Joe Blanton pitches like Josh Towers away from Oakland.

[badnews]

The park factors I'm looking at says McAfee was the park 2nd most detrimental to batting average in the majors, winning out by far in the AL, and Oakland also played by far in the AL the most run-suppressing of the parks, 2nd in the majors only to Petco.

 

So we have a pitcher who has an enormous home/road ERA split, his home park is the most pitcher friendly in the AL, our home park shows up as the most run-inflating park in the NL, and it's unreasonable to see the possibility of peril here? I mean, I keep seeing on here, picking up Blanton would be a huge upgrade, it would also require an enormous package and he seems pretty iffy. McAfee didn't suppress runs or BA nearly as much in 2006, maybe that's part of why Blanton was worse. In 2005 it played as a hitter's park and Blanton posted his highest FIP and a much higher HR/F ratio.

 

If Blanton costs an arm and a leg to acquire and comes over here and pitches 205 innings of 4.00 ERA baseball for a reasonable salary he hardly seems worth the talent to land.

[Mephistopheles]

If Oakland doesn't give all pitchers a break, why does it seem like all of the AL starters who go to the NL get an ERA bump except for the A's pitchers? Tim Hudson was a groundball pitcher who consistently had a better home than road ERA, people said Hudson would be a sub-3.00 ERA guy in the NL. His home run suppression for his Oakland career was abnormally low. It's unlikely anyone pitching for the Cubs is going to have a HR/F ratio of below 10.5% if history is any indicator.

 

1. HR/F in Wrigley is generally around 11.0%, HR/F in McAgee is generally around 10.5%. Stop making up information.

2. Who cares about ERA? Didn't I tell you to stop looking at ERA?

3. Did you even read what I said? Or did you randomly skip words? I didn't say that it was not a slight pitchers park. I said that relatively speaking, flyball pitchers should (and do) benefit from it more.

4. Ironically enough, Tim Hudson's second lowest HR/F ratio was last year. Secondly extreme flyball pitchers (the uber variety that Hudson is in) do have a statistically significant ability to *slightly* undershoot the given average HR/F ratio. Everyone else randomly fluctuates around the park average regardless of if they're flyball pitchers or not.

 

Couldn't it be possible that Oakland helps the home pitchers more than the numbers show, sort of like Colorado helps the home hitters more than the park factors show? Mark Mulder was more of a groundball pitcher, he more often than not had a substantially better home ERA. Gaudin was a ground ball pitcher who has had a better ERA at home than the road the past two years with Oakland. Lenny DiNardo, a groundball pitcher who was good at home and bad on the road this year. Joe Kennedy, better with the A's at home than on the road. This year it seems like Oakland has been an asset to these guys. And then there's Esteban Loiaza in 2006.

 

What about Kirk Saarloos, Cory Lidle and Mark Redman? Why in the world are you surprised that pitchers in a pitchers park generally have lower ERAs at home than they do on the road? Do you think you found something earth shattering here? Of course a pitchers park is going to help all pitchers - groundball and flyball dependent. Depending on the park, the distribution will be uneven. Generally McAfee has helped flyball pitchers more than groundball pitchers but that's not that point.

 

The point is the entire time i've been saying he's the same pitcher on the road as he is at home. your entire case is built upon a statistic i already said to shut up about, ERA. I don't look at it. I don't care about it. It's useless and pointless. What I see is a guy whose GB, K and BB rates have been constant home or away, so I see a guy with those rates. It's park independent and it allows me to look at him outside of whatever the hell McAfee wants to do.

 

Obviously, Wrigley Field is a neutral park generally. Your flyball dependent pitchers generally are hurt by the park. Groundball pitchers are actually helped. The distribution is uneven. Kerry Wood may already have a Cy Young to his name if he didn't play for the Cubs. Here we have Blanton: A groundball pitcher. He's a pretty good fit for the Cubs in that respect. So I see a number 3 guy who can put a 4.30-4.50 ERA in a league average park/league who for the Cubs with the park slight benefit and the league benefit, would probably be in the 4.00-4.25 range.

 

Yet you see a guy who did well at home and you can't seem to figure out why so you dig through the splits and guess what youve found: wrong answers.

[Mephistopheles]

The park factors I'm looking at says McAfee was the park 2nd most detrimental to batting average in the majors, winning out by far in the AL, and Oakland also played by far in the AL the most run-suppressing of the parks, 2nd in the majors only to Petco.

 

1 year park factors suck. I hope you're not using ESPNs. They're [expletive] and 1 year. Double whammy. I, of course, expect you to be using ESPNs. Generally McAfee runs in the 980 range. Last year it was like 945, which was way out of line. Like I said, 1 year park factors suck. Don't use them please. No one's saying it's not a pitcher's park. Im looking at Blanton outside of the park. You just cant seem to objectively analyze him that way correctly.

 

So we have a pitcher who has an enormous home/road ERA split, his home park is the most pitcher friendly in the AL, our home park shows up as the most run-inflating park in the NL, and it's unreasonable to see the possibility of peril here? I mean, I keep seeing on here, picking up Blanton would be a huge upgrade, it would also require an enormous package and he seems pretty iffy. McAfee didn't suppress runs or BA nearly as much in 2006, maybe that's part of why Blanton was worse. In 2005 it played as a hitter's park and Blanton posted his highest FIP and a much higher HR/F ratio.

 

blah blah era blah blah home era blah blah blah blah

 

come on.

[badnews]

Yeah, I was using ESPN's park factors, but they seem to back up the individual pitcher data better than maybe just saying it's all random. The A's as a team had a 3.79 ERA at home (3rd) and a 4.81 road ERA (19th). They had a .278 BAA and a 6.71 K/9 on the road and .249 BAA with a 6.18 K/9 at home. That makes it look like McAfee does indeed pretty significantly pull down BAA/BABIP.

 

1. HR/F in Wrigley is generally around 11.0%, HR/F in McAgee is generally around 10.5%. Stop making up information.

 

I wasn't trying to make anything up, what was McAfee playing for this year, because it doesn't look like 2007 was a typical year for McAfee and I don't understand why we should pretend it was when confronted with things we don't understand and just classify as "random" because of that. I couldn't find that information, I was just pointing out going by the HR/F ratios by most of their pitchers it looks like a bigger difference than that, but I don't know for sure.

 

Who cares about ERA? Didn't I tell you to stop looking at ERA?

 

Yes, but I don't take whatever you say at face value. This Ervin Santana home/road business still mystifies me and I don't see why we have to keep dodging around it when it's a source of confusion and an obstruction to my understanding your point.

 

Did you even read what I said? Or did you randomly skip words? I didn't say that it was not a slight pitchers park. I said that relatively speaking, flyball pitchers should (and do) benefit from it more.

 

But what does this have to do with Blanton? It looks like everyone had a large benefit this year. Why can't we just focus on McAfee 2007? Joe Blanton posted FIPs of 4.40 and 4.21 in 2005-2006 and now all of a sudden everyone thinks he's swell, maybe we should look at McAfee in 2007 instead of past years for an explanation.

 

Ironically enough, Tim Hudson's second lowest HR/F ratio was last year. Secondly extreme flyball pitchers (the uber variety that Hudson is in) do have a statistically significant ability to *slightly* undershoot the given average HR/F ratio. Everyone else randomly fluctuates around the park average regardless of if they're flyball pitchers or not.

 

Hudson is not a flyball pitcher, he's a groundball pitcher. Hudson's HR suppression rate with Oakland was pretty good, and looking at his road stats I don't think you can just say it's because he is a groundball pitcher, like I think you meant to say. In any event, my point was groundballers like Blanton are helped too, whereas it seemed like you were trying to say it was wrong to point out anyone but Zito types could experience a benefit at home.

 

What about Kirk Saarloos, Cory Lidle and Mark Redman? Why in the world are you surprised that pitchers in a pitchers park generally have lower ERAs at home than they do on the road? Do you think you found something earth shattering here?

 

When did I act surprised or like I found something earth-shattering? If you look at other posts in other topics you'll see a lot of Blanton spooning and this topic is a response to that.

 

your entire case is built upon a statistic i already said to shut up about, ERA.

 

That's not very polite to tell people to shut up. If I told you to quit yammering about how ERA is useless until you can logically explain Ervin Santana's home/road ERA split I don't think you'd like that or that would be kind. We're not debating world politics here or something terribly important here, I get it, you know your stuff and I've been pretty open I'm way behind the game and just trying to understand, I don't know why all of posts come with this heavy "message board badass" posturing. If I were blustering or I got angry you were showing up what I was posting than maybe I can understand but wow, come on. I don't care for being ordered to shut up and follow orders like you're the boss of everyone around here or something. I haven't been rude to you, I don't understand the hostility.

 

What I see is a guy whose GB, K and BB rates have been constant home or away, so I see a guy with those rates.

 

But baseball often doesn't work like that, where you can so tidily remove the parks from the equation in the reality. Blanton put up mediocre numbers until McAfee played like such a strong pitcher's park, and Wrigley has been a hitter's park lately, so if people are going to gush about how great it would be to get Blanton for an arm and a leg maybe it wouldn't hurt to look at what he's likely to do for the Cubs in 2008.

 

It's park independent and it allows me to look at him outside of whatever the hell McAfee wants to do.

 

But in the game played on the field, parks will have their say obviously.

 

Obviously, Wrigley Field is a neutral park generally.

 

Isn't it more likely to play as a hitter's park the last few years?

 

Here we have Blanton: A groundball pitcher. He's a pretty good fit for the Cubs in that respect.

 

But he's not a huge groundball pitcher and before this year, even less so. You seem pretty quick to take to take his 2007 G/F ratio as etched in stone for what he will do the rest of his career. Who says he's not more like 2005-2006? Blanton's G/F this year was around the same as Marquis and Marshall's. I don't think you can just clap your hands and say "Cubs, groundball pitcher, a match made in heaven." Maddux was a better groundball pitcher and he wasn't that great with us.

 

So I see a number 3 guy who can put a 4.30-4.50 ERA in a league average park/league who for the Cubs with the park slight benefit and the league benefit, would probably be in the 4.00-4.25 range.

 

That is your definition of a "poor number 2, good number 3" guy? My definition would seem to be different, perhaps that is where some of the confusion is derived.

 

Yet you see a guy who did well at home and you can't seem to figure out why so you dig through the splits and guess what youve found: wrong answers.

 

I think it could be because of his quite friendly home park.

 

1 year park factors suck.

 

It would seem to explain fairly well what's going on with Blanton and the rest of the A's staff though.

 

blah blah era blah blah home era blah blah blah blah

 

come on.

 

Come on what? Look, yeah, I'm not with you by a long shot but I'm more with you than the average message board fan. When the games are won and lost by runs and it's a pitcher's job to prevent runs, I don't think it's a good idea to just talk about what should happen according to the graphs and if it doesn't happen that way for years, oh well. Like when people say "Jeremy Bonderman is very, very good, but he's just randomly unlucky" and he's been randomly unlucky for 4 years now, it's hard for me to get behind that, I prefer it when the baseball players start showing results in all of the "crap categories" (as you might put it). Or when people who talk down to others whip out the graphs (this happened after 2006) to show how Dave Bush was going to become the next Chris Carpenter, and pfffft, didn't happen. Okay, well, I'll treat Dave Bush like a great pitcher when "luck" turns his away apparently but not before then, sue me.

 

Anyway that doesn't have to do with you, but I'm just telling you why I can't get on board with your more counterintuitive concepts without first understanding the reasoning behind them.

[badnews]

Do we agree on the bottom line? For the probable price Oakland would demand for Blanton, he doesn't greatly improve the pitching staff or "legitimize it" in the way people are acting like it will?

[Mephistopheles]

But what does this have to do with Blanton? It looks like everyone had a large benefit this year. Why can't we just focus on McAfee 2007? Joe Blanton posted FIPs of 4.40 and 4.21 in 2005-2006 and now all of a sudden everyone thinks he's swell, maybe we should look at McAfee in 2007 instead of past years for an explanation.

 

One year park factors are open to too much total randomness. DO NOT USE THEM.

 

Hudson is not a flyball pitcher, he's a groundball pitcher. Hudson's HR suppression rate with Oakland was pretty good, and looking at his road stats I don't think you can just say it's because he is a groundball pitcher, like I think you meant to say. In any event, my point was groundballers like Blanton are helped too, whereas it seemed like you were trying to say it was wrong to point out anyone but Zito types could experience a benefit at home.

 

Yes I meant groundball pitcher. Didn't I already say that both were helped? Did you skip those sentences?

 

But baseball often doesn't work like that, where you can so tidily remove the parks from the equation in the reality. Blanton put up mediocre numbers until McAfee played like such a strong pitcher's park, and Wrigley has been a hitter's park lately, so if people are going to gush about how great it would be to get Blanton for an arm and a leg maybe it wouldn't hurt to look at what he's likely to do for the Cubs in 2008.

 

Sure it does. Guess what's the best predictor of success? Oh yeah the three things I'm concerned with. You're not even close

 

But in the game played on the field, parks will have their say obviously.

 

And guess what? McAfee's say on his K, GB and BB rates is NOTHING and McAfee's effect on his ERA is pointless because of A) I dont look at it and of course B) he wouldnt pitch in McAfee as a Cub. So even considering the effects of McAfee when you have K, BB and GB rates is kinda dumb.

 

Isn't it more likely to play as a hitter's park the last few years?

 

its as neutral as parks get.

 

But he's not a huge groundball pitcher and before this year, even less so. You seem pretty quick to take to take his 2007 G/F ratio as etched in stone for what he will do the rest of his career. Who says he's not more like 2005-2006? Blanton's G/F this year was around the same as Marquis and Marshall's. I don't think you can just clap your hands and say "Cubs, groundball pitcher, a match made in heaven." Maddux was a better groundball pitcher and he wasn't that great with us.

 

For his career he's a slight groundball pitcher. GB rates are among the most consistent rates from year to year -- which is why we use them

 

That is your definition of a "poor number 2, good number 3" guy? My definition would seem to be different, perhaps that is where some of the confusion is derived.

 

thats the correct definition

 

It would seem to explain fairly well what's going on with Blanton and the rest of the A's staff though.

 

Umm..no. Do you know how they figure out park factors? By looking at home and road splits. So really, umm, obviously if the 07 A's seemed to perform better at home, then the PF will show much of the same.

 

When the games are won and lost by runs and it's a pitcher's job to prevent runs

 

and how well a pitcher previously did his job preventing runs is a TERRIBLE way to predict his job of preventing runs. ERA sucks at predicting ERA.

[CubsInNC]

Splits courtesy of baseball reference and refer to Blanton's career #'s

...

 

Thanks, that's all I was looking for. I saw the ERA difference, but being a novice at the stats aspect, I couldn't put it all together.

 

As for the BABIP, how much of that is park related? Over the career, Harden's split is 15 pts higher on the road, Haren's been higher both home (2007) and away (2005 and 2006), Zito was basically even, Mulder was all over the place with more seasons 50 points higher than under 50, and after Hudson's first 2 years (1 higher home, 1 higher away) he was consistently in the 20 point higher away range. Kennedy and DiNardo haven't been there long enough to draw many conclusions from their data. And Gaudin was even as a starter, and almost +70 on the road as a reliever. The only "consistent outliers I could find were Redman and Saarloos, who were higher at home than on the road.

 

Looks like all randomness to me, or a non-quantifiable explanation at the worst. (ie. whenever they travel Blanton always gets a hotel room with a mattress made of nails and can't sleep before a start).

 

What about Blanton's OPS difference home vs. road (.674 vs .771), yeah 41 points of it is from the difference in OBP (.297 vs .338), which is predominantly tied to the BAA (.251 vs .290 - and very related to BABIP), but there's the SLG component at .377 vs. .433. Are the majority of the parks he pitches in hitters parks?

 

And for the record, I'm all for a pitching upgrade if 1) Roberts is not acquired, and 2) The cost to acquire the pitcher isn't too steep (not much more than the rumored Roberts package). I'd rather upgrade SS. But that's not happening.

[nilodnayr]

Some points...

 

Blanton does not PITCH like Josh Towers away from Oakland, he pitches the same. His RESULTS are like Josh Towers away from Oakland (although thats a bit of a stretch as the first sentence of this thread indicates). There is a big difference between those two statements.

 

Parks do not change!!!! Save for things like moving fences in (Petco) or things of that nature. Winds can change, but I don't know how much that affects McAfee. And I think its been proven to be fairly consisten year to year for even a place like Wrigley. So when you look at park factor year over year and see some wild swings, its not the actual park thats changing. Thats the reason why single year park factors suck to use and even using aggregating a few years isn't the greatest. "Park Factors" don't do a good job of actually measuring park factors.

 

I think you'll always find some instances where a guy whos home park is a pitchers park might pitch better outside or worse outside of home. Park is one of the factors and most likely the biggest factor for players as a whole, but random variation, luck, crowd, hotels/home, etc all can have a different affect on different players. There are always the "but what about this guy" comments for everything.

[wilk]

54 more hits (in 9.1 more innings) on the road; 20 of them doubles. [For the record, he had 6 more foul outs at home than away.] Is it also "random" that he gave up more than five hits 6 times at home and 16 times away? The other 3 away games were all five hit games but he had five or less hits 9 times at home. On the road, he pitched 1 less inning on average while giving up almost 2 more hits and 1 more double.

 

What accounted for such a significant increase in hits on the road? If his defense is the same and the way parks play supposedly doesn't have any effect then what is it? What makes this blatant difference dismissible? Is it truly any more wise to assume we should ignore the splits if it must be something we can't measure like the hotel beds in places like Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Minnesota, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, Texas, and Toronto? If he just threw it over the plate more, or hated travelling, or couldn't sleep or needs his guy for his fix or just missed his little kitty does this make it any less relevant?

 

It's pretty obvious his GB, K and BB rates would stay about the same. But it's pretty "[expletive]" to say the splits are irrelevant, there's nothing to it and offer nothing to attribute the increase to nor to suggest it'd stop. Just 19 games, all on the road, that were each hit coincidentally by some unimportant arbitrary independent bad luck is better than assuming there's a pattern of cause for the effect? We're not talking about one, two, or even a handful of games to skew matters -- he was clearly less effective in 85-90% of his away games than his average home game. Boy, if only we could throw away Khalil Greene's splits because "he's the same baseball player no matter the city!"

[Rob]

Blanton's a decent #3, but he's not worth what it would take to get him. Pass.

[nilodnayr]

54 more hits (in 9.1 more innings) on the road; 20 of them doubles. [For the record, he had 6 more foul outs at home than away.] Is it also "random" that he gave up more than five hits 6 times at home and 16 times away? The other 3 away games were all five hit games but he had five or less hits 9 times at home. On the road, he pitched 1 less inning on average while giving up almost 2 more hits and 1 more double.

 

What accounted for such a significant increase in hits on the road? If his defense is the same and the way parks play supposedly doesn't have any effect then what is it? What makes this blatant difference dismissible? Is it truly any more wise to assume we should ignore the splits if it must be something we can't measure like the hotel beds in places like Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Minnesota, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, Texas, and Toronto? If he just threw it over the plate more, or hated travelling, or couldn't sleep or needs his guy for his fix or just missed his little kitty does this make it any less relevant?

 

It's pretty obvious his GB, K and BB rates would stay about the same. But it's pretty "[expletive]" to say the splits are irrelevant, there's nothing to it and offer nothing to attribute the increase to nor to suggest it'd stop. Just 19 games, all on the road, that were each hit coincidentally by some unimportant arbitrary independent bad luck is better than assuming there's a pattern of cause for the effect? We're not talking about one, two, or even a handful of games to skew matters -- he was clearly less effective in 85-90% of his away games than his average home game. Boy, if only we could throw away Khalil Greene's splits because "he's the same baseball player no matter the city!"

 

 

2007 Home BABIP = .257

2007 Road BABIP= .337

 

2007 Home PA=429

2007 Road PA=521

 

2007 Home Balls not in play (K+BB+IBB+HBP)=85

2007 Road Balls not in play (K+BB+IBB+HBP)=103

 

2007 Home Balls in play (PA-Balls not in play)=344

2007 Road Balls in play (PA-Balls not in play)=418

 

2007 Home Balls in play/PA= 80.2%

2007 Road Balls in play/PA= 80.2%

 

Basically he allowed balls to be put in play at the same rate on the road as he did at home, just so happened that more of them fell for hits. And most of those were doubles.

 

One year (~100 innings each home and away) is a pretty weak sample size to look at, 3 years is better, but not great. You'll see exactly the same thing if you look at his career with the BABIP regressing to the mean (273 home vs 318 road).

[wilk]

Basically he allowed balls to be put in play at the same rate on the road as he did at home, just so happened that more of them fell for hits. And most of those were doubles.

Yes, I'm aware of this and understand it. I'm saying if the increase in balls in play falling for hits is not defense (since it's the same) and it is not being effected by ballpark (previously dismissed or ruled out), then what is it? If it's absolutely unattributable then why is there a clear pattern of it occurring on the road and disappearing at home? Most of them were doubles so it's not weakly hit balls slipping through the infield, it's a legit 55% line drives. According to Retrosheet, 63% of his line drives were on the road (or LD% of 17 at home and 24 on the road). It seems batters are connecting better/harder on the road (even outs) opposed to just getting luckier. So if we say he's the exact same pitcher based on everything else appearing the same then what makes the batted balls different? I don't think we can ignore that he was one of, or the most effective pitcher ("results") in the league at home and one of the worst on the road. I can be convinced of a "cause" that I may conclude is immaterial looking forward but I don't think I've seen any reasoning.

[nilodnayr]

Basically he allowed balls to be put in play at the same rate on the road as he did at home, just so happened that more of them fell for hits. And most of those were doubles.

Yes, I'm aware of this and understand it. I'm saying if the increase in balls in play falling for hits is not defense (since it's the same) and it is not being effected by ballpark (previously dismissed or ruled out), then what is it? If it's absolutely unattributable then why is there a clear pattern of it occurring on the road and disappearing at home? Most of them were doubles so it's not weakly hit balls slipping through the infield, it's a legit 55% line drives. According to Retrosheet, 63% of his line drives were on the road (or LD% of 17 at home and 24 on the road). It seems batters are connecting better/harder on the road (even outs) opposed to just getting luckier. So if we say he's the exact same pitcher based on everything else appearing the same then what makes the batted balls different? I don't think we can ignore that he was one of, or the most effective pitcher ("results") in the league at home and one of the worst on the road. I can be convinced of a "cause" that I may conclude is immaterial looking forward but I don't think I've seen any reasoning.

 

 

LD% of 17% = eBABIP of 290 at home, yet his actual BABIP was 257.

 

I think we are looking at sample size issues, if you look at his career BABIPs hes regressing towards the mean.