmus cstching: 4.16 ERA, .728 OPS

Mike Hampton in his career: 4.06 ERA, .741 OPS
Mike Hampton with Ausmus catching: 3.36 ERA, .709 OPS

Jeff Weaver in his career: 4.71 ERA, .780 OPS
Jeff Weaver with Ausmus catching: 4.86 ERA, .783 OPS

I picked a few pitchers who threw a lot of their career innings to Ausmus. There doesn’t seem to be much of a trend. Obviously these data should be taken very lightly, as they don’t correct for context and the career numbers cover a lot of territory (for example Mike Hampton was a very different guy during the years he teamed with Ausmus).

If you look at specific teams and years, teams have vastly better numbers with Ausmus as the receiver than with other catchers, but this is because other catchers usually caught the 5th starter.

Anyway, I’m curious how a study like this would play out if done fully and correctly, and how much of a difference in ERA or OPS against would be significant.