At MC, Vidya points out this finding by Gennaro in the 2010 Mariners Annual:

Brilliant!  :guinness:

Further, Gennaro went on to demonstrate that these 80 innings per year, for a lousy defensive team, get shifted from the rotation pitchers to the worst relievers.

Also, another 35 get shifted from the best 4 relievers to other relievers.

Assuming that the top 8-9 guys run 4.25 ERA's and the other guys are at 6.25, that's 2 runs x 13 games' time = 26 runs per year, or one full run every six games.  Completely and utterly invisible -- in terms of March roster decisions -- until Gennaro's finding.

...........

That's the type of hidden moving part that ....

(1) Evades us saberdweebs if we are judging everything on straight RAR. 

Where does Jack Wilson's RAR reflect the fact that Felix, Washburn and Bedard threw more innings in 2009, because he was playing? ... it doesn't.  This is another illustration of James' warning that we do not measure ballplayers nearly as perfectly as we think we do.

and notice also that (2) This is a moving part that has not evaded the good ole baseball boyz.  Can't have too many butchers out there, son.  Puts too much pressure on your young pitchers.

Those with different perspectives than us -- those whose light bulbs are much different -- "capture" things that we don't.

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Anyway, SSI is immediately fascinated by this topic of "saved innings," of lousy pitchers having to come in to pitch to the extra batters (who are coming to the plate because of errors and marginal hits).

Will cheerfully admit that I have had something of a bias towards power pitching and OBP-driven offense, as opposed to glovework, but this particular finding is a body blow.

James has pegged modern defense at 15-17% of the game -- 30-35% of the top half of the inning -- since K's, BB's, and HR's continue to grow as a percent of the action.  Matt has consistently argued that defense matters more than that.  Here is a powerful argument that his intuition may have been right all along.

CAVEAT:  bear in mind that the next massive "invisible finding," or the next dozen, could relate to offensive synergy, or pitching strategy, or Stars & Scrubs, or chemistry, or whatever.

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James realized early, in the 1980's if not 1970's, that it is much easier to build a pennant contender in a big park than a small one.  He guessed that this might be because the pitchers needed comfort and the hitters needed their egos in check...

Adding two and two here, a pitcher's park will obviously perform exactly the same function as a good defense.  Every time that it turns a home run into an out, the park removes batters from the pitching staff's workload.

The teams that are playing in good parks, are getting a higher % of contribution from their best 8 pitchers.  You can call that shot before you even study it...

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Yet another facet of this diamond is found in the playoffs.  Playoff teams also cut their pitching staffs down to about 8 pitchers.  This semi-related phenomenon is another subject to study along with the above.

The awesome 116-win Mariners saw its great DER and great park combine to shoehorn its innings into about 8 or 9 pitchers.   But once they got to the playoffs, the other teams were using 8 pitchers, too...

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As pertains to the Mariners?  Felix and Lee threw > 500 innings last year.  They are closer to 2.5 starters than they are to 2.0.  They're not only great:  after they complete their All-Star 180-200 IP performances, then they go out and take additional innings away from the Rainiers.

Good stuff,

Dr D