Damn, I really meant to get this on here yesterday before the BAL-CHA series, to add some background to the whole pitching v hitting buildup to the series. Anyway, here goes. When doing the Baltimore farm report, I was struck by how good their young P spects were, and wondered why Felix Hernandez remained in the minors. It was only then that I noticed they already had the #1 AL pitching staff as well. But if you look at the ratings on these guys, they don’t look that great. Indeed, one pre-season write-up predicted Toronto would win the AL East on the back of *their* pitching, and in part because they get to beat up on BAL (and the Wanks, of course)!!!! So how were these predictions so wrong? How did BAL manage to produce the #1 staff in the league?

I used the simplified defense-independent ERA calculation called FIPs–fielding independent pitching–to look at these guys to see if they had really outperformed–and if so by how much–or done as you would expect. Here’s the formula ((HR*13 + BB*3)-K*2)/IP + 3.2. Basically the goal is to look at only things for which the pitcher is responsible and take his defense out of the equation. Also note that I’ve seen modifiers from 3.2 to 3.7 used, but I’m not sure how you come up with these modifiers or why you’d choose one over the other. I went with 3.2. To measure the guys’ talent, I just added up their current ratings, so 6/8/8 for example = 22. So here’s the data for their top four starters and closer. I included Toronto for comparison.

BAL Talent 04 ERA FIP BABIP
J. Seo 20 3.61 4.09 272
Lowry 19 2.93 3.51 253
Hentgen 17 3.03 4.69 247
Towers 19 3.84 5.02 249
CL Ryan 23 2.74 2.85 295

TOR Talent 04 ERA FIP BABIP
Hallady 22 4.51 4.06 287
Carpenter 19 4.98 4.97 294
Escobar 18 4.26 4.65 277
Dice K 20 4.72 4.73 286
CL Crudale 20 2.85 3.09 298

So Baltimore’s starters in 2004 *outperformed* by a half run at the top end of the rotation and by more than a full run at the back end of the rotation, according to what you’d expect them to do based on the FIPs numbers. (Note that had I used a bigger modifier (3.7 instead of 3.2), this outperformance would be even more dramatic.) These results are backed up by the BABIP numbers. If somewhere between .290 and .300 is the average, then all of Baltimore’s big four starters gave up significantly fewer hits than you’d expect on balls put in play. Their massively talented closer basically did exactly what you’d expect him to do. Here again, where the FIP number and ERA are real close, you’re not surprised to see that Ryan’s BABIP was about in line with the average–he didn’t benefit from any “lucky” bounces or give up fewer than his fair share of hits.

Contrast that with pre-season favorite Blue Jays, who did indeed have better talent than the top Orioles starters. TOR starters put up FIP numbers more or less in line with their actual 2004 results, and BABIP figures also in the neighborhood of 290. In other words, they did just what you’d expect.

How do you account for these differences? Could be park effects, I guess, which I don’t know. You can’t really say it’s defense, because the FIP calculation is supposed to take that out of the equation. So I think most sabermetric dudes would say it’s plain old luck, and that Baltimore is due to come back to earth next season. But while TB and the BoSox and even Toronto will be taking heart in the likely reversion to the mean of Oriole pitching next season, you still have to account for the eventual call-up of King Felix, who instantly becomes the single most talented starter on the staff.

BABIP, however, certainly can be influenced by the defense behind the pitcher, and if you look at that what you find is that Toronto’s defense was quite poor on an absolute basis and relative to many other teams, Baltimore included. Here are the range ratings for Toronto’s outfield players: 6-8-7 LF-CF-RF, and 5-10-2-5 1B, 2B, SS, 3B. Compare with Baltimore’s defensive range ratings: 8-11-7 from LF, CF, RF, and 14-7-6-6 going 1B, 2B, SS, 3B. Is that enough to justify the difference in the two teams’ performances? Or more specific, is Baltimore’s defense good enough to justify such low BABIP numbers? I’m not sure after looking at just one or two teams, but it’s certainly a good reminder that you can’t just ignore defense completely in the name of offense. In the meantime, I’ll try to find some measures or ways to quantify the impact of defense.