SPs...More Fun With Numbers

[J35J]

I like the stat for the complete opposite reasons and some of you have already hit upon it and that is to sell the guys with a good "WEFF" and buy the guys with a low "WEFF" of course there are some exceptions in there but guys like Wandy and Ian are good sell high canidates!!!


Jason

[mikegp]

BUT...once the season starts the pattern is set. You see the winners and the hard-luck guys.

I don't think that's true.

Since I follow the jays pretty closely, I've noticed that since last season Jays always score a bunch of runs when he is on the mound. How else could a guy who an ERA over 5 have 6 wins and also miss roughly 2 weeks due to injury.

[teddyballgamemvp]

Red Sox pitching last year was very mediocre, but Red Sox SPs got Ws because of run support, and that's what this sort of measures. Wells got 15 wins last year and had no business having 15 wins.

[Inukchuk]

I think WEFF can be a decent predictor of the future, just not to the extent that other stats such as ERA and WHIP can. I myself largely ignore Wins when drafting pitchers, but I think that I do it more because I just don't like pitchers with lots of wins but poorer peripherals (in fact, I think it's one of my biggest fantasy faults).

The problem I see is that WEFF, or Wins in general, need a larger sample size (>2 years would be a good number) in order to get decent future predictions. The only thing is, if certain nonpitching variables change (such as offensive changes, managerial switch, a better/worse bullpen, or a trade), which they almost always do, the WEFF may change drastically. Example: if Bartolo Colon went to Seattle, his strikeouts would stay consistent, but his WEFF would probably not.

In my opinion, the only way this stat can be relevant (and predictively better than Wins) is in a case where a pitcher was injured for a part of 1 year (in which case, WEFF is more accurate than Wins), and the rest of the team/management stayed the same for the year before and after...

I think I just convinced myself that this statistic is more trouble than it's worth. I'm also convinced that I still hate Bartolo Colon, no matter how many wins he gets...