Posted by dahsdebater on 4/11/2014 5:22:00 PM (view original):
That is a fair point.
Though it brings me back to my initial argument: For pitchers like Nolan Ryan and Phil Niekro, with many thousands of career innings, generated with many different sets of defenders behind them, ERA should generally be a pretty good representation of how a guy pitched. I accept that for one or two seasons, ERA can be misleading. But over a long career, I certainly wouldn't trust a value generated based on FIP over a value generated based on ERA.
I guess they are outliers. No stat is perfect or able to account for everything. Niekro and Ryan were able to maintain BABIPs well below league average. Ryan, I'm guessing, because of his velocity and lack of control. Niekro, I'm guessing, because of the knuckleball. Beyond that, I don't know.
For most pitchers, I think the Fangraphs method is better. Ignore what you can't measure. I certainly trust that more than BBR, which is just guessing when it attempts to separate pitching from defense. At least with Fangraphs I know where the hole is.
Also, if DIP stats only confirmed what we already knew using ERA, DIP stats wouldn't be needed.