2008 Giants: July PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of July 2008, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this).

This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).

Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). See my explanation down below on methodology plus read the link, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and particularly how low DIS% is so important.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2008 Season (as of July 31st, 2008)

Matt Cain - (63% DOM, 8% DIS; 15:2/24): 3, 0, 4, 0, 5, 2, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 4, 4

Kevin Correia - (31% DOM, 31% DIS; 4:4/13): 4, 4, 4, 1, 3, 1, 4, 2, 0, 0, 2, 3, 3 (did not count start where injured)

Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (73% DOM, 0% DIS; 16:0/22): 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 3, 3, 5, 5, 2, 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 4, 5 (didn't count relief outing as start)

Pat Misch - (38% DOM, 38% DIS; 3:3/8): 4, 0, 4, 4, 2, 0, 2, 0 (counted relief after Zito since 6 IP)

Jonathan Sanchez - (45% DOM, 27% DIS; 10:6/22): 0, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3, 0, 0, 5, 3, 5, 5, 4, 2, 5, 5, 5, 4, 0, 3, 0, 0

Barry Zito - ( 24% DOM, 38% DIS; 5:8/21): 1, 1, 3, 3, 0, 0 (Skip), 4, 3, 2, 4, 4, 0, 1, 1, 0, 4, 2, 5, 2, 3, 2

Giants season overall - 48% DOM, 22% DIS out of 111 games counted (53:24/111)

Giants Month of April - 43% DOM, 30% DIS out of 30 games counted (13:9/30)

Giants Month of May - 61% DOM, 14% DIS out of 28 games counted (17:4/28)

Giants Month of June - 48% DOM, 22% DIS out of 27 games counted (13:6/27)

Giants Month of July - 38% DOM, 19% DIS out of 26 games counted (10:5/26)

First, some procedural notes. I didn't count Lincecum's relief session as a start, nor did I count it as a start for Valdez, in the D-gers game. I also didn't count Correia's injury start where he only pitched a third of an inning. However, I did count Misch's first outing, in relief of Zito, as a start because he went 6 innings and I felt he deserved it.

The Giants starters had a marginally better July than they did June, in that you want to reduce this DIS but then they lost a lot of DOM too. Cain brought things up a notch, basically equaling what Lincecum has been doing, plus doing something he hasn't done in a while (throwing a complete game) and doing something he's never done before (two consecutive starts with no walks) but Sanchez hit the wall and crashed and burned, there is no better way to say it. And Correia appears to be pitching himself back into shape, but meanwhile, his results have been pretty poor overall. Balancing those drops, slightly, was Zito's return to OK-ness by, while not dominating, he at least wasn't having disaster starts. That enabled the staff as a whole to reduce their DIS starts from 6 to 5 and nearly half the 9 that they did in April.

Cain and Lincecum led the way with 4 DOM starts each. Nobody else did that well, however. As noted, Zito didn't contribute a bunch of DIS starts, so at least he was OK starting. However, both Correia and Sanchez had some bad outings, though Correia appears to be starting to break out a little in his last two starts, pitching well overall, but having a key mistake or two cost him a good performance.

What's Good and What's Not

A DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes. Thus what Correia has done so far in limited starts is startingly good, that's why he is now in the mix for the #5 starting position for the 2008 season, as Sabean had noted in one of his post-season talks, along with Sanchez, who previously was the favorite for that spot; now it's a competition.

If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher). That's how Lowry was able to pitch well last year, keeping his ERA low while still recovering from his strained oblique and being unable to strike out hitters as much as before, he had very few disaster starts until he had his arm problems and got bombed in September, he had a good ERA, in the high 3's until those starts.

July's Comments

Unfortunately, the starting rotation was Jeckyll and Hyde this month (Cain and Lincecum great, Correia and Sanchez horrible, Zito in the middle), costing the team any chance of a good month. We depend too much on our starting pitching to be able to withstand that.

On top of that, the bullpen has been giving up leads and blown saves a lot more in July, costing Lincecum two wins, for example. That obviously hurts the overall team win-loss results and is evidenced by all the call ups and downs for relievers, as ineffective ones are sent out and the Giants try out new ones. That is life, however, when you are re-building with young players, you just have to accept that.

Furthermore, the offense totally sank as well. I wonder if the trade deadline had anything to do with that. Both Winn and Rowand had poor July's but has been percolating lately, particularly Winn. Lewis despite his bunion, appeared to even do better after his bunion problem was released. Bowker, however, has really hit the skids and risk the Giants bringing up someone, anyone, from AAA to take some AB away from him.

Meanwhile, while Ivan Ochoa has brung things up a notch once he started getting regular play at SS, Burriss has continued to sputter offensively with his regular play at 2B. There had been talk about sending down Velez, but if Burriss continues this poor performance, Velez will probably start seeing regular play there instead. The good news on Burriss is that his downturn is totally tied to his drop in BABIP, while he has been doing very well in terms of contact (i.e. K%), not striking out very often, plus walking enough to keep his BB/K respectable, though it would be much better if he could double his walk rate.

I think we will see more of what we saw in July in August, as Cain and Lincecum continue to do well, and the others have uneven results. Sanchez really appears to have hit the wall and then some, he might get shut down soon if he continues to do as poorly as he has. Correia, however, appears to be coming around, so that will help. Zito as well, appears to be coming around as well, though he has had ups and downs all through his career as a Giant. At least he's having fun now, maybe the results will start to improve for him as he had his first 10 strikeout game with us in July plus he also did something he hasn't done since early in his career, and not so frequently over the past 5-6 seasons, which a three game streak where he struck out more than his IP and at least double his walks - last one in 2004 - but then he went and had three straight mediocre starts before his last start against the Padres.