Cardinals news from a Sabermetric point of view
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Tale of two leagues: Spring Adjusted ERA+

One of the big stories of Spring Training, at least from the Cardinals’ point of view, has been the lights-out hurling of the pitching staff, especially the starting rotation. The other side of that coin is the paltry offensive production from batters. Both stories are traced to the prevailing weather in Florida this spring, namely the winds, which have kept home runs in the park and simultaneously buoyed pitchers’ confidence while crushing that of hitters.

So, as Derrick Goold notes, the reliability of both pitchers’ and batters’ spring statistics are even more dubious than usual. But we we still might be able to figure out some relative comparisons. As Goold quotes Dave Duncan, "You have to then compare them against each other … Everybody is in the same boat."

We thought we’d use the concept of adjusted ERA (aka, ERA+), an excellent stat that normalizes ERA. Baseball-reference.com defines it as:

the ratio of the league’s ERA (adjusted to the pitcher’s ballpark) to that of the pitcher. > 100 is above average and < 100 is below average. lgERA / ERA

We won’t be able to get so specific as to get down to the park level, since we’re not aware of any spring ballpark splits, but we can normalize by spring league. Using the Grapefruit League’s ERA of 4.10 and Cactus League’s of 5.58, here are the pitching staffs by ERA+:

Rk Lg Team ERA ERA+
1 GL St. Louis Cardinals 2.34 175
2 GL Baltimore Orioles 3.23 127
3 CL Chicago Cubs 4.78 117
4 GL New York Yankees 3.54 116
5 GL Cleveland Indians 3.59 114
6 GL Boston Red Sox 3.61 113
7 CL San Diego Padres 5.04 111
8 CL Los Angeles Angels 5.06 110
9 CL Arizona Diamondbacks 5.22 107
10 CL Oakland Athletics 5.29 105
11 GL Atlanta Braves 3.92 104
12 CL Colorado Rockies 5.44 103
13 GL Cincinnati Reds 4.01 102
14 GL Tampa Bay Devil Rays 4.03 102
15 GL Toronto Blue Jays 4.10 100
16 CL Milwaukee Brewers 5.61 99
17 GL Florida Marlins 4.17 98
18 CL Kansas City Royals 5.72 98
19 GL Detroit Tigers 4.20 98
20 CL San Francisco Giants 5.86 95
21 GL Washington Nationals 4.32 95
22 CL Seattle Mariners 5.90 95
23 GL Los Angeles Dodgers 4.52 91
24 GL Minnesota Twins 4.53 90
25 CL Texas Rangers 6.25 89
26 GL New York Mets 4.68 88
27 GL Houston Astros 4.77 86
28 GL Pittsburgh Pirates 4.80 85
29 CL Chicago White Sox 6.83 82
30 GL Philadelphia Phillies 5.27 78

Since we prefer fielding-independent ERA to conventional ERA, now we’ll apply the same principle of normalization to FIP stats (Grapefruit: 3.89; Cactus: 4.42) :

Rk Lg Team FIP FIP+
1 GL St. Louis Cardinals 3.25 120
2 GL Baltimore Orioles 3.42 114
3 CL Arizona Diamondbacks 3.88 114
4 GL Minnesota Twins 3.51 111
5 CL Oakland Athletics 4.07 109
6 GL Boston Red Sox 3.67 106
7 GL Cleveland Indians 3.67 106
8 CL Milwaukee Brewers 4.17 106
9 GL Atlanta Braves 3.70 105
10 GL New York Yankees 3.74 104
11 CL Chicago White Sox 4.24 104
12 CL Seattle Mariners 4.27 103
13 CL Chicago Cubs 4.30 103
14 GL Cincinnati Reds 3.80 102
15 CL Los Angeles Angels 4.33 102
16 GL Houston Astros 3.83 101
17 GL Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3.84 101
18 GL Florida Marlins 3.86 101
19 CL San Diego Padres 4.39 101
20 GL New York Mets 3.90 100
21 CL San Francisco Giants 4.54 97
22 GL Detroit Tigers 4.02 97
23 CL Kansas City Royals 4.69 94
24 GL Pittsburgh Pirates 4.18 93
25 GL Toronto Blue Jays 4.21 92
26 CL Colorado Rockies 4.92 90
27 GL Los Angeles Dodgers 4.39 89
28 GL Washington Nationals 4.51 86
29 GL Philadelphia Phillies 4.51 86
30 CL Texas Rangers 5.39 82

Now, let’s look at the Cardinals’ individual pitchers (some of the numbers are a little crazy for pitchers with few innings pitched):

Team G IP ERA ERA+ FIP FIP+
C Lambert 1 1 9.00 46 1.54 252
R Flores 11 10 2/3 1.69 242 1.74 224
D Dove 7 6 1/3 1.42 288 1.92 203
R Keisler 4 8 0.00 2.36 165
J Hancock 10 10 1.80 228 2.40 162
M Ginter 1 4 0.00 2.48 157
K Wells 6 23 1/3 1.16 353 2.52 154
M Smith 3 5 1.80 228 2.56 152
C Carpenter 6 27 2/3 2.60 158 2.61 149
T Cate 2 4 0.00 2.72 143
B Falkenborg 4 4 1/3 2.08 197 2.73 143
A Wainwright 6 27 2/3 0.98 418 2.87 136
M Sillman 3 3 0.00 2.94 132
K Jimenez 8 7 1/3 1.23 333 3.29 118
J Isringhausen 6 6 1.50 273 3.30 118
M Worrell 1 1 0.00 3.30 118
C Perez 1 1 0.00 3.30 118
R Rincon 9 8 1/3 2.16 190 3.53 110
B Looper 5 20 2/3 2.18 188 3.55 110
B Hawksworth 3 6 3.00 137 3.60 108
A Reyes 5 20 2.70 152 3.78 103
A Cavazos 7 7 3.86 106 3.80 102
B Thompson 7 13 1/3 2.03 202 4.09 95
T Johnson 12 10 1/3 5.23 78 4.09 95
R Springer 6 5 1/3 6.75 61 4.12 95
R Franklin 8 13 3.46 118 4.17 93
C Narveson 3 4 2/3 1.93 212 5.55 70
J Kinney 2 2 27.00 15 9.76 40
M Parisi 1 1 9.00 46 10.80 36

So, relatively speaking, we can confirm that the Cardinals staff has been outstanding this spring, the best in either spring league, for that matter. Now that we’ve settled that, it’s time for the regular season, when the stats actually count. As TLR said, “I would just note (the difference between spring leagues) and not make too many forecasts about the season. That all the Florida clubs are going to be poor offensive clubs and all the Arizona clubs are going to be hitting. It’s just different training situations. Play the game; see what happens.” With the team’s pitchers seemingly already a step ahead, it’s an inspiring start to the season.

This entry was posted by Pip on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 12:02 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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