Quote:
Originally Posted by Sowega
Wow, this without a doubt one of the best threads I’ve read here.
Are you seeing large discrepancies in Era V FIP for your staff? Wondering if the unique usage affects the differential more or less than normal life. May be too early to tell early in season but as season goes on would be interested to follow.
What are your current offense and pitching league ranks? And do you emphasize good defense infield with the pitching emphasis on ground ball specialists?
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Good questions. Let me cover them in order.
1. I think it might be too early to draw conclusions regarding any ERA / FIP variation. Another issue is that I can't locate team FIP anywhere in-game. From a quick survey of individual stats, it looks like a disproportionate number of pitchers have inflated ERA's relative to FIP's. I'll just take that to mean we are unlucky. We'll check back in later in the season...
2. I just checked team statistics and ... wow! Big surprises. The team is ranked 1st in the NL in six offensive categories, including runs scored. Third in hits, BB, and SB (thanks to Inciarte, who has 21. Bellinger has 10, nobody else has more than 4). Fifth in hits and then ... 14th in strikeouts. Overall these are fantastic numbers. This makes sense, as the draft strategy--supported by The System--was to draft offense and ignore some of the big arms.
On the pitching side, the team is 9th in ERA and ranks last in four categories. Interesting, we are 3rd in HRA, 2nd in BB, and 10th in K's. Dead last in BABIP at .338(!) and defensive efficiency (.651 -- I don't know what that means). Apparently we need help defensively, or else this is some strange result of pitching so many innings with replacement-level talent? No wonder so many pitchers have ERA's higher than FIP's!
Overall, I wouldn't think the team was sitting in a position to make the playoffs with these pitching numbers. But one thing to keep in mind -- we tend to give up a lot of runs, even in wins. Especially in wins. As long as it's a low leverage situation, giving up runs is fine. It's by design. Those are innings being pitched by replacement-level players so as not to waste the good arms.
So this all makes some sense. Except the BABIP and defensive efficiency. Inciarte is a very good defensive CF, and we've been playing Marrero at SS a lot more lately, where he has a 70 def rating and is at 250 defensive innings, or roughly half the season, with a ZR of +3.3 and EFF of 1.134. We've limited Starlin Castro to 36 IP at SS, and he hasn't even been that bad.
Statistically, the outfield has been bad, even though none of them are poorly-rated there (50+), and Castro has been bad at 2B even though he's rated at 50. Not sure what gives.
Anyway, to fully answer the question: yes, I would love to focus on good defense up the middle, and that is a priority in draft and free agency. Andrelton Simmons is on the trade block, but he's in the last year of his contract. I might make an offer with some prospects. He's pretty much exactly what this team needs, and he
might be affordable going forward once Castro ($16 mil) and McCarthy ($9 mil) come off the payroll after this season.