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.
What's New
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations of PQS (now old PQS; not sure what the ranges are for newPQS or especially ogcPQS, which is my hybrid), 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.
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). Read the link (unfortunately, they removed the article and thus the table is no longer available, sorry), as I noted, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and there you can see particularly how a low DIS% is so important to a low ERA.
Plus, I have not figured out what is the levels of okay and bad are for the newPQS, and I may never know for ogcPQS (probably a good reason for me not to keep that going), since I don't have league wide stats on that. But clearly, with Bumgarner's historic record pushed down to the 40's and 50's, after being in the 60's, 70's, 80's, the ranges for Good, Great, Elite, have clearly changed,
Plus, I have not figured out what is the levels of okay and bad are for the newPQS, and I may never know for ogcPQS (probably a good reason for me not to keep that going), since I don't have league wide stats on that. But clearly, with Bumgarner's historic record pushed down to the 40's and 50's, after being in the 60's, 70's, 80's, the ranges for Good, Great, Elite, have clearly changed,
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). But I think when the DOM% is high enough, you win more by choosing a high DOM% over a low DIS%, as there are more high quality games pitched overall.
Part of the new terminology is DEC or Decent, which covered all the starts that aren't DOM or DIS (what I used to call MID; love this term better). What I had found previously was that DEC starts were actually decent, and would help a pitcher keep his ERA decent, whereas a particularly bad DIS are the ones that would kill the pitcher's ERA. In fact, pitchers could have a decent ERA even if they do not have many DOM starts, as long as they can limit DIS starts.
The new methodology of no more automatic DIS starts for under 5 IP, will help to bump up DEC ERA, for my experience dealing with the automatic DIS starts was that a good number of them were decent (and sometimes DOM) but hurt badly because of too many hits and/or walks.
Part of the new terminology is DEC or Decent, which covered all the starts that aren't DOM or DIS (what I used to call MID; love this term better). What I had found previously was that DEC starts were actually decent, and would help a pitcher keep his ERA decent, whereas a particularly bad DIS are the ones that would kill the pitcher's ERA. In fact, pitchers could have a decent ERA even if they do not have many DOM starts, as long as they can limit DIS starts.
The new methodology of no more automatic DIS starts for under 5 IP, will help to bump up DEC ERA, for my experience dealing with the automatic DIS starts was that a good number of them were decent (and sometimes DOM) but hurt badly because of too many hits and/or walks.
I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently. I've started buying the e-book version to save money on it, as the main value is related to the fantasy baseball content, which I don't use at all now. So going forward, I might be waiting a season to buy the books, it will depend.
Giants Starters' PQS for 2018 SeasonTyler Beede -
PQS: 0, 0/ / / (0% DOM, 100% DIS; 0:2/2)
newPQS: 2, 2/ / / (0% DOM, 0% DIS; 0:0/2)
ogcPQS: 2, 2/ / / (0% DOM, 0% DIS; 0:0/2)
Ty Blach -
PQS: 3, 0, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5/4, 0, 0, 0, 0/ / (25% DOM, 42% DIS; 3:5/12)
newPQS: 2, 1, 2, 2, 0, 1, 2/ 3, 1, 0, 1, 1/ / (0% DOM, 58% DIS; 0:7/12)
ogcPQS: 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2/ 3, 1, 0, 1, 1/ / (0% DOM, 58% DIS; 0:7/12)
Madison Bumgarner -
PQS: / /3, 2, 2, 5, 5/3, 3, 4, 0, 4/ (40% DOM, 10% DIS; 4:1/10)
newPQS: / /2, 1, 1, 5, 5/2, 2, 2, 3, 4/ (30% DOM, 20% DIS; 3:2/10)
ogcPQS: / /3, 1, 2, 5, 5/3, 2, 3, 3, 5/ (30% DOM, 20% DIS; 3:2/10)
PQS: 5, 2, 5, 5, 3/ / /0, 2, 2, 0/ (33% DOM, 22% DIS; 3:2/9)
newPQS: 4, 1, 5, 4, 1/ / /0, 1, 2, 1/ (33% DOM, 56% DIS; 3:5/9)
ogcPQS: 4, 2, 5, 5, 2/ / /0, 1, 2, 1/ (33% DOM, 33% DIS; 3:3/9)
Derek Holland -
PQS: 3, 5, 0, 4, 0/4, 1, 4, 4, 5, 1/0, 4, 3, 4, 5/0, 5, 5, 4/ (60% DOM, 30% DIS; 12:6/20)
newPQS: 2, 4, 0, 3, 1/2, 0, 4, 1, 4, 0/3, 2, 2, 3, 4/1, 5, 2, 2/ (25% DOM, 30% DIS; 5:6/20)
ogcPQS: 2, 5, 0, 4, 1/2, 0, 4, 2, 5, 0/3, 2, 2, 4, 4/1, 5, 3, 3/ (35% DOM, 225 DIS; 7:5/20)
Dereck Rodriguez -
PQS: //5, 0, 3, 3, 5, 5/3, 5, 5, 5/ (60% DOM, 10% DIS; 6:1/10)
newPQS: //3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4/3, 5, 2, 4/ (40% DOM, 10% DIS; 4:1/10)
ogcPQS: //4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5/3, 5, 4, 4/ (0% DOM, 20% DIS; 6:1/10)
Jeff Samardzija -
PQS: /3, 0, 3/ /3, 0/ (0% DOM, 40% DIS; 0:2/5)
newPQS: /2, 0, 2/ /2, 2/ (0% DOM, 20% DIS; 0:1/5)
ogcPQS: /2, 0, 2/ /2, 2/ (0% DOM, 20% DIS; 0:1/5)
Chris Stratton -
PQS: 4, 3, 3, 5, 4, 0/4, 0, 0, 1, 3/5, 0, 3, 5, 3, 0/0/ (33% DOM, 39% DIS; 6:7/18)
newPQS: 3, 2, 3, 5, 4, 0/2, 1, 0, 1, 2/4, 1, 3, 3, 2, 0/0/ (17% DOM, 39% DIS; 3:7/18)
ogcPQS: 3, 2, 3, 5, 4, 0/2, 1, 0, 1, 2/5, 1, 3, 4, 3, 1/1/ (22% DOM, 39% DIS; 4:7/18)
PQS: 3/5, 3, 0, 4, 0, 4/5, 4, 4, 1, 3/ (50% DOM, 22% DIS; 9:4/18)
newPQS: 3/4, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2/4, 3, 4, 0, 1/ (28% DOM, 33% DIS; 5:6/18)
ogcPQS: 3/4, 3, 2, 3, 1, 2/4, 4, 4, 0, 2/ (39% DOM, 28% DIS; 7:5/18)
Giants Season overall -
PQS: 39% DOM, 32% DEC, 29% DIS out of 109 games counted (43:32/109)
newPQS: 21% DOM, 43% DEC, 36% DIS out of 109 games counted (23:39/109)
ogcPQS: 28% DOM, 42% DEC, 30% DIS out of 109 games counted (30:33/109)
Giants Month of April -
PQS: 34% DOM, 42% DEC, 24% DIS out of 29 games counted (10:7/29)
newPQS: 21% DOM, 48% DEC, 31% DIS out of 29 games counted (6:9/29)
ogcPQS: 24% DOM, 52% DEC, 24% DIS out of 29 games counted (7:7/29)
Giants Month of May -
PQS: 33% DOM, 15% DEC, 52% DIS out of 27 games counted (9:14/27)
newPQS: 11% DOM, 30% DEC, 59% DIS out of 27 games counted (3:16/27)
ogcPQS: 11% DOM, 37% DEC, 52% DIS out of 27 games counted (3:14/27)
Giants Month of June -
PQS: 46% DOM, 36% DEC, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (13:5/28)
newPQS: 29% DOM, 46% DEC, 25% DIS out of 28 games counted (8:7/28)
ogcPQS: 43% DOM, 36% DEC, 21% DIS out of 28 games counted (12:6/28)
Giants Month of July -
PQS: 44% DOM, 28% DEC, 28% DIS out of 25 games counted (11:7/25)
newPQS: 24% DOM, 48% DEC, 28% DIS out of 25 games counted (6:7/25)
ogcPQS: 32% DOM, 44% DEC, 24% DIS out of 25 games counted (8:6/25)
The month of July for PQS continued some of the momentum that happened in June, but faltered when the Giants tried to bring back two key starters into the rotation.
Holland led part of the way once more, leading in DOM in PQS, but not the others, in spite of being out of the rotation briefly to accommodate Cueto and Samardzija; he had 1 DOM in the other two. D-Rod also got a break as well, and he and Suarez were tied for the lead in DOM starts across all three, with 3 in PQS, 2 in newPQS, and 3 in ogcPQS. If not for them, the month was otherwise a disaster.
Bumgarner contributed 2/1/1 DOM across the three, but Stratton, Cueto, and Samardzija all only contributed DIS starts, though it varied. Amazingly, as bad as the results were for the Shark, under the two advanced PQS methodologies, he did not have any DIS starts, producing 2 DEC for each. So perhaps he's not as far away from being effective on the MLB mound, that there was some bad luck mixed into his results.
Overall, PQS looked good, though not as good in past rotations. Us Giants fans were spoiled by regular 60%+ DOM for the month. Still, pretty good after the bad May, which the advanced metrics hinted at, and if not for the addition of Cueto and Samardzija (without them, the team was 58%/21%/21% for PQS, 32%/47%/21% for newPQS, and 42%/42%/16% for ogcPQS; as one can see with PQS, that's about as good as we have had in the past).
The pitching stats were mixed. D-Rod led with 2.08 ERA in 4 starts, followed by Derek Holland with 3.00 ERA.
- Bumgarner: 3.68 ERA, 8.0 K/9, 1.73 K/BB
- Suarez: 3.94 ERA, 6.4 K/9, 2.33 K/BB (steep drops due to two bad starts to end the month)
- Holland: 3.00 ERA, 11.3 K/9, 4.38 K/BB (peripherals were for all pitching; both great!)
- Rodriguez: 2.08 ERA, 6.5 K9, 2.33 K/BB
- Stratton: 12.71 ERA (one start, says it all...)
- Samardzija: 5.00 ERA, 4.0 K/9, 1.33 K/BB
- Cueto: 6.86 ERA, 5.1 K/9, 1.71 K/BB
- Holland: 2.37 ERA to May 27; 9.32 ERA afterward
- Rodriguez: 2.67 ERA to July 21; 4.89 ERA afterward
- Suarez: 3.01 ERA to June 28; 3.55 ERA afterward
So that seems to explain the Giants tactics in July, giving Holland an extended rest from July 11-25 between starts (some relief in-between to keep him sharp) and D-Rod from July 7-19, while keeping Suarez in the rotation, since Suarez did the best of the three later in the 2017 season.
However, Suarez hit a bad patch at the end of July, and which continued into August until the LA game. With the ASG giving extra rest, and especially since he had a bad start just before the break (and really two, given that he gave up an uncharacteristic 4 walks in the start before, but battled and kept them from scoring too much), hindsight, yes, but the Giants probably should have skipped first Suarez's start of the second half, and gave that to Blach, for a spot start, by sending down Suarez and bringing up Stratton to be long relief in place of Blach, to give him extra rest.
Hopefully, like Lincecum before when he was bad for a whole month before figuring things out, Suarez has figured things out. He did have a 4 PQS/2newPQS/3ogcPQS in his last start, but 3 walks is still abnormal for him. We will see.
July PQS Comparison Thoughts
Overall, again, even by PQS standards, this rotation is nothing like the Giants have had during their Dynasty period, when they were collectively spitting out 60's. The 30's the rotation had in April and May, is nothing like what it had during the peak of Tim/Matt/Mad. Neither was the 46% of June or 44% of July, but at least that was in what I would call good territory. But as I noted, without Shark or Cueto being put in, the Giants would have had a 58% DOM PQS, which is pretty good.
However, when you look at the results overall, we see that the starting pitchers were about average overall, with a 4.16 ERA vs. 4.10 ERA for the NL overall, just slightly above average, but without Shark, who had a 6.25 ERA, the Giants starting staff has an above average 4.01 ERA.
Looking at the three methodologies, ogcPQS seems to match the facts in the above paragraph best, but newPQS is pretty close too:
- PQS: 44%/28%/28%
- newPQS: 24%/48%/28%
- ogcPQS: 32%/44%/24%
July 2018 Comments
July would not have been so bad had the Giants not forced Cueto and Shark into the rotation. With them, their 11-14 record matches their Pythagorean. Removing the two, and assuming similar performances from the rest (could be poor assumption, given that both D-Rod and Holland got rests), the Pythorean for the month would have been 13-12, a two win drop. And really, most of that was on Cueto's starts, as the Giants were outscored 28-13 in his July starts, while Shark was only beaten 7-5.
And that's basically what the Giants have lost forcing Samardzija into the rotation, as the Giants went 2-8 in his starts, while going .500 with the other guys who would have pitched instead (meaning that they could have gone 4-4 instead), so that's another two wins lost there.
Then as I analyzed in my other post, Bochy's poor lineup selection, placing a 7th place hitter at leadoff for much of the season, that costs the Giants 4 wins for the season.
So the Giants, had they done the three moves above - not start Cueto in July, not force Samardzija to pitch in the majors at all, and selected a better leadoff hitter (Bochy did a Dusty move, trying to force a 7th place hitter to be a leadoff hitter) - would have gained 8 wins from those moves. That would change their middling 55-54 record at the end of July to 63-46, which would have given them a 3 game lead in the NL West Division.
Bullpen
Thank goodness for our bullpen. Moronta was a find, and Watson was a steal, as well as Smith. Overall, the Giants bullpen has a 3.64 ERA to today, vs. 4.06 ERA for the NL relievers, good for 4th overall. But perhaps they are starting to wear down, as they blew some leads over the past week.
Offense
As noted, the wrong leadoff guy had been picked for most of the season. Basically since my post, the Giants have lead off with McCutchen, and the offense has picked up some, though not enough yet, but a lot of that is SSS. For example, the Giants averaged 4.04 runs scored without Cutch at leadoff, 4.00 runs scored with him, but if you take out the two Astros starts, when they faced two good pitchers in Morton and Keuchel, they have averaged 4.40 runs. If you then take out the games in the pitcher's park Dodger Stadium, now it is up to 4.67 runs scored on average.
Very SSS, but it shows also, how impressions can be warped by one factor, here or there. For example, maybe instead of getting to face the Astros for four games (0-4: Cole, Verlander, Morton, Keuchel) in 2018, maybe instead they see the Angels (3 games in 2018), Texas (3 games) for that extra game. Or even McCullers, who, while no pushover, isn't nearly as good as Cole, Verlander, or Morton. Maybe we could have faced him twice, even better.
If you look at the July batting stats, we had a ton of guys who could get on bse, but no regular who had a SLG above .400 (Longoria was the only one, but only played half the month; only d'Arnaud, Pence, and Sandoval had SLG above .450 with at least 43 PA). So Bochy's moving of all our best hitters to the top of the lineup has to be a great improvement over anything he had done all season long, I think that's clear no matter what the numbers show for results so far.
Pennant Race
Overall, the Giants are not in a good place at the moment. It would have been extremely better hand they swept the Dodgers, but alas, lacking just a crucial run. But if the starting pitching can keep up their collective good works over the remaining weeks of the season, I think the Giants can at least make things pretty close.
Looking at all the remaining series, I blend each opponent's home/road record together with the Giants record against them so far this season, to get an idea of where the Giants might end up. From the Pirates series, I had the Giants going 25-22, 3 games above .500, and that only got us to 82-80. We should be 3.5-3.5 but there's no half wins in baseball, so we ended up 4-3, so maybe 83-79 now.
The Giants need to take advantage in the rest of August. The Reds and Mets are pushovers, so they should be 4-3 against them as well, but Rangers are average and Arizona is tougher, so 3-3 there is expected for 7-6, but 8-5 is probably what's needed to get separation from .500, and particularly win the series against Arizona, who is leading them right now, as they have 3 games, and cannot afford to not win the series. Even better is if they can win the series against the Mets, as it's a four game series, and instead of being 2-2, they could be 3-1. That would be a huge lift as well.
Then for the rest of the season, they got 15 games at home, 12 games on the road, and pushovers in Mets and Padres, plus mediocre teams (at least for the H/R situation) in Rockies (however, they've been hurting us, 5-8 record so far) and Cardinals. The tough series are Brewers on the road, Braves at home (but Giants are 3-0 this season, meaning in Atlanta, so far), and Dodgers in the season ending series.
They really need to win the two Rockies series, since they are ahead, and the Dodgers too, Brewers as well, both because they are ahead for Wild Card, but also because Giants are currently 1-3 against them, and need to even things up. And if the Padres can roll over for us (not impossible, we play them 6 games in the final 12 games of the season, so they could be already in vacation after-season mode), that could lead to a spectacularly important final season-ending series with the Dodgers, with somebody's playoff hopes on the line, either them or both of us.
It's not impossible, but the Giants don't have any time left to screw up. Under the Dusty rule of a gaining a game on the leaders per week, we are right on the cusp, as there is 6+ weeks left, and they are 5.5 games back of the NL West leading D-Backs, and 6.5 games behind the tied Wild Card teams, Phillies and Brewers.
But with four teams between them and the WC spots, though two of them are also ahead in the NL West division race, it would take a lot of tanking and rough patches for the Giants to pull it off. This is about taking things one step at a time, first up is taking care of Reds and Mets, easily, or may as well forget about it, as they are counting on taking care of them while hoping to take on the better teams.
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