| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Smart Stats for 2003, Part II: The Pitchers | About the author, Boyd Nation |
Publication Date: August 19, 2003
ERA
This week, we continue my annual series on smarter player and team analysis stats, moving on to the pitchers. First off, the ERA leaders, which gives a good view of how the players did within the context of their competition level. The NCAA lists the top 100 in the statistics section if you're curious; I'll just give you the top 25:
# Player Team ERA 1 Tom Mastny Furman 1.09 2 Cla Meredith Virginia Commonwealth 1.19 3 Carlos Fernandez Louisville 1.21 4 Huston Street Texas 1.33 5 Aaron Sims Alabama A&M 1.41 6 Thomas Pauly Princeton 1.46 7 Jamie Merchant Vermont 1.56 8 Chuck Bechtel Marist 1.59 9 Scott Lewis Ohio State 1.61 10 Jeff Niemann Rice 1.70 11 Kevin Ool Marist 1.74 12 Matt Wilhite Western Kentucky 1.77 13 Chris Schutt Cornell 1.89 14 Jeff Dixon Vermont 1.93 15 Ryan Wagner Houston 1.93 16 Jered Weaver Long Beach State 1.96 17 Robert Swindle Charleston Southern 1.96 18 Tim Stauffer Richmond 1.97 19 Jason Windsor Cal State Fullerton 1.98 20 Dewon Day Southern 2.01 21 Brandon Hankins Southwest Texas State 2.10 22 Joey Devine North Carolina State 2.19 23 Wade Townsend Rice 2.20 24 James Hoey Rider 2.24 25 Mike McGirr Richmond 2.25
Note that the NCAA includes relievers with at least one inning pitched per team game, which includes about half of the guys on this list.
RBOA
My preferred measure is something I've used here before called Runs below Opponent Average, which is simply the number of runs a pitcher gives up below the average output of his opponents. There are examples of how to compute it given in the introduction linked in there. Here are the top 100 in RBOA for the 2003 season:
# Player Team RBOA 1 Jered Weaver Long Beach State 65.61 2 John Hudgins Stanford 65.59 3 Thomas Mastny Furman 61.00 4 Jeff Niemann Rice 53.40 5 Abe Alvarez Long Beach State 52.72 6 J.P. Howell Texas 47.64 7 Jeremy Sowers Vanderbilt 42.99 8 Wade Townsend Rice 41.53 9 David Marchbanks South Carolina 40.53 10 Trent Peterson Florida State 40.42 11 Tim Stauffer Richmond 39.84 12 Justin Verlander Old Dominion 39.05 13 Clayton Jerome Texas Christian 38.28 14 Chad Mulholland Southwest Missouri State 36.86 15 Paul Jacinto Brigham Young 36.75 16 Greg Ramirez Pepperdine 36.58 17 Steven White Baylor 36.31 18 Joshua Banks Florida International 36.03 19 Vern Sterry North Carolina State 35.26 20 Chris Niesel Notre Dame 35.02 21 Paul Maholm Mississippi State 34.24 22 Brad Sullivan Houston 33.87 23 Randy Beam Florida Atlantic 33.48 24 Glen Perkins Minnesota 33.17 25 Rusty Begnaud McNeese State 33.02 26 Jody Petty Arkansas State 33.01 27 Scott Lewis Ohio State 32.85 28 Jeremy Plexico Winthrop 32.84 29 Tim Alvarez Southeast Missouri State 32.70 30 Aaron Marsden Nebraska 32.46 31 Kyle Sleeth Wake Forest 32.02 32 Brent Carter Alabama 31.84 33 Justin Orenduff Virginia Commonwealth 31.77 34 T.J. Beam Mississippi 31.16 35 Clark Girardeau South Alabama 30.60 36 Brad Overton North Carolina-Wilmington 30.54 37 Joe Carque San Diego State 30.08 38 Justin Meier Louisiana State 29.88 39 Jessie Corn Jacksonville State 29.87 40 Michael Rogers North Carolina State 29.86 41 Danny Zell Houston 29.75 42 Mike McGirr Richmond 29.18 43 Justin Sturge Coastal Carolina 28.76 44 Daniel Davidson Florida State 28.24 45 Zac Cline West Virginia 28.05 46 Andrew Dobies Virginia 28.02 47 Dewan Day Southern 28.00 48 Sean Marshall Virginia Commonwealth 27.90 49 Justin Hoyman Florida 27.54 50 Jason Windsor Cal State Fullerton 27.52 51 Dustin Miller Cal State Fullerton 27.24 52 Philip Humber Rice 27.06 53 Matt Durkin San Jose State 27.01 54 Brian Lynch Ball State 26.70 55 Mark Romanczuk Stanford 26.16 56 Robert Swindle Charleston Southern 25.97 57 Cesar Ramos Long Beach State 25.84 58 Ryan Basner Western Carolina 25.80 59 Ben Thurmond Arizona State 25.70 60 Jaymie Torres UC Riverside 25.43 61 Matt Lynch Florida State 25.05 62 Dennis Bigley Oral Roberts 24.98 63 Brian Mattoon LeMoyne 24.68 64 Kevin Ool Marist 24.56 65 Chris Lambert Boston College 24.53 66 Cliff Russum Southern Mississippi 24.52 67 A.J. Shappi UC Riverside 24.31 68 Brandon Hankins Southwest Texas State 24.15 69 Jacob Barrack Pepperdine 23.56 70 Mike Pelfrey Wichita State 23.31 71 Josh Baker Rice 23.25 72 Ryan Gordon North Carolina-Greensboro 23.23 73 Kevin Ardoin Louisiana-Lafayette 23.06 74 Chuck Bechtel Marist 22.98 75 Danny Core Florida Atlantic 22.84 76 Daniel Moore North Carolina 22.66 77 James Hoey Rider 22.58 78 Adam Kalkhof North Carolina 22.54 79 Brett Smith UC Irvine 22.47 80 Colby Paxton Auburn 22.43 81 Tom Robbins Southwest Texas State 22.33 82 Ben Riley Tennessee 22.33 83 Mike Moat San Diego State 22.28 84 Shawn Phillips Delaware State 22.22 85 Scott Gibson Alabama-Birmingham 22.21 86 Joe Koshansky Virginia 21.91 87 Collin Walker Bradley 21.60 88 Matt Prendergast Virginia Commonwealth 21.46 89 Jake Alley Southern Illinois 21.46 90 Aaron Phillips Butler 21.22 91 Jamie Merchant Vermont 21.17 92 Steven Bondurant South Carolina 21.15 93 Dan Konecny Northwestern 21.10 94 Ryan Schreppel Cal State Fullerton 20.98 95 Mark Skrukrud Northern Illinois 20.85 96 Bryan Gale Michigan State 20.78 97 Frank Mendoza Akron 20.64 98 Matt Kleweno Campbell 20.56 99 Micah Owings Georgia Tech 20.30 100 Eric Dworkis Gonzaga 20.26
Gosh, Rice has some pitching returning, don't they? OK, I've done the wide-eyed media guy thing for this year, somebody mark the date and time. There are no huge surprises here, although I don't think anyone expected Mastny to have the year he did. Note that the top three guys on last year's list were all eligible for this year's list, and the results weren't all that encouraging. Tim Stauffer fell from #1 to #11 with fewer than half the RBOA total. Kyle Bakker fell from #2 to well outside the top 100. Lane Mestepey missed the season entirely due to injury. That ties into my main concern -- five of the top ten had PAP counts over 100,000 this year and have to be considered injury risks going forward. Most of them are lowerclassmen, so we'll have to keep an eye on them.
Going forward, the next revision of this stat will need to come along soon. This year's list looks a bit more accurate than last year's did, but I want something that does well for comparisons from year to year, and I need a bit more context for that. The next step, I think, will be to include a second-order effect for translating the runs per game for the opponents to allow for the degree of difficulty in their schedule, which will help to reduce things like decent but not great pitchers in mediocre but high-scoring conferences having an advantage.
The Filing Cabinet
Finally, I've gotten something added to the site this week that I'm really excited about -- the filing cabinet is open. So far, it's populated with a searchable game score database and conference standings from 1998 to present, along with a few miscellaneous statistical reports. Before long, I hope to add individual player stats from the last two years, along with several other odds and ends I've got laying around. In the medium term, I plan to start recreating older seasons working backward from 1997. I'd love to hear what you'd like to see in there, so drop me a line. I can't manufacture data from thin air (actually I can, but my imagination's not as much fun as you'd think), but anything I can lay hands on is yours.
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| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Smart Stats for 2003, Part II: The Pitchers | About the author, Boyd Nation |