Posted by schwarze on 5/18/2011 8:30:00 PM (view original):
I won't get into the math, but it's no coincidence that if you look at a league's stats, specifically team offense and team pitching, that there is a much stronger correlation between team ERA and W-L record compared to team RUNS SCORED and W-L record.

It's way more common to see a #1 ranked pitching staff with a middle-of -the-pack offense make the playoffs than vice versa.

Posted by doubletruck on 5/18/2011 4:45:00 AM (view original):
Based on Team PA and Team BFP, I've calculated that a batter with 700+ PA owns about 5.7% of a team's offensive opportunity and a starting pitcher with 331 IP owns 11.4% of his team's defensive opportunity.

This appears to mean that a strong SP is twice as valuable to his team as is a strong position player who plays every game. Even a 240 IP starter owns 7.85% of his team's defensive opportunity compared to the player's 5.7%.

My underlying premise is that offense is 50% of the game and pitching defense is 50% of the game. (Fielding is not factored in.)

Agree or disagree?

Posted by schwarze on 5/18/2011 8:30:00 PM (view original):
I won't get into the math, but it's no coincidence that if you look at a league's stats, specifically team offense and team pitching, that there is a much stronger correlation between team ERA and W-L record compared to team RUNS SCORED and W-L record.

It's way more common to see a #1 ranked pitching staff with a middle-of -the-pack offense make the playoffs than vice versa.

Posted by zubinsum on 5/19/2011 2:59:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doubletruck on 5/18/2011 4:45:00 AM (view original):
Based on Team PA and Team BFP, I've calculated that a batter with 700+ PA owns about 5.7% of a team's offensive opportunity and a starting pitcher with 331 IP owns 11.4% of his team's defensive opportunity.

This appears to mean that a strong SP is twice as valuable to his team as is a strong position player who plays every game. Even a 240 IP starter owns 7.85% of his team's defensive opportunity compared to the player's 5.7%.

My underlying premise is that offense is 50% of the game and pitching defense is 50% of the game. (Fielding is not factored in.)

Agree or disagree?

Teams average 6400 PA per season.
Teams average 1450 IP per season
700/6400 = .109
331/1450 =  .228

We disagree on your first statement.  A batter with 700 PA accounts for ~11% of his teams offensive oportunities over a season.  A pitcher with 331IP accounts for 23% of defensive oportunities (excluding fielding and range).

It is impossible to say how much more valuable a starting pitcher is over a position player since it depends how many IP that pitcher will pitch.  It is true that ~4.4 PA are equal in value to 1 IP.  (In theis context value refers to offensive or defensive opportunity, not actual contribution.)  If an everyday player has 700PA a pitcher would have to pitch ~317 innings to account for twice the opportunity that the batter does.  I therefore agree in principle with your second statement but I think it could be stated much more acurately.

I agree that 50% of the game is offense and 50% is pitching / defense.  From this and the basic rules of the game you can derive that  in one inning a pitcher contributes as much to his team's win (or loss) as any single batter does through the entire game (assuming no subs or PHs).  Each position in the order averages 4.4PA/ game and a pitcher faces 4.4 batters per inning on average.  This is one of those great "symetries" in baseball.
 

Posted by doubletruck on 5/19/2011 1:21:00 AM (view original):
Of all the assertions here so far, the only one I'd quibble with is franco's ranking of 15% for defensive plays. I don't think it plays out that strongly in the sim, and I'd say we're looking at percentages more like 45% offense, 50% pitching, 5% fielding. But I have to admit that I don't know how to separate the defensive plays from the pitching, so I'm just rating this on anecdotal experience.

Posted by doubletruck on 5/19/2011 7:42:00 AM (view original):

Posted by zubinsum on 5/19/2011 2:59:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doubletruck on 5/18/2011 4:45:00 AM (view original):
Based on Team PA and Team BFP, I've calculated that a batter with 700+ PA owns about 5.7% of a team's offensive opportunity and a starting pitcher with 331 IP owns 11.4% of his team's defensive opportunity.

This appears to mean that a strong SP is twice as valuable to his team as is a strong position player who plays every game. Even a 240 IP starter owns 7.85% of his team's defensive opportunity compared to the player's 5.7%.

My underlying premise is that offense is 50% of the game and pitching defense is 50% of the game. (Fielding is not factored in.)

Agree or disagree?

Teams average 6400 PA per season.
Teams average 1450 IP per season
700/6400 = .109
331/1450 =  .228

We disagree on your first statement.  A batter with 700 PA accounts for ~11% of his teams offensive oportunities over a season.  A pitcher with 331IP accounts for 23% of defensive oportunities (excluding fielding and range).

It is impossible to say how much more valuable a starting pitcher is over a position player since it depends how many IP that pitcher will pitch.  It is true that ~4.4 PA are equal in value to 1 IP.  (In theis context value refers to offensive or defensive opportunity, not actual contribution.)  If an everyday player has 700PA a pitcher would have to pitch ~317 innings to account for twice the opportunity that the batter does.  I therefore agree in principle with your second statement but I think it could be stated much more acurately.

I agree that 50% of the game is offense and 50% is pitching / defense.  From this and the basic rules of the game you can derive that  in one inning a pitcher contributes as much to his team's win (or loss) as any single batter does through the entire game (assuming no subs or PHs).  Each position in the order averages 4.4PA/ game and a pitcher faces 4.4 batters per inning on average.  This is one of those great "symetries" in baseball.
 

I just recalculated using PA and BFP for an actual team, and I got 11.6% for a batter with 780 PA and 22.8% for a pitcher with 331 IP. Virtually the same outcome as Zub's calculation.

I don't remember what I might have done with my first calculation to make it come out differently, although the ratio of the batter's contribution to the pitcher's remained essentially the same.

Posted by jfranco77 on 5/19/2011 8:17:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doubletruck on 5/19/2011 1:21:00 AM (view original):
Of all the assertions here so far, the only one I'd quibble with is franco's ranking of 15% for defensive plays. I don't think it plays out that strongly in the sim, and I'd say we're looking at percentages more like 45% offense, 50% pitching, 5% fielding. But I have to admit that I don't know how to separate the defensive plays from the pitching, so I'm just rating this on anecdotal experience.

Sorry... I ran a team that was all A++++ players and I think their runs saved accounted for 18% or something like that.

But 15% is probably too high for a typical team. It's probably more like 8-10% defense for a normal team.