Sox get Peavy

[User Name]

Again, that's not what he's trying to say. He's trying to say that Peavy's overall numbers have been affected by a start that could be considered an outlier. I'm not saying that i agree with it, just pointing out that you're misinterpreting his argument.

[mvp 78]

If you want to evaluate an SP by taking away his worst starts, you have to take away his best starts as well in order to remove all outliers.

Is this baseball or are we judging highdiving at the olympics? Massaging stats to fit an argument is just nonsensical to me.

 

Saying "his bad start came before a DL stint" is a far better talking point.

[a700hitter]

Again, that's not what he's trying to say. He's trying to say that Peavy's overall numbers have been affected by a start that could be considered an outlier. I'm not saying that i agree with it, just pointing out that you're misinterpreting his argument.

I don't qagree that there are outliers, unless the guy was pitching with an eyepatch or against a team using aluminum bats. You measure a pitcher by his full body of work. There is no cherry picking. Like I said, if he was in a hot streak now, that would be valid, because maybe he made an adjustment to improve his performance. Normal seasonal ups and downs just factor into overall performance.

[mvp 78]

That's not what he's trying to say though.

 

I think we know what he's/she's trying to say, but are disagreeing with his assumptions. I've read his posts and just don't agree with his/her thought process on the matter.

[mvp 78]

It's a step above "if you took Iggy's hits and divided by two then divided by two again..."

[User Name]

Is this baseball or are we judging highdiving at the olympics? Massaging stats to fit an argument is just nonsensical to me.

 

Saying "his bad start came before a DL stint" is a far better talking point.

 

I'm not saying i agree with doing it. I'm presenting what, speaking from a statistical analysis standpoint, would be the correct way of doing it.

 

Notice how, if you do what i presented above (take away best and worst start) his ERA essentially stays the same.

[sk7326]

If there is a reason to pause with Peavy it is that his FIP has slipped the last couple of years to something closer to "average" than "quite good". But he handled 219 innings last year and his strikeout rate is still pretty good - so the stuff still seems to be pretty good. The homeruns seem to be the biggest contributor to his slippage. He is a fly ball pitcher to begin with, but this year an unusually high number of them have left the yard ... how much of that is actual decline vs a spat of bad luck is the question. We know New Comiskey/Whatever they call it is a homerun friendly park (10th in park factors per mlb.com) compared to Fenway.

 

BTW: Fenway is a doubles paradise -not a homerun one

[User Name]

I don't qagree that there are outliers, unless the guy was pitching with an eyepatch or against a team using aluminum bats. You measure a pitcher by his full body of work. There is no cherry picking. Like I said, if he was in a hot streak now, that would be valid, because maybe he made an adjustment to improve his performance. Normal seasonal ups and downs just factor into overall performance.

 

I think there are outliers. I just think everything averages out over the long term.

[BornToRun]

I don't qagree that there are outliers, unless the guy was pitching with an eyepatch or against a team using aluminum bats. You measure a pitcher by his full body of work. There is no cherry picking. Like I said, if he was in a hot streak now, that would be valid, because maybe he made an adjustment to improve his performance. Normal seasonal ups and downs just factor into overall performance.

 

And the fact that he was likely suffering from a busted rib doesn't matter. I think it's fair to at least raise the idea that the two horrible starts were outliers and when you take out two great starts to go with them, the middle ground is still really good. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that while he has a 4.28 ERA, it's heavily weighted by two truly terrible starts where he might've been pitching hurt and his peripherals suggest he's likely to be getter going forward. His issue is home runs and the monster might offer him some help with righties and Fenway doesn't exactly have the best environment for lefty power hitters due to our huge right field.

[BornToRun]

If there is a reason to pause with Peavy it is that his FIP has slipped the last couple of years to something closer to "average" than "quite good". But he handled 219 innings last year and his strikeout rate is still pretty good - so the stuff still seems to be pretty good. The homeruns seem to be the biggest contributor to his slippage. He is a fly ball pitcher to begin with, but this year an unusually high number of them have left the yard ... how much of that is actual decline vs a spat of bad luck is the question. We know New Comiskey/Whatever they call it is a homerun friendly park (10th in park factors per mlb.com) compared to Fenway.

 

BTW: Fenway is a doubles paradise -not a homerun one

Exactly. I can't say for sure what Peavy's final line for the Red Sox will be this year but I'm fairly confident it will be better than a 4.28 ERA.

[a700hitter]

I think there are outliers. I just think everything averages out over the long term.

The outliers are included when determining the averages. It's a much more effective way of establishing a level of performance than to pull out the bad starts and the good starts. I just don't see the value in that analysis. If someone wants to present evidence that the Chicago team has terrible defensive range thus allowing more hits, that would be encouraging to me. Just taking out a bad start and calling it an outlier is bogus to me. You can disagree.

[User Name]

The outliers are included when determining the averages. It's a much more effective way of establishing a level of performance than to pull out the bad starts and the good starts. I just don't see the value in that analysis. If someone wants to present evidence that the Chicago team has terrible defensive range thus allowing more hits, that would be encouraging to me. Just taking out a bad start and calling it an outlier is bogus to me. You can disagree.

 

I never said i agree with his analysis. I am strictly arguing semantics here.

[User Name]

And for the record, the White Sox are 23rd in the Majors with a -17.2 UZR, and fielding statistics are especially unkind to their OF's with the exception of Rios, who is rated as average.

[a700hitter]

I never said i agree with his analysis. I am strictly arguing semantics here.

Don't we disagree about enough?

[a700hitter]

And for the record, the White Sox are 23rd in the Majors with a -17.2 UZR, and fielding statistics are especially unkind to their OF's with the exception of Rios, who is rated as average.

THis is a useful stat.

[BornToRun]

And for the record, the White Sox are 23rd in the Majors with a -17.2 UZR, and fielding statistics are especially unkind to their OF's with the exception of Rios, who is rated as average.

I think Vic and Ells are going to be god send for him. Dude is a FB pitcher and our CF/RF defense is pretty awesome.

[SoxSport]

The index is how much better is he than Dempster? If he is better, he was worth the climb. The caveat is Dombrowski isn't dumb--Iggy has potential upside as a top SS.

[sk7326]

The outliers are included when determining the averages. It's a much more effective way of establishing a level of performance than to pull out the bad starts and the good starts. I just don't see the value in that analysis. If someone wants to present evidence that the Chicago team has terrible defensive range thus allowing more hits, that would be encouraging to me. Just taking out a bad start and calling it an outlier is bogus to me. You can disagree.

 

Well, outliers is not necessarily a pure tit for tat sort of thing. You are looking at the appearances that DO NOT trend with the rest of his season. If you plot his ERA on an outing by outing list for instance, one set of histogram buckets might be:

 

ERA 0.00 to 1.50: 5 starts (5/13 = 38.5%)

ERA 1.50 to 3.00: 2 starts (2/13 = 15.4%)

ERA 3.00 to 4.50: 1 start (1/13 = 7.7%)

ERA 4.50 to 6.00: 2 starts (2/13 = 15.4%)

ERA 6.00 to 7.50: 0 starts

ERA 9.00 to 10.5: 1 start (1/13 = 7.7%)

ERA 10.5 to 12: 0 starts

ERA 12.00 to 13.50: 1 start

ERA 22.5 to 24.00: 1 start

 

Plotting a histogram like this shows the bad starts are clearly the outliers, much more than the good ones - where the clustering is taking place. Taking one or more of them out of the analysis is totally reasonable, but generally you don't want to unless there really are some sort of temporary circumstance. (an injury, an inside the park homerun, Coors Field, whatever)

[sk7326]

The index is how much better is he than Dempster? If he is better, he was worth the climb. The caveat is Dombrowski isn't dumb--Iggy has potential upside as a top SS.

 

Just on the IP level, he is somewhat better. Iggy has upside as a good SS - and considering the Peralta Biogenesis business, they needed a reasonable starter. Iggy has upside of an Elvis Andrus level SS (not the 2013 terrible version of him granted) if he can get on base at the rate he has this season overall. But it runs so counter to the evidence he has provided since the Sox signed him that it is hard to blame Cherington (or anybody else) from thinking he will turn back into the guy he always has been in the batter's box. If Iglesias hangs a .250/.300/.300, he is playable with his glove. Not a star, but a SS who can start without uncontrollable fits of laughter. But his career body of work aside from 2 months, makes this a 50/50 bet at best.

[Dojji]

Obviously not thrilled with this. I don't hate the trade per se, I honestly think that if Cherington had decided to get Peavy, he did it right, but I hate the decision to get Peavy. The huge salary commitment makes me anxious and I don't trust Peavy to hold up.

[sk7326]

Obviously not thrilled with this. I don't hate the trade per se, I honestly think that if Cherington had decided to get Peavy, he did it right, but I hate the decision to get Peavy. The huge salary commitment makes me anxious and I don't trust Peavy to hold up.

 

One more year at $14.5M. If you look at what pitchers got this past offseason (Dempster - who is a terrific value relatively, Edwin Jackson et al), and how much money every team is rolling in (the Marlins cashing in those $50M revenue sharing checks before having to sell a seat) - that salary is not NEARLY as absurd as it seems. I mean the 2014/15 offseason that is right in line with what you'll be seeing Lester's suitors bidding.

[mvp 78]

I don't think people here really understand "outliers" or statistics. I'm not going to further argue semantics.

[BornToRun]

I don't think people here really understand "outliers" or statistics. I'm not going to further argue semantics.

It seems as though the discussion has moved beyond that point. Oh well, agree to disagree and thanks for debating like an adult and not a tool.

[Orange Juiced]

Also, i don't know where you came up with 3.75 ERA Orange Juiced. If you take away his best and worst outings, you end up with a 4.09 ERA.

 

I didn't do the math, but someone mentioned taking away his single worst and single best starts, and the era comes out to 3.74.

[Orange Juiced]

Yeah but on average, the best and worst one will have a similar impact on a pitcher's overall ERA. Unless the worst start is a true disaster.

 

Which, in Peavy's case, it was.

[Orange Juiced]

If he wanted to say that he is pitching better lately, that is a legitimate argument, but the stats he put up didn't support that argument. He didn't show a progression of increasing good outings. He just pulled out the bad start. That's just not a valid measure of anything.

 

No, I'm saying that Peavy has pitched much better, on the whole, than his stats indicate. He had one epic, colossal, disaster that was so bad it is skewing his entire season's worth of stats. And I am saying that moving forward, it is unlikely that he will have another such epic disaster of a start. Since that start was so integral in skewing his stats, if we remove it (because I think we're unlikely to see that again) what you have is a much better pitcher than the overall stats indicate.

 

Now if he had a number of these horrible starts, then it can be seen as a trend, not a "freak" event.

[User Name]

Except that the start wasn't that bad and it's not skewing a season's worth of stats. The reason why a very bad outing has had a large effect on his ERA is because the sample of IP is small relative to a league average season.

[Orange Juiced]

Except that the start wasn't that bad and it's not skewing a season's worth of stats. The reason why a very bad outing has had a large effect on his ERA is because the sample of IP is small relative to a league average season.

 

Yeah it was. His worst start was 2.1 ip, 7 h, 6 er. I've already posted what his season's stats would look like minus this start.

 

PS - Well, it's skewing his season's totals so far. But I thought that was obvious what I meant. Because we look at his numbers so far this year and wonder if he's really a 4.28 era pitcher. I'm arguing that I think he'll be better than that for Boston because his season's totals (so far) have been greatly skewed by this one horrific start, and I don't think it's likely he has a repeat performance of that.

[mvp 78]

He may be better than that in Boston as he won't be pitching at the Cell anymore (brutal for pitchers) and will be in the thick of a penant race on a team that likes each other. I think that's a better indication than ignoring a bad start.

[User Name]

I know what his worse start was. It was bad, but not a 2 IP, 8 ER disaster like Raul Valdes had the other day. And again, if you take away his best start along with his worst, you get a 4.09 ERA, which is just a slight improvement. And the problem with the rest of your post is the way you worded it "an entire season's worth of stats" is incorrect because he hasn't pitched an entire season. Saying that it has skewed his season to date would have prevented misinterpretation.

 

For the record, if you want to make a legitimate argument about Peavy improving with the Red Sox that doesn't involve manipulating stats, look no further than the White Sox defense. Their defense is one of the worst in the Majors, and their OF defense as a team may be the worst.