First off, it's pretty premature to make any comparisons. Both Lucas French and Jarrod Washburn have thrown minimal innings (22.1 for French, 25.1 for Washburn) for their new clubs, but it's worth a look.
First, the traditional surface numbers:
Jarrod Washburn:
6.04 ERA, 25.1 IP, 13 K, 6 BB, 24 H, 8 HR allowed (though 4 came in one game).
Luke French:
4.43 ERA, 22.1 IP, 15 K, 13 BB, 27 H, 3 HR allowed.
Traditional numbers are a mix. French leads in ERA, but drags behind in the K:BB ratio.
Let's move onto Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP).
Washburn:
7.21 FIP.
French:
5.33 FIP.
FIP looks at just strikeouts, walks, home runs allowed. It divides it by innings pitch and adds around a 3.2 qualifier to put it on the ERA scale. French wins this as well, mainly because of the homer's allowed. Washburn hasn't been overly good, but his 8 homers kill his FIP and that's largely due to 25% of each fly ball he's given up going for a homer thus far. That's nearly double league average.
Let's look at xFIP (from the same source as above).
Washburn:
5.17
French:
5.86
Washburn wins this because xFIP regresses the home runs allowed by a pitcher back to the league average. Luke French gets hurt here because of the walks he's allowed while not striking out a substantial amount.
However, my favorite pitching metric is currently tRA. It is essentially a better FIP number that simulates defense-independent ERA simulators. It is based on each batted ball type a pitcher gives up. If he's getting hit hard with a ton of fly balls and line drives (the two more damaging of the FB/LD/Ground Ball batted ball types), his tRA will be higher. tRA* is the regressed version of tRA and would be what xFIP is to FIP. We'll look at tRA* since regressing is better than not regressing.
Washburn:
5.01
French:
5.08
Here, it's pretty much a dead heat. To get tERA,
Commenter Scott pointed out that you multiply by .92 -- I don't know what i was thinking when I wrote this. So, their tERA's are 4.61 for Washburn and 4.67 for French.
StatCorner also has Wins Above Replacements, as well. Since Washburn's come over, based on a WAR sample that uses tRA, he's provided -0.3 wins above what a replacement pitcher would bring to the Tigers in the same number of innings. French has given the Mariners -0.2 wins above what a replacement level pitcher would provide given the same number of innings.
Essentially, the two have been nearly identical once you account for Washburn's bad luck with the home run ball this year.
So, then, what is the difference between the two?
Around $3.3 million dollars in salary. I'm sure you know which one is getting paid more. My opinion on the deal hasn't changed, thus far. Here's to hoping I'm proven wrong, though.
Posts
"it's pretty premature to make any comparisons. Both Lucas French and Jarrod Washburn have thrown minimal innings"
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should have stopped yourself right there. Particularly if you want to use tra or tra*, since by using the batted ball stats that control tra require a much greater sample size to determine something cognizant.
Using tra for 4 starts apiece like this would be like telling us the Pirates actually got the better of the Cedeno/Wilson deal because Cedeno's UZR numbers have been better since the trade.
Thanks, Nicker. Just because something is premature to look at doesn't mean it still isn't interesting.
ReplyDeleteMike Rogers writes: "So, then, what is the difference between the two? Around $3.3 million dollars in salary."
ReplyDeleteActually, the real difference? Club-control over the next five-plus years.
Luke French might end up being a nobody, but he's young (which means he's more likely to improve than regress) and -- this is the real kicker -- he's not going to be a free-agent until after 2014 at the earliest. If French is a one-win-above-replacement pitcher -- and that's a pessimistic projection -- he'd be worth 25 million over the next 5 years, and there's little chance he'd be paid more than 5-7 million.
That's the real cost of the trade: 5-years worth of Luke French.
Oh, and Mauricio Robles, whatever he's worth.
Derek, you are correct. I meant it just as in the difference in their salaries for this season. But, yes, over the long haul, it's much more costly than that.
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteI hope (though I'm skeptical) that the "mainstream" media and fans will eventually start paying attention to analyses such as yours, and realize how stupid it is to declare that any trade deadline acquisition, let alone an average pitcher, will carry a team to the postseason.
Anyone who believed that Washburn would mean more than 1 win over French over the rest of the year doesn't have a grasp of a player's true impact on his team's record. Even a player like Cliff Lee or Matt Holliday will translate to, at the very most, 2-3 wins, yet you'd never hear that from the folks at ESPN.
tRA is a great stat. But, I thought it was tRA * .92, instead of dividing it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/what-is-tra
I could have interpreted that wrong, though.
Scott, it is multiply not divide. I have no idea where my head is. Thanks for that -- I'll correct it.
ReplyDeleteHey Mike (or anyone else reading), I have a question. I'm a big fan of saber stats and get most of my info from sites like fangraphs, and mostly look at WAR and FIP.
ReplyDeleteBut I have a problem with FIP. It relies only on K, BB and HR because those are the only defense-independent stats. But doesn't this provide a ridiculously small snapshot of a pitcher? And doesn't it hurt pitchers who maybe give up an average amount of BBs and HRs but don't strike out a lot? I just don't see how you can evaluate a pitcher based on outcomes that comprise less than 30% of all plate appearances.
Any insight?
Jeff, really those are the three things pitchers can "control" for the most part. I like FIP but I'd much rather look at something like tRA that looks at batted ball data as well. You can find that at StatCorner, but they've licensed it over to Fangraphs now as well. I think it's better because it takes in other factors as well.
ReplyDelete