With Pitcher BABIP now a thing, FIP and Pitcher WAR are kind of pointless
 

FIP and Pitcher WAR in OOTP are premised upon a pitcher not being responsible for BABIP. But in OOTP, pitcher BABIP has a big effect on pitcher performance.


Should the game be switching to Run-based WAR (rWAR) when evaluating pitchers for things like All-Star appearances and post-season awards?


What do you think?

For historical play, probably- though the game probably should have been using ERA for historical play anyways.

For modern and fictional play, absolutely not imo.

Is Pitcher BABIP only for historical? If so, that would make sense.

Yes, there is an option to override the rating for non-historical in the editor, but by default it is just blank and isn't used.

The game does use a pseduo-BABIP rating for modern/fictional players, but it isn't a visual rating. It is dynamic/hidden, calculated using their pitch repertoire/ratings. Assigning the actual BABIP rating in the editor would override that.

Do we have any more detail on this?

If you do a search there are a few threads where people have done some thorough analysis of pitch types and what their affects can be, but it isn't information the designers give out.

This is actually an issue in real life. Stuff+ and BABIP tend to have an inverse correlation, meaning that if you have better stuff, you tend to run a lower BABIP. This is the limitation of FIP-based statistics.

But the run based stats have obvious issues too. That's why I include both WAR on my pages.

What I like about non-FIP stats, at least for starters, is that pitchers are ultimately responsible for all of the runners that score to the same degree that batters are responsible for all of the hits they get.

And we don't think twice about judging batters based on a non-FIP stats.

Lol. A pitcher has the same defense behind him every game, so failing to account for whether the defense is good or bad is dumb. A batter faces a lot different defenses, so it is much more reasonable to assume defense is neutral for his outcomes across a full season.

The reality is that pitcher BABIP will for the vast majority of guys be very close to 1.000 anyway and so you will probably want to continue to use FIP since it's more evocative of actual performance than straight ERA. I personally don't have it on any of my screens but that's specifically because I play in an early 1970s environment where a. these stats literally were not available and b. people didn't really think of BABIP in that way (although I think there's always been a sense among actual baseball people if not necessarily fans that pitchers affect the game primarily by striking guys out and avoiding walks and homeruns). I also don't have WAR listed (I do have RC/27, which is an 80s stat but I think still based on the conceptions of the general time period).

I'm not sure which version of WAR is used in the game. If it's bbWAR, then it literally just looks at runs/earned runs and innings pitched and then adjusts for context. That's just, basically, a different way of presenting ERA (and as a counting stat). You do you but I'd just, you know, use ERA. fWAR is based on FIP. BBRef explains the differences here:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/a...ed_pitch.shtml

There is way too much noise in defensive outcomes to say anything is "much more reasonable" than anything else. The error bars are so wide that suggesting that batters benefit equally from neutral defenses is crazy. This is ultimately the problem with all FIP-based metrics.

Because in the end, we will judge hitters who benefit from a .320 BABIP against neutral defenses as better than hitters who get a .270 BABIP. Not just better, but significantly better even though a huge portion of that .050 BABIP difference is just luck.

"Lol."

Hitters have significantly more influence over their Babip than pitchers. This fact, combined with what I said above about defenses, is why FIP-like statistics are much more needed for pitchers than hitters.

This doesn't mean one shouldn't look into Babip, exit velocities, and other stuff for hitters, obviously.

Run-based statistics for pitchers are also affected by sequencing luck. Yet another factor that doesn't come into play for the batter statistics that matter.

The best part about this is exit velocity factors into critiquing how an opposing defense affects BABIP as well (speaking IRL)...... and just a few threads down on this very same message board exit velocity has been written off by many as meaningless.

Ball coming off bat and going from point A to point B at a faster speed between Hitter 1 and Hitter 2 = Defender not getting to point B quickly enough to field hitter 1's ball, equaling a base hit for hitter 1. As where the same defender fields hitter 2's ball, which was hit to the exact same spot in the field, and throws him out = Higher babip for Hitter 1.

sequencing luck? Are you suggesting that base situations have no effect on hitting and pitching effectivness?

There’s a world of difference between “no effect” and”a different effect for different pitchers”, which has yet to be demonstrated AFAIK. Certainly a lot of sequencing “luck” is in fact luck even though most pitchers are a little worse with a man on first. Also, in a lot of those cases a guy who allows a lot of baserunners on base will in fact have more of those men on base situations, which means that sequencing isn’t going to be so much of a factor.

Sequencing is absolutely an issue you see with relief pitchers and sequencing “luck” is often a thing that sees a guy have a low ERA one year and a high ERA the next. Again, if you want to use ERA, feel free. I don’t use FIP myself specifically because I want to reduce my access to modern knowledge about the way the game works. It’s certainly not useless and sequencing luck is a huge part of why it’s more reliable than straight up ERA.

Careful. It sounds like you might be saying that hitting with RISP is a skill lol, which I assume you don't mean.

No, "hitting with RISP is a skill lol" would be me suggesting that some hitters are better at it than others. There is no evidence in the statistical record of clutch hitting.

But of course the base situation is always going to affect pitching and hitting. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that. Having a force at a base, for example, can make the difference between an out and a hit. Having first base open with a runner on second encourages a pitcher to pitch around a hitter, increasing the chances of a walk.

In that respect, sure, FIP stats aren’t perfect but they’re stable more quickly than ERA because by concentrating on the peripherals they don’t ding a guy for unlucky sequencing. I’m not sure they’ll ever quite figure out how to account for situational hitting, exactly (although I suspect that the slow move to physics will mean that statheads of the future won’t feel the need to), but I don’t think perfect needs to be the enemy of good here,

Case in point.

https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/pfip-p...fip-framework/

I've always seen FIP as a predictive stat... how well is this pitcher likely to do in the future, whereas non-FIP measures are more result stats... how well did this pitcher do in the past.

After all, championships are won and lost on what actually happens in the games, not what is statistically most likely to happen. A swinging bunt hit on a nasty breaking ball can win Game 7, and a screaming lineout on a hanging curve can end it. The fact that the screaming liner is a hit 98% of the time is only relevant when God decides to save-scum that play.

I would argue that the reliever who gave up the WS-winning swinging bunt hit did his job, and the one who had a screaming liner caught for the final out failed, personally.

I would argue that when your job is to throw the best breaking pitch with the highest possible spin rate instead of getting the hitter out, you're no longer playing baseball. What was Dennis Eckersley throwing to Kirk Gibson? Nobody remembers and nobody cares. He gave up a home run. That's all that matters.

Anytime someone gets one of those swinging bunt hits they are yelling from the dugout, "it looks line a line drive in the box score!!" I know with the analytics that have come to be, that's not completely true anymore. But the point of "a hit is a hit" is still taken.

I think you can definitely argue that over the course of a large sample, those screaming liners are going to fall for hits and find the gaps for extra bases while those the swinging bunts are going to be ground outs more often than not...... but in any given small moment, the opposite can happen. And if that opposite happens in game 7 then all bets are off.

At the end of the day it's about the end result of the play and if you're playing the odds, that rocket line drive is still going to have more success in a large sample...... but in that one given moment when that little tap off the bat happens to find a soft spot in the infield, well that's what makes baseball so dang cool.

You are trying so hard to be right that you keep shifting the conversation all over the place. Let's go back to basics.

If you stop to think about it, can you see that this quote is wrong? Smart people in baseball have known this to be wrong for over 20 years now. Most of what you say in this thread seems based on your belief that the above is right, which it isn't.

It comes down to this: You have one pitcher with a 4.00 ERA and a 5.00 FIP. You have a second pitcher with a 5.00 ERA and a 4.00 FIP. Are you saying that the first pitcher was better but would pick the second pitcher for the future? It doesn't make any sense, does it?

It makes complete sense when you remember why they are the field.

Look at it this way... you have a first-place team with a 96-66 record and a 89-73 pythag, and then you have a second-place team with a 94-68 record and a 97-65 pythag.

Which team had the better season? And with all other things being equal, which team would you pick to win the division next season?

The second team had the better season and its not remotely close.

No. You keep changing the argument.

I didn't ask which pitcher had the better season. I asked which pitcher was better.

In your example, if you asked which team is better, I would say the second team.

I phrased this wrong obviously.

I will just write my final comment and bow out.

Pitcher A: ERA 4.00, FIP 5.00 -- Team A 96-66 record, 89-73 pythag

Pitcher B: ERA 5.00, FIP 4.00 -- Team B 94-68 record, 97-65 pythag

The above suggests:

Pitcher B was the better pitcher and Team B was the better team.

Pitcher B gave up more runs than pitcher A mostly due to factors outside of his control. If you had to say who was better, you would still say Pitcher B given the available information.

Team B had a worse record than Team A, but it was probably due to worse luck. If team A and B were to meet in the playoff in a neutral stadium, you would pick Team B.

You can say Pitcher A's team gave up fewer runs while was on the mound than Pitcher B's team when B was on the mound. Saying pitcher A was better is stupid given the available information and what we know of FIP and ERA.

In the context of reality = one sim, there's really not much difference between "better" and "better season".

"Better" in that "next season if nothing changes, then team B should be better" is a valid argument when nothing changes. But that never occurs, something always changes, so "better season" is functionally equivalent to "better", imo.

I would rather have a pitcher with a 3.00 ERA and a 4.00 FIP on my team than pitcher with a 4.00 ERA and a 3.00 FIP. Just like I'd rather have a team that overperforms it's pythag and narrowly wins the division over a "better" team that underperforms its pythag. Both of those situations, 100% of the time.

Next year is a long way away and too many things will always change and that means teams and players will not always play the same next year. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as they say.

I get that this is just a different way of prioritizing things, philosophically. Neither is right or wrong.

The second pitcher helped his team win a *lot* more games than the first one.

Then you don’t understand how statistics work. Play the game your way. That’s fine. You created a thread to argue that FIP is “pointless” and implying that nobody, not just only people who understand stats, should be using it anymore. Let’s not pretend that this is some kind of set of alternative facts or something.

absolutely true

That's not what I said. I said that, in OOTP, we now have Pitcher BABIP (something that doesn't exist in real life), so, in OOTP, that renders FIP and Pitcher WAR (based on FIP) sort of pointless.

Then someone pointed out that Pitcher BABIP in OOTP is only for historical leagues, and I said something along the lines, "oh, that makes sense then". That constituted the end to my concern.

What it ultimately means is that Pitcher BABIP is used in OOTP to bring pitchers' historical simulations more in line with their historical performance in a way that cannot be done with just relying on FIP. Which I think is great because it improves the accuracy of the sim.

In no way was I questioning the statistical validity or relevance of real-world FIP as a predictive stat.

And you’re still wrong. Pay attention to what other people are saying in here if you’re not going to bother to read my posts.

JFC... read my very first post in this thread, MathBandits response,, and then my response to him.

I promise it will take you less than a minute.

No one is arguing that, outside of OOTP, that FIP is pointless. That is something you have completely imagined in your head.

One other thing I wanted to add here too is that I do fictional leagues and therefore guys who don't have set BABIPs... and man, they are volatile. I'm in mid-June in a game and watching a starter who's carrying a .205 BABIP to a 2.69 ERA (it's 1972, which was a historically low-offense season but still). For relievers, especially in partial seasons, it can be even worse: I just cut a guy who had OK peripherals but had an ERA near 9 because he'd allowed a .396(!) BABIP on the year. I just saw another guy who was seemingly blowing through the league thanks to a .098 BABIP to date through 20 or so games and 25 or so innings.

If you think OOTP's BABIPs stabilize quickly just because there's an internal number for historical sims that makes it trend up or down (which, there are mechanics for fictional/modern leagues too, they just don't tend to deviate far enough compared to real life, hence the perceived need to add this), I have sad but possibly exciting news for you. You flat out cannot make BABIP stabilize without cheating. By its nature it takes a long time to do so and as noted above relief pitchers above. The whole point of why guys like Allan Anderson and Dave Fleming crapped out after one year is that they really weren't all that good in the first place but just got hit-lucky (and as noted sequence lucky) for a year.

Again, I just want to point out that if you're doing historical leagues and want to deliberately deprive yourself of some of this knowledge, knock yourself out. I basically do this (I do have BABIP displayed because I think that, as I think I noted above, the idea that pitchers don't usually control hits on balls in play was accepted among baseball circles if not among fans going pretty far back) by not having stuff like FIP or for that matter WAR or many of the more advanced batting stats around. That can add to immersion for sure if you're trying to deliberately hamstring yourself by making a decision as to whether or not a particular player is bad or unlucky (I also highly recommend turning off ratings if/when you do this) and increase the difficulty of a game that a lot of people find to be extremely easy once you play it long enough. Just... never let it be forgotten that hamstringing yourself is exactly what you're doing here.