In the ESPN.com stats pages is a category called Best Games, which is a nifty Bill James devised formula for evaluating starts by pitchers. The formula is pretty simple:
Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk.
According to the formula Wang Chien-Ming pitched the best AL game of the year thus far, scoring 82 points with his brilliant complete game, two hit, one run performance yesterday versus the Red Sox. As a point of comparison the Dana Eveland performance I was going ga-ga about in my last Dribbler to Short column comes in at No. 10.
I saw a few headlines, like Yankees pitcher almost perfect and Chien-Ming Wang pitches the game of his life and was curious if Wang had ever pitched a game that compared favorably or might beat 82 using James’s formula.
Wang threw a 2-hit shutout versus Tampa Bay on July 28, 2006. However, he did walk two batters and only struck out just one, which, by James’s formula, would leave him with the same score of 82, despite not having allowed a run.
My instinct tells me pitching in Fenway against the World Champions is the more difficult task, but then again he did allow a run. In either event yesterday’s start was fun to watch.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Ironchef // Apr 13, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Explain to me how throwing everythign down the middle and having 29 line drives find the gloves of usually inept fielder constitutes as “brilliant”
2 Shinsano // Apr 13, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Aww…the familiar notes of a disgruntled Red Sox fan living in Taiwan.
3 westbaystars // Apr 13, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Interesting. I did a quick check of the NPB and came up with the top 10 so far this season:
+————-+————+———-+——+
| player_name | stat_date | opponent | bg |
+————-+————+———-+——+
| Ohba | 2008-04-05 | LOT | 95 |
| Iwakuma | 2008-03-27 | ORX | 90 |
| Darvish | 2008-03-20 | LOT | 88 |
| Ohtonari | 2008-03-25 | LOT | 88 |
| Ohtonari | 2008-04-02 | NIP | 87 |
| Nagai | 2008-03-26 | ORX | 87 |
| Darvish | 2008-03-27 | SEI | 82 |
| Yoshimi | 2008-04-06 | YAK | 82 |
| Lewis | 2008-04-09 | YAK | 82 |
| Shimizu | 2008-04-09 | SEI | 82 |
+————-+————+———-+——+
I had expected Darvish to top the list with a couple of his brilliant games, but he ranks 3rd and 7th.
Please check my math with the box scores here. This was just a quick and dirty query I threw together.
4 westbaystars // Apr 13, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Oh, the formula in SQL looks like this:
50+ip2outs(ip)+(2*if(ip>4,floor(ip-4),0))+k-(2*h)-(4*er)-(2*(r-er))-bbwhere ip2outs is a function to convert IP in the format of 5.1 for 5-1/3 to 16 outs.
I also truncated (floor-ed) extra outs in innings beyond 4, so 5-2/3 innings would count as just 2 points. The description above didn’t specify what to do with fractions of innings in that case.
5 westbaystars // Apr 13, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Argh, I didn’t have yesterday’s Tanaka performance, which ranks in at #3. Here’s the top 10 through April 13, 2008:
+-------------+------------+----------+------+| player_name | stat_date | opponent | bg |
+-------------+------------+----------+------+
| Ohba | 2008-04-05 | LOT | 95 |
| Iwakuma | 2008-03-27 | ORX | 90 |
| Tanaka | 2008-04-12 | ORX | 88 |
| Darvish | 2008-03-20 | LOT | 88 |
| Ohtonari | 2008-03-25 | LOT | 88 |
| Ohtonari | 2008-04-02 | NIP | 87 |
| Naruse | 2008-04-12 | NIP | 87 |
| Nagai | 2008-03-26 | ORX | 87 |
| Darvish | 2008-04-10 | RAK | 86 |
| Darvish | 2008-03-27 | SEI | 82 |
| Lewis | 2008-04-09 | YAK | 82 |
| Shimizu | 2008-04-09 | SEI | 82 |
| Yoshimi | 2008-04-06 | YAK | 82 |
+-------------+------------+----------+------+
6 Shinsano // Apr 13, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Great stuff Westbay-san. These scores are in general higher than those from MLB. I’m not surprised. I notice better pitching lines in general in NPB. Pitchers are allowed to go longer if they’re throwing well, the games are lower scoring, and fewer walks.
Or am I missing something?
7 simon // Apr 14, 2008 at 4:31 am
Wow, that’s really neat stuff!
I haven’t done any empirical comparisons but NPB is a lower scoring league due to the lack of power hitters (pitchers usually don’t have to worry about getting taken yard by the bottom of the order or a 2 hole hitter) and its a more tactical game that emphasizes getting the first run on the board I with small ball even if it means sacrificing a potential big inning.
This is done supposedly to pressure the opponent psychologically by putting them behind the 8 ball early in the game. But I think game theory would probably come out with a strategy to go for big innings early in the game, and play small ball in the later innings (similar to football’s go for it on 4th down but kick it later in the game, some professor did a study on this game theory if I remember correctly). Of course, this depends on personnel but…
8 westbaystars // Apr 14, 2008 at 9:28 am
The thing that has really struck me, and the reason I expected to see Darvish high on the list, was the number of 1-0 games. There have been 4 so far this season, three involving Darvish:
+------------+------+--------------------+-------+-------------------+------+| date | away | a-starter | score | h-starter | home |
+------------+------+--------------------+-------+-------------------+------+
| 2008-03-20 | LOT | Hiroyuki Kobayashi | 0 - 1 | Yu Darvish | NIP |
| 2008-03-27 | SEI | Hideaki Wakui | 0 - 1 | Yu Darvish | NIP |
| 2008-04-09 | HIR | Colby Lewis | 1 - 0 | Masanori Ishikawa | YAK |
| 2008-04-10 | RAK | Hisashi Iwakuma | 0 - 1 | Yu Darvish | NIP |
+------------+------+--------------------+-------+-------------------+------+
(Sorry about the formatting. WordPress doesn’t appear to accept the PRE tag. And I wasn’t able to find the list of accepted tags.)
And the comment Simon made that everything depends on the personnel is so very true. Jim Allen had set out to show that bunting in the first inning hurts more than helps, and he took the Mori-kantoku Lions of the late 1980s as exemplifying this mind set. What he found was that the Lions actually score more runs when the bunt in the first inning was successful than when it was not. Robert Fitts interviewed Mori-kantoku in his book “Remembering Japanese Baseball,” and it’s clear there that what Mori-kantoku was doing was using what he had. And what he had was great pitching and scrappy players who could make contact and had speed.
Other managers saw what Mori-kantoku did and tried to emulate it, and that’s given Japanese baseball a reputation for Small Ball. But very few have been as successful with it. (Hillman-kantoku’s Fighters certainly were last year, though.)
9 John M // Apr 15, 2008 at 10:55 pm
It was a really nice performance. Against the Sox in Fenway made it extra sweet.
The one run allowed by Wang was really allowed by Abreu, another in a long series of fluffs by the big man in right. Not the world’s best outfielder by a long shot. That ball was not only catchable, it should have been caught. His timing was awful.
So if you take that away, Wang was even better than the line. I just hope he doesn’t tire out near the end of the season like last year. It’s not like he’s still adjusting to the long MLB season. Maybe the new staff Girardi has brought in will help, along with the running drills Joe G is so fond of.
Nice to have a manager that’s alive in the Yankee dugout again. Physically and mentally.
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