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... according to John Dewan at Bill James Online, that is. (Actually his stats have Iwakuma as "most effective" MLB pitcher -- so far in 2013. John has a public article up on May 30th, in front of the paywall. He says,
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...In The Fielding Bible—Volume III, we published our current method for Total Runs, which estimates the total value each player has contributed to his team taking into account offense, defense and pitching. Here are the current leaders in 2013:
| Player | Runs Created | BR Runs | Pitching Runs Created | Runs Saved | Pos Adj | Total Runs |
| Joey Votto | 49 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 61 |
| Manny Machado | 39 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 8 | 59 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 53 | 2 | 0 | -6 | 8 | 57 |
| Carlos Gomez | 38 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 9 | 55 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 38 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 55 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 42 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 54 |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 44 | -1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 52 |
| Gerardo Parra | 32 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 7 | 52 |
| Chris Davis | 52 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 4 | 52 |
| Jean Segura | 42 | -2 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 52 |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | 0 | 0 | 48 | 2 | 1 | 51 |
One pitcher made the list, and he may not be who you would expect to see. Hisashi Iwakuma has the lowest WHIP (walks and hits allowed per nine innings) among all starters in baseball (.839) and has a 2.35 ERA. He edges out Clayton Kershaw and Matt Harvey, who both fell just short of 50 Total Runs so far in 2013.
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10 runs being worth one win, this metric has Iwakuma as not only the most effective pitcher in baseball, but worth 5.1 WAR already with the season 1/3 complete.
The article was published before WBC-san's game against the Twins on Friday. In that game, Iwakuma had his B game actually his C game going, and so was touched up for 0 runs on the evening.
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On TV they ran a stat, lowest WHIPs since, I forget what, like WWII ... it had one Koufax season, one Pedro season, two other guys, and Iwakuma this year.
It's one thing to trade for (and pay the salary of) Cliff Lee; it's another thing to have Cliff Lee at $6M per year.
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How About a Simple "My Bad," Gentlemen
There remains a bias against NPB pitching; when Iwakuma came to the States and appeared to be in any way dubious, American onlookers were lightning-quick to dismiss him. (Did anybody ask, "Hey, what if Greg Maddux had to pitch himself into form after shoulder issues? Might he look like Iwakuma does in his first month back?")
In every Iwakuma start you can still count on the broadcast crew saying, at least twice during the show, "Hey, he's great now, but he was a real piece of garbage last year. Don't blame us for jumping all over him, back then. He's totally different now." Each and every broadcast I have seen has contained several defenses of the 1H 2012 dismissal of Iwakuma. Their defensiveness is absolutely suffocating -- you can just imagine the trash talk that was going on behind the scenes in March 2012.
For the record, Hisashi Iwakuma did not evolve in 2012. His game was ossified many years before. It's like assessing Chris Carpenter as a piece of crud in March 2009, and then as he got into rhythm during the year, saying "Wow. He really gained confidence this summer. What an evolution."
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"Hey, he couldn't recover in five days," you say. Um, you got him for $1M because the world knew he was coming off shoulder issues. You going to call Erasmo Ramirez a piece of crud if he pitches tentatively this week?
"Hey, the M's were the team that gave him a chance," you say. True. They were also one of the 30 teams that nodded sagely in March 2012 and said, "Yep. There's nothing like MLB(TM) baseball. Makes sense that Hisashi Iwakuma would be a poser." But yeah. The M's have less anti-NPB bias than any other major league team. That's to your advantage as a Mariner fan.
"He didn't even know himself, whether he'd be able to pitch here." Why was Iwakuma the only player in Mariner history to be disallowed a transition period? Justin Smoak gets four years' worth. For that matter, Kazuhiro Sasaki got plenty of patience when he got over here and got mangled his first two months.
That was part of what they saw, of course, a guy taking 25-30 seconds per pitch -- which a lot of people loathe -- and looking sort of scared doing it. From where SSI sits, it is a scout's job to look past early nerves and see the pitcher underneath. It ain't like Brandon Morrow and 9,000 other guys aren't given chances to find their grooves if things go against them early.
SSI will be glad to stop calling baloney every week, if you'll stop claiming on EVERY BLINKIN' BROADCAST that Iwakuma deserved all the flak he got, that you were absolutely right to tear Iwakuma a new earhole in 2012. Why revisit that week after week after week?
So nobody was ever unfair to Hisashi Iwakuma, we got it already. He came back. He signed. He's on a roll. What's so scary about a My Bad once in a while?
- Your friend, Jeff.
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Moneyball, Dept.
This morning, BJOL referred to Branch Rickey's exploitation of the Negro Leagues:
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This bias against NPB pitching -- stemming from MLB(TM) egotism -- remains exploitable. The M's reaped the benefits of their faith in Ichiro for years; their faith-to-benefits ratio in Iwakuma is staggering.
The Mariners need to seek similar NPB faith-to-benefits ratios in the future. You want to talk Moneyball, talk NPB pitching. Anybody over there want to trade a pitcher for player-and-cash? Would Selig prevent that, for Zduriencik to give some Japanese team $20M in cash, and a player, for a TOR starter?
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Steve Carlton 1972
The Mariners are 9-2 in Iwakuma's starts, or +7.
They are .500 in Felix' starts and 9-24 in games not started by either. They could confidently pencil in a 3-8, or 2-9, record for any #6 or #7 starter who would have replaced Iwakuma. He's worth 6-7 wins so far not just in theory, but in this morning's standings.
WBC-san has flipped 6-7 games from L's to W's, so far in 1/3 of a season. They're 24-31 this morning; they probably would have been 17-38, if Blake Beavan had been in the rotation for Iwakuma.
Without him, the 2013 Mariners would currently be on pace for 112 losses. Instead, they're on pace for 91 losses. Mo', Lonnie, you remember Steve Carlton in 1972? :- ) Any of you kids ever look up Carlton's win total in 1972, or the Phillies' that year?
Cheers,
Jeff
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*Nah, LrKrBoi29, I don't think Iwakuma is that good, nor any pitcher worth 20 WAR per season. But his impact on April-May 2013 has been colossal.
As more and more MLB players swing from their heals and are not concerned about strike outs, the better and better precision Japanese pitchers get as their superior command beats the free swingers. The Yankees have this advantage figured out as well, signing Kiroda at an advanced age and keeping him. Kiroda is one significant reason that the Yankees are surprising everyone this year. Signing Iwakuma is GMZ's best single move.
One of those "two other guys" below Iwakuma's .839 WHIP was indeed Mad Dog Maddux, Doc. '95 he allowed .811 guys to reach base each inning. That works out to 7.3 guys per 9 innings. Sheeeeesh. Considering that the average Maddux start that year went 7.5 innings, just over 6 guys got on base each start. Imagine starting each game in the opposing dugout and saying, "Oh Joy! We get 6 baserunners against this guy. Think we can win?"
Maddux that year allowed 6.3 hits, .3 HR, 1 BB and racked up 7.8 K's per 9.
Iwakuma in '13? 6.4, 1.1, 1.5, 8.3.
OK, Maddux threw 210 innings and Iwakuma has thrown 80 so far. But he's on track for an historically phenominal season right now. Hey, in his whole career, Maddux only dipped below .9 WHIP twice. In Hoot Gibson's '68, a year which caused baseball to change the rules of the game, his WHIP was a comparitively pedestrian .853 (but only 5.8 of that by the hit route). Seaver had three seasons between .94 and .98 (and 1.1 for his career, OMG!). Clemens only dipped below 1.0 once (.97 in pre-cheating '86). Moose Mussina, with 270 career wins and listed as B-R's 28th best pitcher in history, never went below 1.07.
In his terrific '11, Verlander had numbers of : .92 WHIP, 6.2 hits, .9 homers, 2 BB's, 9 K's.
'Kuma's in rarefied air. Sit back and enjoy.
Some of us graybeards remember the line, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain."
We need one for Felix and 'Kuma.
"Kuma and the King and prepare for the bombing."
"Felix and 'Kuma and prepare for Doom-a."
I'm open to suggestions.
moe
I'm not a huge WAR fan (because I think it overvalues defense, to some degree), but it probably has 'Kuma just right this year. The M's are 9-3 in his 12 starts, at leat according to B-R, Doc. It is easy to imagine them being 4-8 with somebody like Noesi on the mound in those 12 starts, 3-9 with Beavan or 2-10 with Bonderman.
I remember Carlton's '72 very well. They had a couple of decent bats (Montanez and Luzinski) but they couldn't score runs at all. Their #2 starter was 2-15. Actually, I don't think you can reliably estimate Carlton's value to that team. He started 41 times and threw 346 innings!!!!! (8.4 innings per, doing the math). He had 30 CG's.!!!!! That team had all his innings, 7 guys between 98 and 154, and then you fell off to two guys at 37 innings. Basically they had a 8-9 man staff, because you didn't need RP's when Carlton took the mound, every 4 days. He went 4.1 innings in one start, getting bombed, and had two starts at 5 innings. Those were his only starts below 6 innings. He threw complete games in his last SEVENTEEN starts, going 13-4.
At one point that season the Phillies won 15 straight games that he started. What are the odds on that?? the game before that streak he threw 10 shutout innings and got a no decision in a game they lost. The game that broke the streak he lost 2-1 in an 11 inning CG.
The Phillies were 29-14 in his starts that year. They were 30 and 83 in games he didn't start. 27% of the games he didn't start they won. Figuring that over his 41 starts = 11 wins. He may have been worth 18 WAR that year. Really.
Ripley's Believe it or Not stuff, Doc.
moe
It's a little different than the current Felix and Kuma. Back in '48, before my time, Spahn and Sain went 8-0 over 12 days, taking advantage of days off and rain outs to skip the back of the rotation. In those days, they played fewer games and had four man rotations. Now there are few days off, stadium roofs to prevent rainouts, and "saving" pitchers from excessive innings. What we do have are our two aces, and generally three duds. There will be few opportunities to skip the back of the rotation. Still, we can pray for rain. How about pitching Felix and Kuma every four, instead of every five days?
I love the '72 Carlton references, and have been wanting to see Felix step up his leadership to that level. The Phillies were a bad team, but Carlton never let that be an excuse for pitching to ~.500 W-L. Even with a bad Seattle team, Felix should be getting his 20+ wins, no excuses. Let's hope Felix and Kuma are competing with each other for league leadership in wins in Sept-Oct.
Felix and 'Kuma keep away the brooma?
Felix and 'Kuma there's still more rooma?