Giants PQS: 2006 Season

I'm going to experiment with a post that I'll update during the season and maybe put on my side links. This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the 2006 season, as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2006 Season (as of May 16, 2006)

Matt Cain - ( 43% DOM, 43% DIS): 3, 4, 1, 4, 5, 0, 1
Brad Hennessey - ( 0% DOM, 20% DIS): 3, 2, 3, 1, 2
Noah Lowry - (0% DOM, 50% DIS): 3, 1
Matt Morris - ( 28% DOM, 28% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 1, 4, 1, 2
Jason Schmidt - ( 63% DOM, 0% DIS): 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, 3
Jamey Wright - ( 38% DOM, 13% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5

Giants overall - 35% DOM, 22% DIS out of 37 games pitched

I think technically, under the system, Lowry's first start and Morris' start where he promptly got ejected, should count against their totals, but I think under the extenuating circumstances, they should not, basically because this system tries to ferret out how the good performances by a starter and none of those games were zeros because of a poor performance. Lowry got injured early in the game; and Morris got ejected early in the game.

So the Giants starters have been doing OK to good in their games pitched overall. A DOM near or around the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great and more. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching. And generally, the Giants pitching has been doing OK this season.

Latest Comments

Schmidt is looking very dominating thus far. :^) He is bordering on returning to elite status, joining those with a DOM greater than 70%. Matt Cain was doing very well early but maybe the lack of overt success got to him and he started messing around with his mechanics or something, leading to all the disaster starts lately. He had a nice relief appearance as his turn was skipped, so hopefully he will be all set for his next start, on Sunday. Wright is doing as well as could be expected, but he was also just one out away from a DOM start when the umpire blew the call and gave the other team a baserunner. He then gave up a bunch of hits - had the umpire not blow the call, he would have gotten a DOM and put him at 50%DOM, which is good. Lowry, despite apparently doing well his first start, it was not that good as the underlying PQS metrics says he is lacking in quality.

Methodology Explanation

Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster, my favorite baseball stat book the past two years, scores each start in their attempt to modernize the traditional Quality Start designation by incorporating current baseball statistical findings. They do this via the Pure Quality Start (PQS) rating system, which rates each game pitched for good pitching indicators, not just how many runs are given up, since that is dependent on how well the relievers do after you sometimes or how unlucky you are.

PQS is a 5 point system that ranges from a score of 0 to 5. A pitcher automatically gets a 0 score if he doesn't last at least 5 IP. He gets 1 point if he pitches 6 IP or more. That is the minimum today for a quality game. He gets another point if his hits given up are equal or less than the number of IP. This approximates keeping the hits at or under 1 per inning pitched. He gets another point if he doesn't give up more than 1 HR. This approximates one of the key peripherals for pitchers, giving up less than 1 HR per 9 IP. He gets another point if his strikeout total is no less than the number of IP less 2 (for example, if he goes 6 IP, he has to get at least 4 K's). This approximates the minimum of 6.0 K/9IP. Lastly, he gets a point if the number of strikeouts is at least twice his number of walks (thus, continuing the example, if he had 2 or less walks, he gets a point, but 3 or more walks he gets no point). This approximates getting your K/BB ration at or over 2.0. Add them all up and that is the starter's PQS score for that game.

They then break down each pitchers' game performance into three categories, the two main important ones being DOM (for dominating) and DIS (for disaster). To count as a DOM, the starter has to get a score of 4 or 5 in a game. To count as a DIS, the starter has to get a score of 0 or 1 in a game. Then you just take the percentage of total games the starter has these two categories.

Scanning the pitchers records (no average or distribution was provided unfortunately) for the past three seasons, the worse to average pitchers have DOM under 40%. Good pitchers have DOM between 40-50%. Better have 50-70%. Best have 70%+.

The list of pitchers in the categories I roughly created looks pretty good, in terms of breaking down the starters:

Good (40%-50%): Burhrle, Eaton, Maddux, Millwood, Morris, Mussina, Sabathia, John Thompson, Wells (David and Kip)

Better (50%-70%): Burnett, Carpenter, Clement, Colon, Escobar, Halladay, Harden, Lieber, Oswalt, Peavy, Penny, Pettitte, Prior, Vazquez, Webb, Willis, Carlos Zambrano

Best (70%+) : Clemens, Johnson, Martinez, Santana

Notes on Giants:

• Schmidt had been in the 70+ for the three seasons before a horrible 2005 (Schilling and Woods too, all were injured in some way and would have been 70+ as well).
• Other Giants (year by year, past two seasons): Lowry (43%, 58%), Cain (57%), Hennessey (14%, 29%), Wright (14%, 30%), Correia (36%).
• I would be inclined to almost double Wright's rate because pitching at Colorado, DOMs are probably pretty rare there, though the humidor appears to be working better last season and this current season.