ERA+ ERA- and FIP

Acuna Matata · 09-22-2018, 05:45 AM

Just wanted to share a few thoughts about an article i read about ERA+ which made things much clearer fir me.
I had always presumed it mirrored OPS+ in that it was the pitching equivalent to state how much better or worse the players performance had been against the league average.
With OPS+ then i know every point above 100 showed the hitter had performed 1% point better than the league average, and vice versa with any point below 100.
ERA+ instead, while working on the same 100 league average scale, operates differently.
With this stat each percentage point above or below 100 displays how the league average player performed in comparison to the pitcher in question rather than the percentage point relating directly to the pitcher themselves.
A much easier to understand stat, which doesnt appear to be available in OOTP19, is ERA- as this works exactly like OPS+ in that every percentage point above or below 100 shows how much better or worse the pitchers performance has been than the league average.
To move away from the 100 point scale then FIP is also a stat i like to check in with.
I like that numerically at least the same range of numbers you would class as good for a standard ERA apply also to analysing FIP.
With FIP deliberately being adjusted to exclude the impact of defense on the pitchers stats then it can highlight discrepencies between those pitchers being helped or hindered by their defense.
As a result of these types of stats being available then I’ve removed pitchers wins and losses from my custom views when checking their performance as there are too many variables that go into the W/L stat that are out of the pitchers control.
Apologies for anyone this is treading old ground for but i know up until recently this was all new to me as being from England then advanced Baseball stats were not my forte.

NoOne · 09-30-2018, 06:05 PM

i think you're confusing fip- with era+..higher is better with era+, just like ops+.

fip is meh, imo. fip- is the one you are describing, i believe, same meh reason. e.g. since it ignores all balls in play, it ignore sthe effect of a non-average babip per pitcher... some pitchers do show a lower babip over the course of their career with a large enough sample... you can't typically tell early on whether it's luck or skill, though.

however, in ootp, you can deduce which pitches and quality required definiteyl results in an improved babip rating. players like knuckleballers will be severely underrated when using this stat, or any other player that maintains a babip more than a few ticks below league average.

it tells you good info, but it's incomplete... used with other things it's awesome, but alone it has holes. just like all stats.

the more "all-in-one" they are, the less they tell you, really. for all the same reasons 100's if not 1000's of threads tell you not to pay too much attention to Potential or Overall, beyond the basics. i bet overall/potential in game have a strong correlation to results than ANY of those WAR / ops+ / era + etc etc in ootp, at least. i'd put a large bundle down a slong as 'challenge mode' default environemnt for modern mlb.

09-22-2018, 05:45 AM	#1
Acuna Matata Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jul 2018 Posts: 32	ERA+ ERA- and FIP Just wanted to share a few thoughts about an article i read about ERA+ which made things much clearer fir me. I had always presumed it mirrored OPS+ in that it was the pitching equivalent to state how much better or worse the players performance had been against the league average. With OPS+ then i know every point above 100 showed the hitter had performed 1% point better than the league average, and vice versa with any point below 100. ERA+ instead, while working on the same 100 league average scale, operates differently. With this stat each percentage point above or below 100 displays how the league average player performed in comparison to the pitcher in question rather than the percentage point relating directly to the pitcher themselves. A much easier to understand stat, which doesnt appear to be available in OOTP19, is ERA- as this works exactly like OPS+ in that every percentage point above or below 100 shows how much better or worse the pitchers performance has been than the league average. To move away from the 100 point scale then FIP is also a stat i like to check in with. I like that numerically at least the same range of numbers you would class as good for a standard ERA apply also to analysing FIP. With FIP deliberately being adjusted to exclude the impact of defense on the pitchers stats then it can highlight discrepencies between those pitchers being helped or hindered by their defense. As a result of these types of stats being available then I’ve removed pitchers wins and losses from my custom views when checking their performance as there are too many variables that go into the W/L stat that are out of the pitchers control. Apologies for anyone this is treading old ground for but i know up until recently this was all new to me as being from England then advanced Baseball stats were not my forte. Last edited by Acuna Matata; 09-22-2018 at 05:50 AM.

09-30-2018, 06:05 PM	#2
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,167	i think you're confusing fip- with era+..higher is better with era+, just like ops+. fip is meh, imo. fip- is the one you are describing, i believe, same meh reason. e.g. since it ignores all balls in play, it ignore sthe effect of a non-average babip per pitcher... some pitchers do show a lower babip over the course of their career with a large enough sample... you can't typically tell early on whether it's luck or skill, though. however, in ootp, you can deduce which pitches and quality required definiteyl results in an improved babip rating. players like knuckleballers will be severely underrated when using this stat, or any other player that maintains a babip more than a few ticks below league average. it tells you good info, but it's incomplete... used with other things it's awesome, but alone it has holes. just like all stats. the more "all-in-one" they are, the less they tell you, really. for all the same reasons 100's if not 1000's of threads tell you not to pay too much attention to Potential or Overall, beyond the basics. i bet overall/potential in game have a strong correlation to results than ANY of those WAR / ops+ / era + etc etc in ootp, at least. i'd put a large bundle down a slong as 'challenge mode' default environemnt for modern mlb.