Pitching Probabilities

[Benholio]

That is probably what he is implying.

Sports bettors are often tight-lipped with their good information in order to protect their ability to capitalize on it.

[prohornblower]

The best I can find (among mlb.com, yahoo.com, bp, and baseball-reference) for 2006 ERA+ leaders was the top 10 on B-R.

I plotted those values, and basically projected a hand-drawn curve to the midpoint, which would be the 37.5th pitcher in the league (50%) and plotted the 20 other pitchers I needed to calculate. (I didn't have to project the #3 guys, as they are automatically set to 50%).

After averaging them together, it looks like the top 15 (I know the split is 16/14 NL/AL, but I just used 15) pitchers averaged a 130.75 ERA+ last year. And pitchers 16-30 averaged a 108.5.

In other words, the aces would be at 65.375%, and the #2 guys at 54.25% (in relation to hypothetical average #3 guy at 50%). So my initial guestimate for aces was close (66%), but I rated the #2 guys too high (at 58%). This makes sense, as my original guestimate was a line, whereas the actual plot is a curve (where the real top-end aces pull the average up quite a bit, and the horrible back-end pitchers drop the ERA+ way down).

*Also, I should say that these values would be if each pitcher were pitching against league-average starter. Obviously, if a teams ace always went up against other teams' ace, his rating wouldn't be up around 65%. Theoretically, it would be 50%.

Anyone want to speculate how much less effective a starter is on short rest, and how much more effective he is on extra rest? Nobody chimed in on that yet.

Thanks.

[APXG]

The effects of short rest likely manifest themselves outside of a specific season. Given that prior to the current era short rest was standard, you have very solid data to do a comparative analysis between now and then.

Long rest is also a bit overestimated b.c. if an extra day was that significant in-season, it would be implemented by at least some teams(who happen to have a worthy sixth starter) combined with off days to create a uniform extra-rest schedule.

So IMO rest is factor in longevity much more than it is in next-start success, where it may actually be so small as to be neglible. The problem is that the longevity detriment is obiovusly cummulative, and the playoffs are not played in April.

[prohornblower]

Those are some good thoughts. Do you think it effects long-term longevity (career-length), or just in-season longevity (burnt out come playoff time)?

Also, I probably am overestimating the benefit of extra rest, but be wary when you say if each pitcher were 8% more effective on an extra day, many teams would use a 6-man rotation. Baseball organizations do a lot of dumb things (or should I say, don't do a lot of things that are good). Most-specifically, things that are "against the norm."

Thanks for the thoughts.

[mosdef]

Here are some rough "first order calcs":

The average ERA by rotation spot is:

1: 3.60
2: 4.14
3: 4.58
4: 5.10
5: 6.24

(Source: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...ur-4-starter/)

For the sake of argument, to calculate win percentages let's bump those up by 4% for unearned runs. Using the league average runs scored of about 4.85 (2006 full season average) I get win percentages (Pythagorean) of:

1: 63%
2: 56%
3: 51%
4: 45%
5: 36%

Those calcs assume that the starters pitch the whole game though, so the actual %s are probably "flatter" since each pitcher gets (on average) equal support from bullpens.

[prohornblower]

Cool, thanks for the info. Those numbers look almost in-line with what I'd begun to suspect. This will definitely help in a study I'm doing. If I can do it cleanly enough, I'll post it in this thread, hopefully Monday or Tuesday (most of my stuff is on my work comp.).

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
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Sportsbetting is a better place for this question. You'll get higher quality responses from those that choose to answer.

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Are you implying that there are posters in Sports who would read this and choose to not answer, even if they have a good answer? That is a pretty loaded comment and I'm not sure what your angle is. Or maybe you are talking about the extra traffic on this forum and higher probability for less-thought-out responses?

But I will consider cross-posting in that forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm... There are probably a half dozen people who could answer this question in pretty explicit detail. But most will not be willing to answer it. But you could could post there and try to hit the lotto. More clear?

[prohornblower]

It has nothing to do with my sports betting. I don't even bet on sports. So don't imply that I'm out to "hit the lotto". Besides, I have gotten the type of responses I was looking for in here already.