Rob Dibble Uses Statistics

Today I was listening to Dibble and Kennedy on XM 175. Why? Because I'm an idiot.

Anyway, they were discussing why pitchers don't go as deep into games as they did in the past. Dibble is convinced it is because we are babying our young pitchers too much. He goes on to cite specific examples, most of which don't make any sense. But he peaks when he goes on to say:

"I think that starters going fewer innings is why earned run averages are so high. I's acceptable for a guy to have an ERA in the 4s now. It didn't use to be."

Wha??? Does Dibble really think that having less tired pitchers is the reason for more runs?

The call in guest tries to refute this point saying that the two are unrelated, but Dibble stops he right there.

"We use statistics to back things up on this show..." He goes on to pull up starters innings, complete games, games started, whatever and compares them to league average ERAs.

Dibble obviously never took statistics in school (assuming he actually went to school something that is debatable) and thus never learned that correlation does not equal causation. This is something that a lot of people don't understand. Take Al Gore for instance: he is sure that just because the world's temperature has increased slightly over the past 20-30 years, it must be because of the increase in CO2 emissions! It couldn't be due to the scientific fact that the sun has been giving off more energy during the same period of time, or due to the geological cycles that planets all go through. No, it must be the .05% increase in greenhouse gasses. Anyway, I digress.

Dibble completely ignores the following: they lowered the mound 5 inches in 1968, the top of strikezone has moved from the shoulders to the letters to the belt since then, the DH was added in the AL, new ballparks were built everywhere and almost all were smaller than the ballpark they replaced, and finally steroids entered the game.

The biggest reason for less innings being thrown by starters in the increased number of pitches per inning. Due to the smaller strikezone, more pitches are called balls which forces pitchers to throw more pitches. The onset of Sabermetrics has led to more and more players working the count waiting for their pitch which means even when pitchers throw a pitch in the strikezone, it is more likely to be a good pitch to hit which has led to more hits allowed per inning. Finally, players don't just make contact anymore. Most players go to the plate and swing as hard as they can everytime, trying to hit the ball out of the park. This inevitably leads to more strikeouts, reaching to unheared of levels. And Rob, statistics do back this up:

In 1964, Ron Santo led the NL in walks with 86. Norm Siebern led the AL with 106.
In 2007, Barry Bonds led the NL with 132. David Ortiz led the AL with 111. There has no been a league leader in walks with less than 100 in a non strike year since 1986. Frank Thomas walked 109 times in the 112 game strikeout year.

In 1964, Dick Allen (NL) and Nelson Matthews (AL) (hitters) led their leagues in strikeouts with 138 and 143 respectively.
In 2008, Mark Reynolds, Ryan Howard, and Jack Cust are all over 190 and theres still a week to play!

In 1964, Bob Veale and Al Downing (pitchers) led the NL and AL with 250 and 217 strikeouts respectively.
In 2007, despite each pitching almost 50 fewer innings, Jake Peavy and Scott Kazmir recorded 240 and 239 Ks respectively.

Sandy Koufax and Sam McDowell were the first pitchers to average more that 10 K/9 doing it in 1960 and 1966 respectively. It was done 12 times prior to 1990 6 times by Nolan Ryan, and 3 times by Koufax. Since 1990, it has been done 42 times.

The two most durable pitchers of this ERA are probably Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens. The players Dibble mentioned as durable were Bert Blyleven, Bob Gibson, and Nolan Ryan among others. Roy Halladay will be used as the "today" example. Since pitch counts are unavailable for all games, we will look at innings, batters faced, strikouts, and walks. We will also look at their 162 game averages rather than specific seasons which could serve as outliers.

Halladay: IP - 229, BF - 947, BB - 53, SO - 163
Johnson: IP - 232, BF - 958, BB - 84, SO - 275
Clemens: IP - 236, BF - 971, BB - 75, SO- 224
Blyleven: IP - 245, BF - 1011, BB - 65, SO - 182
Gibson: IP - 261, BF - 1081, BB - 89, SO - 209
Ryan: IP - 232, BF - 971, BB - 120, SO - 245

Ryan appears to be a freak and Halladay seems to be a pussy, but the rest are right in line. Look how many more strikeouts Johnson has compared to the other guys in pretty close to the same number of BF. I'd wager Johnson and Clemens threw about the same # of pitches per year as guys like Gibson and Blyleven. They just didn't go as many innings.

Dibble further discredited himself when he said this: "Those pitchers were still the best pitchers on their teams in the 9th inning after 100+ pitches. Even if they were at 80%, they were still better than the relievers, and I think it's the same today. I think Johan Santana at 80% is still the best option the Mets have."

He is given a chance to back out of that... You mean better than Heilman?

"No, I think Johan Santana at 80% is better that Wagner."

Wha???

Does he think that Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte are better than Mariano Rivera?

Career ERAs: Santana - 3.14, Wagner 2.40
Whatever Robby.

Rob is also the guy who said OPS was made up by ESPN and that you really can't judge Jim Rice by the numbers.