Thursday, November 23, 2023

Hey Zaidi! My Baseball Business Plan: Pitchers Produce more WAR than Position Players

Happy Thanksgiving!  What people don't really realize about WAR is how much is contributed by the good to great pitchers vs. the position players on a per game basis.

ogc thoughts

To look into this, we need to look into the WAR/game rates for position players and pitchers and not overall seasonal totals. Position players look like they are much more valuable than pitchers because of the usage difference (150 starts vs. 30 starts), but within each game, the value of a pitcher becomes much clearer. 

To illustrate, I'll use some Giants stats.  In 2022, Rodon and Webb averaged 0.17 and 0.15 bWAR per start (roughly 5.0 bWAR in a 30-32 start season, which was roughly what Harrison produced in his first start after being called up again; I happened to notice that he was at -0.3 bWAR before his start, -0.1 bWAR after, which works out to 0.15-0.25 bWAR produced in the start). Lincecum in his Cy Young years, about 0.25 bWAR, gives a good range between good and great pitching from a Giants history perspective. 

In 2001-2, Bonds averaged roughly 0.08 bWAR, and that's close to the best all time, if not the best (close enough, not going to research). However, most of the rest of the line up is roughly 1.5-2.0 bWAR, average, if not less for the bottom of the order. That works out to about 0.01 bWAR (or 1.62 bWAR in 162 games) per game. So Bonds plus 7 average hitters work out to 0.15 bWAR, which is roughly what our good starting pitchers, like Rodon and Webb, did last season. 

Now look at a regular lineup. If there's 4 good hitters (say, 3.24 bWAR each = 0.02 bWAR per game), plus two average (0.01 bWAR) and two replacement level (0.00 bWAR), that adds up to 0.10 bWAR per game, which is less contribution, on average, than a good pitcher.  Webb and Rodon, in this example, would represent 60% of the WAR production, the lineup of 8, 40%.

And as we see in baseball, the variance for lineups is huge, 0 to 10 runs per game, but for the better to good pitchers, they have a consistent generation of quality starts (as seen in my studies of PQS over the years), and that leads to more influence on each game, as well as less variance, game to game.  Also, as my PQS studies showed, bad ERA generally related to avoiding disaster starts, even middling pitchers, if they can avoid the disaster starts, find that their ERA are still okay to good (like Brad Hennessey in 2005-6).

This demonstrates how much influence a pitcher actually has on any start, a much more outsized influence, the best are double and triple the influence Bonds had on any one game, and 5-10 times the influence that regular players have. And when the pitcher is one of the good pitchers, their quality starts are much more regular contributors to winning in any particular game than the home runs for most hitters.

Pitching Should be the Focus

This is why it is a better baseball strategy to focus on pitching in drafting and development. Studies have shown that it is defense (pitching and fielding) that results in winning in the playoffs. This post shows a reason why good to great pitching can have an outsized effect in any game, but especially in the playoffs. Even one of the best hitters in baseball history like Bonds has a much smaller affect on a game than a good starting pitcher, and much smaller when the pitcher is elite like Cy Young Lincecum.

As discussed in this business plan (and shown in my PQS studies), the best pitchers can deliver quality starts very frequently, at least 50% of the time, and up to 80% for the best pitchers in the league.  That leads to less variance in defense (i.e. runs allowed) during short series, whereas the other team, generally having lesser starting pitchers, find that the high variance happens more often, leading to more losses against a quality start. 

Quality starts are not fool proof. This is because it depends on the good pitcher to continue being good in the playoffs, which is not a guarantee. Just look at how well Peavy did during his SF seasons, and how poorly he did in the playoffs, you also need the mental strength to do well no matter the circumstances.  In addition, it is not like the other team doesn't get quality starts in the playoffs.

Still, it is the only advantage I've found in baseball that can deliver a high win rate (QS vs. a regular start, generally won 80% of the time).  Over four seasons of playoffs (2008-2011):

  • The expected team (based on the PQS for each starting pitcher) to win went 67-15 (.817 winning percentage)
  • The team having a DOM start went 81-37 (.686 winning percentage), and 56-12 (.824 winning percentage) when you take out the ties (that is, when both teams get a DOM start). 
  • Teams with DIS starts had a 25-57 record (.305 winning percentage), 11-43 (.204 winning percentage) without ties (when there is two DIS starts).   

Thus, to maximize your chances in the playoffs, you need to have at least three good or better starters in your rotation.  This is because many teams go with four starters in the playoffs, and only having two good starters means you are relegating half of your games to much more poorer starters.  And sometimes you use up your two best starters to win a series, which means you need to start your third best (i.e. not good) starter for the next playoff series. If you have three good starters, the third can step in, then the other two can follow the third (or fourth if you got it).  That's how the Giants won in 2012, Lincecum stopped being a good starter, so we were down to Cain and Bumgarner, but then Zito stepped up and became our third.

And focusing on pitching means you increase your expertise in identifying and developing good pitching, and there is minimal waste of talent, because each good pitcher improves the major league roster (up to 13 spots), whereas position players suffer a drop in value when they are forced to change positions due to an over abundance at any position, or worse, the team is forced to trade off one, because most trades generally include players who are lacking enough that their team has deemed them tradeable.  

Girls (and fans) dig the long ball, but it's pitching that yields the wins and championships, as my business plan shows.  

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