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Or worst case, we should start Liddi AND Seager when Felix or Pineda are pitching!!!
Batted-Ball MPH and team DER
........
Q. Does this affect team Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER)?
A. The correlation between DER and MPH is strong, and that is the revolutionary takeaway here (though Fast doesn't comment on it).
In other words, a major cause of lousy team defense is just bad pitching -- smoked balls in play that give the fielders no chance. And a major cause of (apparently) great team defense is just great pitching; often you get great DER's primarily because the hitters can't get decent swings off the pitchers.
Look at the Boston Red Sox. They had an outstanding .293 DER, lowest in the AL. Look at the Seattle Mariners. They had a catastrophic .309 DER, highest in the AL other than Texas.
But in this case, anyway, the .309 - .293 delta is entirely accounted for by the pitchers' MPH allowed, according to this correlation chart.* (*I know, I know - a later post. jjc)
Washburn%20took%20their%20places%20in%20front%20of%20good%20fielders,%20in%20a%20huge%20park%20....%20and%20nothing%20happened%20other%20than%20the%20Seattle%20Mariners%27%20team%20defensive%20stats%20being%20ruined%21%20%20You%20might%20have%20a%20good%20defense%20and%20a%20huge%20park.%20%20That%20doesn%27t%20empower%20you,%20at%20all,%20to%20stock%20up%20on%20Carlos%20Silva%27s%20to%20%22exploit%22%20your%20batted-ball%20excellence.%20%20%20%20Why?%20%20Because%20there%20isn%27t%20such%20a%20thing%20as%20team%20batted-ball%20excellence%20--%20not%20to%20the%20extent%20we%20believed%20there%20is,%20anyway.%20%20Team%20batted-ball%20excellence%20is%20caused,%20to%20a%20large%20extent,%20by%20your%20pitchers%20who%20are%20forcing%20weak%20swings%20in%20front%20of%20your%20fielders." style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 116, 189); text-decoration: none; ">this chart. There is almost no correlation between Felix' BABIP allowed, and that of the rest of his staff. And even the minimal correlation on this graph is partly caused by Felix' pitching in the same park as his teammates.
If Felix has one BABIP, and Vargas has a different one, and Michael Pineda had a different one, and they don't correlate at all .... then how much are their BABIP's being driven by the teammates with gloves on?
.........
Mike Fast also brilliantly points out a subtle point that we have long agreed with: the bar for weak-contact pitching is very high in the major leagues. We can assume that many pitchers, with .350 BABIP "skills", are weeded out after short trials in the big leagues.
The superb pitcher pool that remains in the big leagues, have BABIP "skill" that ranges from about .275 to .325. And that "skill" makes a huge difference. As Fast noted, Jamie Moyer was a star pitcher primarily because of his BABIP skill.
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It's nice to have Brendan Ryan playing short, but that don't mean much compared to having Michael Pineda on the mound.
You want Dustin Ackley to run nice defensive stats on the right side of the diamond? Try deploying RHP's like Felix and Michael Pineda to slow down the LHB ground balls. :- )