I enjoyed this, thank you. I've been looking at this stuff some, but I'm not certain how to best apply it. For example, it makes me awfully suspicious that Kyle Gibson ranks ahead of Clayton Kershaw in QOPA. I always like to have another data point, but I just don't know how valuable it is.

I enjoyed this, thank you. I've been looking at this stuff some, but I'm not certain how to best apply it. For example, it makes me awfully suspicious that Kyle Gibson ranks ahead of Clayton Kershaw in QOPA. I always like to have another data point, but I just don't know how valuable it is.

Interesting finding.  This may be my next task at hand...to figure out some of these discrepancies.

Another limitation I thought of after I posted is that it doesn't take into account certain situations.  For example, a pitcher ahead 0-2 could very likely throw a "garbage" pitch just to get the batter to chase.  This pitch, although not bad at all, would probably result on a bad QOPV.  Does that happen enough to make Gibson > Kershaw?  Probably not, but could be a partial factor.  Hope to dig in a little bit more here.

I am nowhere near a metrics guy. But this one seems so flawed by its inability to consider location. Pitching is like real estate, location, location, location. While this seems a good tool to measure "stuff", it would sure seem to ignore control. While I am sure there are far better examples, Samuel Deduno comes to mind. Electric "stuff", but couldn't hit a barn door with it.

But this one seems so flawed by its inability to consider location. 

I somewhat agree with you.  It definitely does take into account location (mentioned in first sentence under "computation" heading), but I think the bigger flaw is that it doesn't take into consideration the situation.  I mentioned this in my comment above to Tom...wish I would have included in the original post.  But an 0-2 slider in the dirt gets you a bad QOPV although the location might be considered "good" due to the situation.  Compare that same exact pitch to a 3-1 count and now we have a terrible pitch due to the situation and should earn a bad rating.  This metric gives those two pitches the same rating.

At the same time, is there a statistic that gives you a single numerical value to measure a pitchers "stuff"?  I am not aware of one, which directly from my post, "I think it provides fans with a different, more insightful perspective than the traditional pitching stats (W/L, ERA, WHIP, etc.), especially when coupled with other SABR pitching stats."

FYI, Deduno finished his career (assuming it's done) with a 2.3 WAR and a 4.44 QOPA. A 2.3 WAR is probably higher than you would have guessed based off of your post, yet a 4.44 QOPA is below the major league average.  

I have actually been looking into Joe Biagini as a potential breakout player in 2018. I think a large part of what lead to Biagini's 5.34 ERA in 2017 was his 61.5 LOB % and his 15.2 HR/FB %. These numbers were much worse than the 71-73 LOB % and 4-6 HR/FB % rates that he had from 2014-2016. While I don't necessarily expect that these numbers will go all the way back to his 2014-2016 numbers, I do see them regressing back to more of Joe Biagini's norms in 2018 thus making him a better pitcher.

Interesting post on the quality of pitches, however it is difficult to understand from a normal readers view.  How does FIP or SIERA measure to determine an effective pitcher?  I understand ERA is earned runs per 9 innings.  How does a pitcher with a 2.00, 3.00, 4.00, 5.00 ERA fall into the QOP Scale if between 4-5 QOP rating is the average? 

I do not believe your line graph makes a whole lot of sense to me.  According to the graph, as the “ERA/FIP/SIERA” increases (vertical y axis), the QOP Pitcher Effect (horizontal x axis) decrease by -0.5?  So, if I am looking for the median of 5 QOP, which is the 0.0 x axis, the pitcher has an average ERA of approximately 4.75, FIP of 4.5, and a SIERA of 4.25?  This line graph is difficult to understand. 

In my mind, a pitcher with an ERA of 4.75 would have a much lower QOP.  I believe if you made the x axis scaling between 1-10 (and correlate to the QOP Scale that has QOP buckets of 0-2, 2-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-8, and 8+), then this would give the reader a better understanding of how ERA/FIP/SIERA is truly affected by QOP. 

The line graph however depicts a different message to me, and is not easy to interpret for the average “layman non-statistics major” like myself.  There is good information here, however I believe the message was not delivered clear enough of how having a QOP in the various buckets relates to a pitcher in the average bucket. 

1.  Where does the twins starting pitchers fall into each bucket on the QOP scale? 
2.  Where does the twins bullpen stand compared to a team with an elite bullpen (such as the Yankees or Dodgers)? 
3. How does Ervin Santana (Near Elite) compare to Clayton Kershaw (Elite)?
4. What was Fernando Rodney’s QOP in his successful saved games versus his blown saves in 2017? 
5. What about Matt Belize in 2017 (9 saves and 2 blown saves)?

6.  Can this be translated to hitters as well?  Such as, what was the QOP of the at bat that Joe Mauer hit a home run, versus the QOP of the AB's that Mauer slapped a single?

Interesting post on the quality of pitches, however it is difficult to understand from a normal readers view.  How does FIP or SIERA measure to determine an effective pitcher?  I understand ERA is earned runs per 9 innings.  How does a pitcher with a 2.00, 3.00, 4.00, 5.00 ERA fall into the QOP Scale if between 4-5 QOP rating is the average? 

FIP is fielder independent pitching.  The stat is related to ERA, but it attempts to neutralize the pitcher from his defense.  Essentially how many runs is the pitcher truly responsible for.  A pitcher with a bad defense will typically have a FIP that is less than his ERA, because some of his earned runs were attributed to the poor defense.  A pitcher with a good defense will typically have a FIP that is higher than his ERA, because the defense helped the pitcher save some runs.  Here is an example...the Twins team ERA in '17 was 5.09 but FIP was 4.57.  An indicator that the Twins defense was pretty darn good (which it was).

SIERA is Skill-Interactive ERA. Essentially, it is an updated (supposedly) better version of FIP.  It's very hard to explain (especially in text)...even fangraphs sends you to a different resource to attempt to explain it.  So if you're interested in more details follow the link.

I do not believe your line graph makes a whole lot of sense to me.  According to the graph, as the “ERA/FIP/SIERA” increases (vertical y axis), the QOP Pitcher Effect (horizontal x axis) decrease by -0.5?  So, if I am looking for the median of 5 QOP, which is the 0.0 x axis, the pitcher has an average ERA of approximately 4.75, FIP of 4.5, and a SIERA of 4.25?  This line graph is difficult to understand. 

The x-axis on the graph above is a standardized value.  A standardized value of 0 means the pitcher through an "average" pitch according to QOP's measures, which would be a QOPV of 4.5.  A standardized value of +1 means he threw a pitch that is 1 standard deviation above the mean, which would be a QOPV of 6.75 (the standard deviation is 2.75 according to the founder's findings).  A standardized value of -1 means he threw a pitch that is 1 standard deviation below the mean, which would be a QOPV of 1.75.  You're right, this does take a college level introductory statistics course to fully understand, so I have include the same line graph but with QOPV scores rather than standardized scores.  Hopefully that should do a more clear job of showing that ERA/FIP/SIERA all decrease as QOP increases.

 

 

1.  Where does the twins starting pitchers fall into each bucket on the QOP scale? 
2.  Where does the twins bullpen stand compared to a team with an elite bullpen (such as the Yankees or Dodgers)? 
3. How does Ervin Santana (Near Elite) compare to Clayton Kershaw (Elite)?
4. What was Fernando Rodney’s QOP in his successful saved games versus his blown saves in 2017? 
5. What about Matt Belize in 2017 (9 saves and 2 blown saves)?

6.  Can this be translated to hitters as well?  Such as, what was the QOP of the at bat that Joe Mauer hit a home run, versus the QOP of the AB's that Mauer slapped a single?

As I said in my post, this was simply an introductory/overview of the stat. I intend to use it in the future and other writers on Twins Daily have stated they may as well.  At this point, the QOP website only tracks year by year.  Doesn't do splits or game logs.  Hopefully something that will become more developed over time.

I'm glad this conversation is still going. I plan to dive in to your piece this weekend.

I'm glad this conversation is still going. I plan to dive in to your piece this weekend.

would love your feedback!

But that was just one pitch. SSS alert

It's great to discover new statistics and new ideas. Thank you! It will be interesting to see what this stat tells us. Santana threw what seemed to be a quality slider to Aaron Judge in the 1st inning of the wild card game, Judge was fooled by it, lunged and swung at it anyway, and the ball landed softly and safely in shallow center for a hit.

Yea, I wish it could be broken down more.  I remember that pitch...it should get a good QOPV since the formula doesn't take into account the result of the pitch.