As the stretch run of the 2024 regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Darvish returns to the mound:
Veteran right-hander Yu Darvish is scheduled to make his first start for the Padres since May tonight against the Tigers. The 38-year-old missed time due to hamstring and elbow issues earlier this summer before being placed on the restricted list due to an undisclosed family matter back in July.
Prior to his lengthy absence, the veteran looked to be rebounding from a fairly pedestrian 2023 season. After posting a lackluster 4.56 ERA last year, Darvish impressed with a 3.20 ERA and 3.54 FIP in 11 starts this year before hitting the shelf. Since being traded to the Padres after a second-place finish in NL Cy Young award voting with the Cubs in 2020, Darvish has put together a 3.80 ERA with a 3.69 FIP and a 26.2% strikeout rate. With the Padres firmly in the playoff picture, both Darvish and fellow veteran Joe Musgrove figure to factor into the club’s postseason rotation alongside Dylan Cease and Michael King.
2. Yankees weighing late-inning options?
As noted by The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner overnight, Yankees manager Aaron Boone refused to answer a question regarding right-hander Clay Holmes’ status as the club’s closer following yesterday’s heartbreaking loss where Holmes surrendered a walk-off grand slam to Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford. Boone said during his postgame presser the club plans to “talk through it and do what we think is the best thing” but didn’t want to say more while the team was still “raw and emotional” following the loss.
Holmes, who earned his second career All-Star nod this season, sports a 3.27 ERA and an excellent 2.91 FIP in 55 innings of work. Despite those strong rate numbers, however, he hasn’t exactly been a shutdown ninth-inning option in his third year as the club’s closer. He’s converted just 29 of his 40 save opportunities. Those 11 blown saves lead the majors, well ahead of even other struggling closers like Craig Kimbrel and David Bednar, both of whom have blown six saves in 29 chances.
3. Twins roster move incoming:
As noted by Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star Tribune yesterday, the Twins are expected to recall right-hander Louie Varland before today’s game against the Rays. Varland is poised to pitch in a multi-inning relief role after scheduled starter Ronny Henriquez, who hasn’t thrown more than two innings in an outing with the big league club this year. After today’s scheduled outing, it’s not clear if Varland will pitch for the club in a bullpen role down the stretch or remain stretched out as a starting option, but Nightengale suggests that the 26-year-old figures to remain with the club going forward rather than return to the minor leagues.
Varland entered the year as a rotation candidate in Minnesota, with a career 4.40 ERA (96 ERA+) in 94 innings as a swing option at the big league level. Unfortunately for the righty, he surrendered a disastrous 9.18 ERA in four starts back in April and was quickly demoted to the minors. He’s looked much better since, with a 3.60 ERA and 4.33 FIP in 20 innings of work at the big league level while shuttling between the majors and minors, but he’s been leapfrogged by Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa and Zebby Matthews on the Twins’ rotation depth chart. Minnesota will need to make a corresponding active roster move prior to today’s game to accommodate the addition of Varland.
“Raw and emotional.”
Would Yankees and Carlos estevez be a good fit?
Tigers will catch the overrated royals
In a sense, all the AL central teams not from Chicago are slightly overrated by virtue of getting additional free wins that other teams don’t get.
Sometimes it helps to be in a division with quite literally the worst team in modern baseball history.
FYI, the White Flags are now on pace for 126 losses…
That final game of the season might be worth getting a ticket for. You can say you were there to witness the end of something that might never happen again in your lifetime… the White Sox playing as a major league team, because after this season, they’ll be relegated to the Mexican League.
Bull. 1 bad team vs 2 below average.
drasco – Red Sox will sweep them this weekend, bet on it!!
Canuck – Great post and so true!
Playing the ChiSox 13 times a year is like guaranteeing at least 11 wins, that’s huge when you look at the parity this year.
5-5 against Cleveland.
Sure 1-12 against KC, 1-9 against Detroit, and 1-12 against MN…
but 5-5 against Cleveland, so at least they have that going for them.
They get a pat on the back.
Tigers are TOAST! One of the worst hitting teams of all time, and that fat bust Torkelson .
It’s possible since no team in the AL wildcard race seems to want to make the playoffs, haha.
Go back to April. Tigers fans were pounding their chests proclaiming “This is the year!” and media coverage was hot in agreement. Since then they have been woeful at the plate and suspect on the mound and in the field.
Meanwhile, the Royals quietly built on a great offseason and have turned the franchise around in one season.
So who is “overrated”?
That is the most raw emotion Aaron Boone has ever shown. I know AI won’t be taking anyone’s job in our lifetimes, but that would be the rare exception to the rule.
What should the Yankees name the computer that’s managing the team? Cal (short for Calculator)?
Computron
What are you talking about? The Rays have had a computer manage them for years!
Wake up & smell the power steering fluid, Holmes sucks, period. Next! Ahahaha!
Looking forward to seeing Darvish at Petco tonite. Came out of cave during the road trip but 3-day stubble for tonite, so we’re good no worries Padres faithful. We got this. I doubt AZ, AtL, NYM will ever lose again so every game inning out counts. Stay the course, not the curse.
If I could grow decent facial hair, I’d join you in solidarity.
I’ll just grow out my sideburns, Montgomery Burns be damned
MLBTR
“Prior to his lengthy absence, the veteran looked to be rebounding from a fairly pedestrian 2023 season.”
Darvish 2023: 3.92 xFIP 90 xFIP-
Darvish 2024: 3.93 xFIP 96 xFIP-
“Expert analysis”
How about FIP, ERA, ERA+, WHIP, W/L, BB/9, K/BB, H/9. He was better in almost every other catergory from 2023 to 2024.
This is the problem with analytics. Want to confirm your opinion, there’s a stat somewhere that agrees.
Salvi
“How about FIP, ERA, ERA+, WHIP, W/L, BB/9, K/BB, H/9”
Oof. First of all, anyone using ERA, ERA+, WHIP, W/L (LOL, LOL, LOL), or anything per 9, is not an “expert”.
Let’s start with “per 9”. Just use percent instead. Take this extreme example to illustrate
Pitcher A: 1 inning, 5 batters faced, 1 hits, 1 walks, 3 K’s
Pitcher B: 1 inning, 6 batters faced, 1 hits, 1 BB’s, 3 K’s, 1 reached on error.
Pitcher A & B: 9 H/9, 9 BB/9, 27 K/9
They look identical. Were they identical?
Pitcher A: 20 hit %, 20 BB%, 60 K%
Pitcher B: 16.7 hit%, 16.7 BB%, 50 K%
They weren’t identical. Percentages give a more accurate reflection of what happened.
ERA: First, it’s a “per 9” stat. Secondly, I hope you’ve already heard about this, it’s 2024 after all. Having a 3.00 ERA in Seattle and a 3.00 ERA in Coors is a very different thing. Also, ERA is a team stat, not an individual one. A pitcher with a great defense will tend to have a better ERA than a pitcher with a poor defense.
An example to highlight: Pitcher A and B get to two outs and the bases loaded and give up a line drive shot into the gap. Pitcher A’s elite defensive CFer glides to their left and makes a diving catch. No runs score. 0.00 ERA. Great pitcher. Pitcher B has me playing CF. I am not elite defensively. I don’t make the play and two runs score. The pitcher is removed and the reliever gives up a HR. Pitcher B leaves with a 54.00 ERA. Both pitchers did the exact same thing. One looks great, the other terrible.
WHIP has the same problem. A good defense will save a pitcher’s WHIP and a bad defense will hurt it.
The following are the correlations between ERA, F IP and xFIP with actual runs allowed.
“A pitcher’s ERA correlates weakly from year to year (R = .287).
FIP correlates pretty strongly from year to year (R = .519).
xFIP correlates even more strongly than FIP (R = .628)
“
fantasy.fangraphs.com/era-fip-and-the-importance-o…
The only way to predict the future is to accurately measure the past.
xFIP does the best job of that.
Darvish isn’t rebounding. He’s been about the same.
Good analysis to be honest. From a Padres fan standpoint, just eat innings and I’ll be happy.
towin
As is usual with these things
He wasn’t as bad last year as ERA made him look
He hasn’t been as good this year as ERA makes him look.
He was fine last year and fine this year
xFIP is not the best method to predict ERA; it places very poorly among the most popular ERA predictors (like, behind xwOBA allowed). While it’s far less noisy than FIP, it suffers from the same problem of throwing out all balls in play in an attempt to separate pitcher performance and defense. discarding all contact-context besides homers in the process. If you’re going for a shorthand analysis, SIERA has a higher determination correlation and lower root-mean-squared error year-to-year.
straight up
“xFIP is not the best method to predict ERA; it places very poorly among the most popular ERA predictors (like, behind xwOBA allowed)”
Show me. It’s certainly better than ERA and FIP – what MLBTR cited
But, sure, let’s look at Darvish’s SIERA
2023: 4.04
2024: 3.95
I don’t see the rebound that MLBTR talks about. Do you? Am I missing something?
Good discussion. I will add that parts of the last two years he’s pitched through various injuries, making the comparison among years even less conclusive.
I’m not going to link pages here since it’s liable for moderation (nothing content-related, just the automatic filters), but you can find a few articles on the first page Google results for “ERA predictor comparison”. The short story is that xFIP is a solid sanity check against in-season ERA (mainly given the Y2Y flukiness of home runs) but performs poorly as an ERA predictor (something that SIERA, as a backward-looking ERA estimator, excels at) due to the aforementioned loss of batted-ball context.
My only argument was in response to your claim that “xFIP does the best job at that”. I agree that Darvish has been nearly the same pitcher in 2023-2024 minus SSS/injury performance.
suhg
“but performs poorly as an ERA predictor”
Again, it performs much better than ERA or FIP – the stats that MLBTR cites.
My understanding is that SIERA slightly outperforms xFIP. If you have info that contradicts that, let me know. I use xFIP because I can also quote xFIP-. I don’t know that SIERA- exists.
Is xFIP the absolute best? Maybe not. It’s one of the best.
SIERA doesn’t slightly outperform xFIP, it is noticeably better as an ERA predictor. There are two different questions DIPS attempts to answer:
1. How well does their ERA reflect their past performance (i.e., xFIP/SIERA/K-BB%, etc.)?
2. What will their ERA look like going forward?
xFIP works well for the first scenario and poorly in the second. I’m not trying to be pedantic here, it’s an important distinction. I think it’s fine to prefer xFIP for the league-normalized version. There’s more analysis out there (Pitcherslist, Baseball Prospectus, and some great Medium articles), but I prefer not to post links to avoid getting caught by the automatic moderation. They’re easy to find with some Google searches.
suhg
I post links all the time and never get anything moderated.
“xFIP works well for the first scenario and poorly in the second”
I’m using xFIP as a measure of past performance, not trying to predict future performance – a pitcher with these K, BB and FB rates would be expected to have allowed this many runs.
DB,
“not trying to predict future performance”
I replied to your original post, which contained this excerpt: “The only way to predict the future is to accurately measure the past.” I get what you’re saying now, but I read it as “xFIP does the best job at [predict the future]”.
I’ll post the links in a separate comment. I expect the Medium ones might flag the moderation team since they could be anything, not just baseball.
What Is The Best Predictor of ERA?: medium.com/@cameron.kaplinger/what-is-the-best-pre…
Should We Be Using ERA Estimators: tht.fangraphs.com/should-we-be-using-era-estimator…
ERA Estimators Pt II: fantasy.fangraphs.com/era-estimators-pt-ii-present…
The Relative Value of FIP, xFIP, SIERA, and xERA: pitcherlist.com/the-relative-value-of-fip-xfip-sie…
An Introduction to Expected Weighted On-Base Average (primarily focused on xwOBA, but a little comparison on ERA estimators): technology.mlblogs.com/an-introduction-to-expected…
Thanks
I’ve read a few of these before.
I hope everyone else in this comment thread reads them as well
Thanks Straightup and DBro. Some evening reading. And this is what I like most about comments in mlbtr.
Such an egregious act of cherry picking that one has to wonder whether it is parody
Doubt it. Happens at the time at MLBTR.
People find that one stat that confirms their bias and ignore all the others.
Salvi
“People find that one stat that confirms their bias and ignore all the others.”
That’s what MLBTR did
“After posting a lackluster 4.56 ERA last year, Darvish impressed with a 3.20 ERA and 3.54 FIP in 11 starts this year ”
Note how they cited Darvish’s ERA and FIP for 2024, but just his ERA for 2023.
4.53 to 3.20 looks like a lot bigger difference than 4.03 to 3.54 does.
Who’s bias is being confirmed?
For a paying subscriber I would think you would know occurs on the regular.
John
“Such an egregious act of cherry picking that one has to wonder whether it is parody”.
Using the best stat isn’t “cherry picking”.
The article showing ERA in both years and FIP in only 1 IS cherry picking.
The FIP is still better, by a half a run. Not to mention all the other stats (mentioned earlier) that you avoided.
FIP is a very selective stat. In one way it takes the defense out of the equation, but to do that, you have to take all ABs that are hit to the field out, as well. Since it only looks at only a small portion of the batters faced, FIP+ to support other stats is legit. FIP+ as a stand alone stat to trump all other stats is ridiculous.
@DodgersBro
The stat you chose is the only one that backs up your argument. That is the definition of cherry picking. MLBTR could have given several more stats to support their argument. Can’t say the same about you.
Yu’s stats are down across the board this year. I’m all for analytics and introducing new statistics to analyze performance, but your use of them here is what makes people mock their use
Spot on John.
Salvi
“The FIP is still better, by a half a run. Not to mention all the other stats (mentioned earlier) that you avoided.
FIP is a very selective stat. In one way it takes the defense out of the equation, but to do that, you have to take all ABs that are hit to the field out, as well. Since it only looks at only a small portion of the batters faced, FIP+ to support other stats is legit. FIP+ as a stand alone stat to trump all other stats is ridiculous.”
xFIP is a better predictor of ERA than either ERA or FIP.
The only way that is possible is if it is a better measure of what has happened than ERA or FIP.
If you believe that xFIP shouldn’t be used as a “stand alone” stat, why aren’t you railing against MLBTR using ERA as a stand alone?
“After posting a lackluster 4.56 ERA last year”
John
“The stat you chose is the only one that backs up your argument. That is the definition of cherry picking.”
Using the best stat IS NOT cherry picking
MLBTR using ERA – THAT’S the cherry picking
“MLBTR could have given several more stats to support their argument. Can’t say the same about you.”
I mean, you are literally saying that.
“Yu’s stats are down across the board this year”
Let’s see what MLBTR has to say on this:
“Prior to his lengthy absence, the veteran looked to be rebounding from a fairly pedestrian 2023 season. After posting a lackluster 4.56 ERA last year, Darvish impressed with a 3.20 ERA and 3.54 FIP in 11 starts this year before hitting the shelf.”
Who are you agreeing with? Me, who says Darvish has been about the same as last year, or MLBTR who says he’s been better?
I know exactly how FIP works.
—————————
You gave an example of Player A and B earlier. Now my turn:
Player A pitches 1 inning gives up 10 singles, 10 doubles and 10 triples and strikes out 1 batter.
Player B pitches 1 inning gives up zero hits but doesnt strikeout anyone.
xFIP considers Player A as having a better inning. How in the world can you think this is a good stand alone stat?
——————-
Also “XFIP is a better predictor of ERA than ERA”
How does that work?
Salvi
“Also “XFIP is a better predictor of ERA than ERA”
How does that work?”
You can read any of the links that straightup just posted.
“xFIP considers Player A as having a better inning.
Not necessarily.
“How in the world can you think this is a good stand alone stat?””
Because I understand how xFIP and sample sizes work.
Salvi,
xFIP is a better predictor of ERA than ERA because the latter is mostly descriptive (tells you what happened) rather than predictive (tells you what happened). In fact, all of the ERA-esque stats are more descriptive than predictive, yet ERA is still the worst among them relatively. People can confirm this by looking at the R2 (coefficient of determination) to see how much of the variance of future ERA performance is explainable by variance in the independent variable. In aggregate, all of the ERA predictor stats outperform ERA by varying amounts.
Sorry that was supposed to read “predictive (tells you what will happen)”.
There is no “will happen” in this thread. Its “whats happening now”.
The conversation has nothing to do with the future. Its whether or not Darvish is having a productive season in 2024. His ERA is 3.51, and that is a very good ERA and much better than his 2023 ERA. We were never talking about 1, 2 or 5 years from now and whether Darvish is going to be good or bad. Thats why I found his “predictive” so ridiculous.
What is the predictive ERA in 2024 at this moment. I will say it is exactly 3.51. People jump into conversations without following the thread.
Salvi
“There is no “will happen” in this thread. Its “whats happening now”.”
ERA doesn’t say anything about what’s happening now.
It says that happened in the past
Also, who are you to say what this thread is about?
I’d say that Darvish’s return in most definitely about the future. How he will pitch upon his return, not about how he pitched previously.
Were we not talking about how Darvish pitched in 2023 compared to what he did in 2024? Both of which are in the past. Read your first comment. When did the “future” ever come up?
This conversation never had anything to do with future until you introduced “predictor”. Which is clearly you saying ‘I need to change the subject, because Im wrong’.
Good bye
Salvi,
My response was about how xFIP better predicts future ERA than ERA. You’re free to use whatever you like. ERA is ultimately the result players and observers care about, but it’s very noisy because it reflects the total defensive contributions of the team, hence the birth of DIPS two decades ago
Holmes hasn’t been squat since he beaned Kjerstad.can you say karma?
He’s actually been awful prior to the All Star break.
Holmes is terrible, the Yankees are wrenchingly bad. Went to Yankee Stadium on Sunday, and again, the bullpen blew up in the late innings. It doesn’t help that Judge is one of his “out of synch” slumps, but the flaws of roster construction are more than apparent. Off-season, Yankees really ought to take a hard look at their management, their front-office, and their roster in general. Do they want to spend $50M a year for Soto (if he’ll go that cheaply). Do they want to tack on another year to Cole to keep him on even later in his 30s? Is dropping Torres a good thing? Is there a purpose in keeping DJL? I’m assuming Rizzo is gone–but he’s an excellent example of poor Cashman judgement.
Steinbrenner wont go near $50 million avv or $500+ million so just dont bother mentioning hus name anymore. Torres is not returning as he is too inconsistent, terrible fielding 2B who has terrible base running skills and lacks focus. Rizzo is gone, DJ released, and don’t be surprised if Steinbrenner rejects Cole and lets him walk as he may find it an insult to exercise his option coming off any injury that reeks pure greed to get every dollar he can.
You both need to chill out. The Yankees aren’t perfect but they are headed to the playoffs. Try to enjoy it.
Worst judgment of all time,dumpster diving Dan Duquette!
talk through it and do what we think is the best thing” o thought that was a manager’s decition not a staff thing. That says it all!!!
Huh?
The Twins sure would look a lot better had they made a move or two at the deadline… Alas, cheap ownership resurfaces.
Everyone wants to point their fingers in the Yankees organization right now but it comes down to 2 individuals…Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman.
Brian Cashman did not address the clear need for late inning/high leverage relief pitching. Instead he picks up Leiter (who has an ERA over 6.00 since joining NY) and De Los Santos (who is no longer with the organization after having a meltdown against a historically bad White Sox team).
Then you have Boone who continues to mismanage the bullpen and start LeMahieu (who shouldn’t even be on the field at this point). LeMahieu is so bad that he’s not even a solid late inning defensive replacement anymore because he turns routine plays into catastrophic blunders (like his brain fart at 1st base with Kahnle on the mound).
And then there is pitching coach Matt Blake defending Holmes. It’s Boone’s job to justify leaving him in as closer. Whenever Holmes is off with his stuff, he’s giving up multiple runs to blow the save and lose the game. His leash needs to be way shorter.
Holmes had 1 bad outing his most recent one. Before that his ERA has been 3 or below for the entire 2024 season. And it’s still only 3.27. He’s been one of the best closers in the game. Nobody is perfect.
He’s pitched well mostly in non-save situations but it’s still 11 blown saves when it matters. That’s 27.5% blown of total saves opportunities. If he had converted five of those saves, the Yankees would be several games ahead in the ALE and not currently looking up in the standings. That would afford them some time to rest guys and sort out the starting rotation. There isn’t that luxury right now.
Blown saves is a weird stat. If he’s always coming in with a 1 run lead and not a 3 run lead that makes his job harder. He’s pitched really well all year. He’s gonna get a huge contract in free agency.
Three-year deal perhaps at Craig Kimbel money but nowhere near Hader or Diaz.
Yeah that seems about right. No he’s not Hader or what Diaz was. He’s still pretty darn good.
Bp
“Blown saves is a weird stat. If he’s always coming in with a 1 run lead and not a 3 run lead that makes his job harder”
Right
Not all saves are created equal.
Bp
This is exactly what’s happening
He’s been in tighter situations this year
Average game leverage when entering the game
2022: 1.62
2023: 1.47
2024: 1.81
He’s pitching just as well
2022 xFIP- 73
2023 xFIP- 69
2024 xFIP- 72
He’s just had less room for error
Yeah even a really good closer is going to give up a run every 3 innings. Some of it is just random luck with how big the teams lead is.
YBC,
I agree. The thing is after all those years of seeing Rivera come out of the pen in the 9th it’s so much more frustrating watching Holmes (an alleged All Star) blow games at this rate. I think some NYY fans truly didn’t value that time during his career and how much of a luxury it was never having to worry about the team’s closer.
Sure Lock Holmes got picked. If you can’t throw strikes, you can’t be the full time closer. Holmes was solving cases when he was getting about half of the team’s saves. Now the crooks are running amok because the Cash man’s Boondoggle is requesting that he solve every case. But then some of the other options have been toasted through Repetitive Overuse Techniques. Now the bullpen ROTs.
Can the w Sox run the table and finish 31-131
That would be epic
Yu is very likely a future Hall of Famer. Not 100%, but close to it.
Sun, I’m a SD fan and a huge Yu fan. I read your post and was thinking I agreed with the idea so it had me wondering so I checked Baseball Reference and I was very surprised that according to BR, I don’t think Yu is all that close.
If he is healthy and is pitching like we have seen this year, I am more than fine with him starting game 1 of post season.
No, he isn’t a future HOFer.
Unless you want Jim Bibby, Woody Williams, and Steve Blass in the HOF as well.
Because those are his comps.
No HOF for Yu, but given his very good numbers, Johnny Cueto or Max Fried are probably better modern day comps
All this stats talk remind me of the Simpsons episode. Baseball is for the dexterous and fantasy baseball for the poindexterous!