Baseball: Handicapping The Pitchers

Years ago you could handicap 75% of the game just based on the starting pitchers. Not so any more. Today we have “early relievers”, “set up relievers”, “middle relievers”, “long relievers” and closers. It is very rare to see a pitcher with more than 4 or 5 complete games in a season. To handicap the pitchers (defense) in a baseball game, you must now keep daily records on all relievers, keeping track of who is available in the bullpen for a particular game and who is not, and adjust the power number for the bullpen accordingly. A statistical formula for rating pitchers does not include and ERA anymore. The formula must be actual and not assumed based on a nine inning game as is the ERA.

The first stat that must be determined is how many actual innings per game the starting pitcher averages per start. (innings pitched divided by games started). Starting pitchers previous stats when in a relief role are not included in the formula so it is imperative you keep stats on only the games he has started and not use his overall stats as are what is usually published in the stat sections of papers or websites. The next part of the formulas is to get the actual number of “earned runs” given up per innings pitched. (earned runs divided by innings pitched). This will give you the actual number of runs this pitcher is expected to give up and the number of innings he is expected to pitch. So if a pitcher has started say 10 games and has 70 innings pitched and has given up say 20 earned runs in those 10 starts, we can assume he will pitch 7 innings, give up .285 runs per inning resulting in his giving up 1.99 or 2.00 runs in this game. This means the bullpen would be pitching 2 innings of this game and using the same formula for the active or available bullpen, let’s say the bullpen gives up .335 runs for every inning pitched, then they would be expected to give up .67 runs in this game for an overall of 2.67 runs to be scored by the opponent with this starting pitcher and this available bullpen. You must now allow for the “unearned runs” given up by a team… Let’s say that in those 10 games, the team gave up 4 unearned runs. That means that the team will be expected to give up .40 unearned runs, now bringing the total the opponents are expected to score at 3.07 runs.

Starting pitchers stats can be extended to include games played at night, on grass, on turf, daytime, but I find it not necessary. However you should include the difference in the ball parks. For example: if the overall average runs by a visiting team throughout the league is say 5.4 and a team is visiting a ball park with an average of say 6.4, then the pitcher stat has to be adjusted by one run.

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