Hello everyone, 

I am a huge Twins fan, but just recently started getting  into learning about stats and evaluating player performances. I have learned a lot about pitching stats, but I was hoping someone could share their expertise about evaluating individual/single game performances for a pitcher. For example; what’s a solid box score for a pitcher, etc. Thanks in advance..I’m just trying to learn!

- M 

1 hour ago, Twins_Fan_In_Texas said:

Hello everyone, 

I am a huge Twins fan, but just recently started getting  into learning about stats and evaluating player performances. I have learned a lot about pitching stats, but I was hoping someone could share their expertise about evaluating individual/single game performances for a pitcher. For example; what’s a solid box score for a pitcher, etc. Thanks in advance..I’m just trying to learn!

- M 

Welcome! This is a challenging question! What makes it difficult are 2 main issues to me.

1) Pitchers approach their job differently, in terms of how they get their outs. “Good”  is always compared to alternatives. In the box you’ll see strike outs, walks, hits, etc. but ultimately in the box it’s about runs and outs for me.

2) Baseball is a marathon season, a box score for a game, is just that one game, but in a 162 game season, everyone is going to have good games and bad games.

Generally I don’t put a ton of weight on a box score, I generally prefer statistics over seasons and season-to-date. There are three main types of these stats. 1) counting stats (home runs, walks, strike outs). 2) Rate stats (strike out %, walk %, OPS, batting average, earned run average). 3) rank stats, these tell you how the player does relative to the league (they have usually have a + sign next to their name like OPS+.

You can get these from many sources, the two that get quoted here most frequently are Fangraphs and Baseball Reference. These sites will be a bit overwhelming at first, but they both have glossaries for defining how they calculate the stats and what they mean.

2 hours ago, Twins_Fan_In_Texas said:

Hello everyone, 

I am a huge Twins fan, but just recently started getting  into learning about stats and evaluating player performances. I have learned a lot about pitching stats, but I was hoping someone could share their expertise about evaluating individual/single game performances for a pitcher. For example; what’s a solid box score for a pitcher, etc. Thanks in advance..I’m just trying to learn!

- M 

Major league baseball determines a "Quality" start to be going 6 or more innings while giving up 3 runs or less. This would be the easiest way to determine a single game performance, although I would be a fan of making it 7 innings/2 runs or less.

2 hours ago, Twins_Fan_In_Texas said:

Hello everyone, 

I am a huge Twins fan, but just recently started getting  into learning about stats and evaluating player performances. I have learned a lot about pitching stats, but I was hoping someone could share their expertise about evaluating individual/single game performances for a pitcher. For example; what’s a solid box score for a pitcher, etc. Thanks in advance..I’m just trying to learn!

- M 

Welcome!

In a very basic sense I'd start with looking at runs, hits & walks, and strikeouts. I'd say 1.2 runs for every 3 innings pitched is a solid performance runs wise. 1 hit + walk per inning pitched, and at least 1 strikeout per inning pitched. So a 5 inning start (the average start in this era of baseball is about 5 innings) I'd want no more than 2 runs allowed, no more than 5 hits and walks combined, and at least 5 strikeouts to say they had a good start. But that is all just personal preferences for those numbers. As @Sconnie said, individual games are a bit tough to judge.

Obviously there's some wiggle room on those numbers. Maybe there was a 3 run homer they gave up after a couple of broken bat singles and those were the only 3 guys to reach base in their 5 innings. So their WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) is under 1, but their runs allowed are over what I'd like. But generally speaking if you can get 5+ innings of 2 or 3 run ball with a strikeout an inning or so the pitcher had a pretty good day.

50 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

Welcome! This is a challenging question! What makes it difficult are 2 main issues to me.

1) Pitchers approach their job differently, in terms of how they get their outs. “Good”  is always compared to alternatives. In the box you’ll see strike outs, walks, hits, etc. but ultimately in the box it’s about runs and outs for me.

2) Baseball is a marathon season, a box score for a game, is just that one game, but in a 162 game season, everyone is going to have good games and bad games.

Generally I don’t put a ton of weight on a box score, I generally prefer statistics over seasons and season-to-date. There are three main types of these stats. 1) counting stats (home runs, walks, strike outs). 2) Rate stats (strike out %, walk %, OPS, batting average, earned run average). 3) rank stats, these tell you how the player does relative to the league (they have usually have a + sign next to their name like OPS+.

You can get these from many sources, the two that get quoted here most frequently are Fangraphs and Baseball Reference. These sites will be a bit overwhelming at first, but they both have glossaries for defining how they calculate the stats and what they mean.

Thanks so much. This was extremely helpful 

39 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

Major league baseball determines a "Quality" start to be going 6 or more innings while giving up 3 runs or less. This would be the easiest way to determine a single game performance, although I would be a fan of making it 7 innings/2 runs or less.

Great info, thank you!

35 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Welcome!

In a very basic sense I'd start with looking at runs, hits & walks, and strikeouts. I'd say 1.2 runs for every 3 innings pitched is a solid performance runs wise. 1 hit + walk per inning pitched, and at least 1 strikeout per inning pitched. So a 5 inning start (the average start in this era of baseball is about 5 innings) I'd want no more than 2 runs allowed, no more than 5 hits and walks combined, and at least 5 strikeouts to say they had a good start. But that is all just personal preferences for those numbers. As @Sconnie said, individual games are a bit tough to judge.

Obviously there's some wiggle room on those numbers. Maybe there was a 3 run homer they gave up after a couple of broken bat singles and those were the only 3 guys to reach base in their 5 innings. So their WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) is under 1, but their runs allowed are over what I'd like. But generally speaking if you can get 5+ innings of 2 or 3 run ball with a strikeout an inning or so the pitcher had a pretty good day.

Thanks for the response - this is all great! 

3 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Welcome!

In a very basic sense I'd start with looking at runs, hits & walks, and strikeouts. I'd say 1.2 runs for every 3 innings pitched is a solid performance runs wise. 1 hit + walk per inning pitched, and at least 1 strikeout per inning pitched. So a 5 inning start (the average start in this era of baseball is about 5 innings) I'd want no more than 2 runs allowed, no more than 5 hits and walks combined, and at least 5 strikeouts to say they had a good start. But that is all just personal preferences for those numbers. As @Sconnie said, individual games are a bit tough to judge.

Obviously there's some wiggle room on those numbers. Maybe there was a 3 run homer they gave up after a couple of broken bat singles and those were the only 3 guys to reach base in their 5 innings. So their WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) is under 1, but their runs allowed are over what I'd like. But generally speaking if you can get 5+ innings of 2 or 3 run ball with a strikeout an inning or so the pitcher had a pretty good day.

These are good baseline expectations.  Pitchers should strike out a lot of hitters (one per inning is lately the norm for being really good), not give up hits (about one per inning is pretty good), not give up walks (more than a couple per game will raise eyebrows), not give up extra-base hits (a solo home run every game or two maybe is unavoidable).  To some extent, there is a tradeoff that pitchers will make - to cut down on the base hits, they may nibble at the plate, resulting in a few more walks, which are less harmful than base hits - to strike out more guys, they might have to risk a few more home runs over the course of the season - and so on.  So you're looking for patterns, more so than any strict benchmarks.  Did the starter keep his team in the game?  Fine.  Did he make it likely they'd win by giving up only a run?  Even better.  Did he give up so many runs, 4+, to make winning really difficult, or pitch so briefly that the bullpen had to be overworked?  Bad game.  Did every baserunner score a run?  Bad luck for the pitcher.  Did he put a lot of baserunners on but then wriggle out of jams?  Good for him, but maybe also some good luck was involved in that particular game. 

For the relievers, the game has evolved to where they typically come in for one inning at a time, so there's not a lot of gray area between shutting the other team down versus giving up a run or more.  A clean inning with no baserunners is great, a harmless single or walk in one inning of work is no big deal, and more activity on the basepaths than that and you may just be philosophical and accept that even very good pitchers fail to get the job done now and then.

Depending on the box score you look at, there may be a cryptic entry that tries to summarize all this down to one number for the game, at least for the starting pitcher.  On baseball-reference.com for instance, the line for the pitchers includes a column called Game Score (GSc).  The above link for the season opener shows Joe Ryan with a game score of 50, which happens to be exactly the average that is intended by this tool.  His start was a bit short, only 4 innings, but productive while he was in.  By contrast, Robbie Ray's game score was a very good 68, which kind of conforms to what we all saw when the two players pitched against each other - Ryan was good, Ray was better.  In yesterday's game, Marco Gonzalez came away with a very sub-par game score of 27.  Elsewhere around the majors, Sean Mannea's 7 innings of no-hit ball the other day gave him a stellar game score of 83.  It's only a quick and dirty tool, giving points for strikeouts and innings pitched and taking away points for hits and walks and runs, devised by a smart guy many years ago, but serves some purposes when you are trying to sort wheat from chaff over the course of a season.

Fun question!

14 hours ago, ashbury said:

These are good baseline expectations.  Pitchers should strike out a lot of hitters (one per inning is lately the norm for being really good), not give up hits (about one per inning is pretty good), not give up walks (more than a couple per game will raise eyebrows), not give up extra-base hits (a solo home run every game or two maybe is unavoidable).  To some extent, there is a tradeoff that pitchers will make - to cut down on the base hits, they may nibble at the plate, resulting in a few more walks, which are less harmful than base hits - to strike out more guys, they might have to risk a few more home runs over the course of the season - and so on.  So you're looking for patterns, more so than any strict benchmarks.  Did the starter keep his team in the game?  Fine.  Did he make it likely they'd win by giving up only a run?  Even better.  Did he give up so many runs, 4+, to make winning really difficult, or pitch so briefly that the bullpen had to be overworked?  Bad game.  Did every baserunner score a run?  Bad luck for the pitcher.  Did he put a lot of baserunners on but then wriggle out of jams?  Good for him, but maybe also some good luck was involved in that particular game. 

For the relievers, the game has evolved to where they typically come in for one inning at a time, so there's not a lot of gray area between shutting the other team down versus giving up a run or more.  A clean inning with no baserunners is great, a harmless single or walk in one inning of work is no big deal, and more activity on the basepaths than that and you may just be philosophical and accept that even very good pitchers fail to get the job done now and then.

Depending on the box score you look at, there may be a cryptic entry that tries to summarize all this down to one number for the game, at least for the starting pitcher.  On baseball-reference.com for instance, the line for the pitchers includes a column called Game Score (GSc).  The above link for the season opener shows Joe Ryan with a game score of 50, which happens to be exactly the average that is intended by this tool.  His start was a bit short, only 4 innings, but productive while he was in.  By contrast, Robbie Ray's game score was a very good 68, which kind of conforms to what we all saw when the two players pitched against each other - Ryan was good, Ray was better.  In yesterday's game, Marco Gonzalez came away with a very sub-par game score of 27.  Elsewhere around the majors, Sean Mannea's 7 innings of no-hit ball the other day gave him a stellar game score of 83.  It's only a quick and dirty tool, giving points for strikeouts and innings pitched and taking away points for hits and walks and runs, devised by a smart guy many years ago, but serves some purposes when you are trying to sort wheat from chaff over the course of a season.

Fun question!

Thanks for taking the time to explain this - this is perfect!!

17 hours ago, In My La Z boy said:

Major league baseball determines a "Quality" start to be going 6 or more innings while giving up 3 runs or less. This would be the easiest way to determine a single game performance, although I would be a fan of making it 7 innings/2 runs or less.

I'd be a fan of pitchers pitching 6 or 7 innings....