FIP, or Fielding Independant Pitching is basically an adjusted ERA aimed to take good/bad luck out of the equation. FIP looks to separate a pitchers performance from that of his teammates and ballpark factors. In order to do so, calculating FIP removes balls in play, which the pitcher has no control over. Doing such can even the playing field. The end result is a number based on the same ERA scale, yet it is much more indicative of how a pitcher has pitched.
As with almost all statistics, there are outliers that can last 50 games, a season, or in Matt Cain’s case- an entire career.
Calculating FIP:
35 comments
kingman 26
7/8/2011-10:16am at 10:16 am (UTC -4)
Question—don’t you think the “luck” factor might also be describing the difference between pitchers who are difficult to hit and those who are giving up line drives all the time?
I do not remember the numbers, but it seems as though folks were saying in 2010 that John Maine would get better, as his BABIP was too high and he was “unlucky”—at the time, it seemed as though he just could not throw hard anymore and guys were having a high BABIP because they were hitting many liners off him.
As for Cain, couldn’t it be the same thing? He’s just hard to hit and guys don’t make a lot of solid contact?
Would be curious to hear your response.
And forgive me is BABIP and FIP are not as related as I might imagine them to be.
TRS86
7/8/2011-10:57am at 10:57 am (UTC -4)
Based on my interpretation they are not that related. FIP is more like the ERA version of OPS+ is my take.
kingman 26
7/8/2011-11:20am at 11:20 am (UTC -4)
OK, gotcha.
wannybackstra
7/8/2011-10:26am at 10:26 am (UTC -4)
What is the equation?
Kirk_C
7/8/2011-11:40am at 11:40 am (UTC -4)
I’ve added the equation to the post, as you can probably see.
wannybackstra
7/8/2011-2:23pm at 2:23 pm (UTC -4)
thx. just curious as to how the 13, 3 and 2 were deemed the appropriate figures.
Ceetar
7/8/2011-2:26pm at 2:26 pm (UTC -4)
Presumably by some sort of analysis of the average runs created based on those events. a home run probably leads to 13/3 more runs than a walk.
hazmet
7/8/2011-10:36am at 10:36 am (UTC -4)
Did I just read there’s a stat that factors in luck? Are you kidding me, seriously. What’s the third mean deviation of luck when applied under a full moon with venus rising?
These are the kind of things that fan the fires of baseball stat’s and sabermetrics being a crock. Which I don’t believe but some stat’s are just a bad idea. Lies, damn lies & statistics…
Kirk_C
7/8/2011-11:30am at 11:30 am (UTC -4)
Attempting to remove luck, whether bad or good luck, helps to individualize performance. Why should Zack Greinke’s numbers suffer because he has Yuniesky Betancourt playing behind him?
TRS86
7/8/2011-11:40am at 11:40 am (UTC -4)
True, I guess my question on this one is how do they determine what an average player should be able to get to or as Wanny ask, what is the formula?
TRS86
7/8/2011-11:41am at 11:41 am (UTC -4)
LOL, nevermind on the formula. That made it worse.
Kirk_C
7/8/2011-11:51am at 11:51 am (UTC -4)
It doesn’t factor in defense at all. It removes defense. If you notice in the equation the only things taken into consideration are HR,BB (unintentional ones), and K’s. Those are the things that are under the pitchers control entirely.
TRS86
7/8/2011-12:20pm at 12:20 pm (UTC -4)
So a pitcher that is a ground ball pitcher that does not K many will have issues with FIP? What about if a pitcher playing for the Mets gives up a ton of doubles because of the park?
Kirk_C
7/8/2011-1:35pm at 1:35 pm (UTC -4)
An extreme groundball pitcher may see his FIP effected negatively due to lack of missing bats. However groundball pitchers tend to give up fewer HR, which will show up in FIP.
As far as your second question, I can say this- FIP is not a perfect statistic. None of them are perfect. When I write these posts it’s not to say “this statistic is the end all” when judging performance. There is also xFIP and tERA (which eventually i’ll get to). xFIP factors in HR rate, tERA factors in HR rate and also LD%. Sabermetrics are constantly evolving. So while it has it’s uses, it’s best to look at the whole instead of just focusing on a single metric.
TRS86
7/8/2011-1:40pm at 1:40 pm (UTC -4)
Yeah, just trying to understand it’s uses. That’s all. To me it would appear to favor the strike out pitcher a little too much but it does seem that most saber stats do.
wannybackstra
7/8/2011-2:57pm at 2:57 pm (UTC -4)
i don’t disagree, but by definition a groundball pitcher is dependent on good fielding and the stat seeks to eliminate fielding from the equation.
not sure you need an equation to tell you which pitchers strike out hitters, don’t walk hitters and keep the ball in the park.
if you’re looking to analyze groundball pitchers this probably isn’t the stat for you.
Kirk_C
7/8/2011-3:31pm at 3:31 pm (UTC -4)
The best use of FIP is to compare pitchers to one another without their numbers being skewed by the pitcher defense.
An example would be a comparison of Alexi Ogando and Chris Carpenter. Despite having very similar BB% and K% their ERA’s are very different.
Ogando- 2.92 ERA
Carpenter- 3.74 ERA
now look at their FIP
Ogando 3.50 FIP
Carpenter 3.23 FIP
What that could tell you is that Ogando has benefitted from good luck and/or defense (Amongst many other stats that say Ogando is extremely lucky, but I’ll save that for another time.).
I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb by saying Ogando is due for a regression, that is if his arm doesn’t fall off first.
Brian Daskam
7/9/2011-12:07am at 12:07 am (UTC -4)
Does it have any contributing factor for Wild Pitches since those are under the Pitcher’s control, or, lack thereof?
saltygary
7/8/2011-11:57am at 11:57 am (UTC -4)
I don’t know what you did to the site this morning but Firefox 5 aint so happy with certain links anymore and IE 8 loads crashes re-loads crashes and tells me to give up.
metsfan4decades
7/8/2011-1:46pm at 1:46 pm (UTC -4)
And on that note, whether using Firefox or I.E., you can no longer click the ‘Latest’ (next to the ‘Comments’ tab) to get the list of latest posts.
TRS86
7/8/2011-1:49pm at 1:49 pm (UTC -4)
Yeah, working on it.
kingman 26
7/8/2011-12:14pm at 12:14 pm (UTC -4)
Will try again–
Couldn’t the “luck” factor also be explained as some pitchers having great stuff and being harder to hit, hence few hard hit line drives, whereas other pitchers’ “bad luck” could just be a factor of batters’ making lots of solid contact off of them?
stickguy
7/8/2011-12:49pm at 12:49 pm (UTC -4)
agreed with this.
I think “luck” is more of a short term variable for a specific guy. Unless he totally lost his stuff, or developed a nasty new pitch, most likely a big fluctuation in BABIP will not be sustained (meaning it was good or bad luck).
But, different guys over their careers have lower BABIP, for the reason you note: it is a lot easier to hit a rocket off of Ollie than it is off of Halladay.
Prismo
7/8/2011-12:52pm at 12:52 pm (UTC -4)
For a great example, look at Ichiro on the hitters side. His BABIP is almost always well above average because he has great control over where the balls he hits are directed.
Ceetar
7/8/2011-1:54pm at 1:54 pm (UTC -4)
It’s irrelevant to this statistic. FIP treats a screaming double off the wall the same as Jeterian soft groundout to short. (Well, it doesn’t really, because the ground out is .1 IP and lowers FIP. This is part of the problem with the stat)
btw, the BB up there in the formula includes HBP.
But to your question, the general idea is that it’s presumed that pitchers lose control of what happens after ball hits bat. So the idea is the pitcher is ‘better’ if he can overmatch the hitter and beat him via being a better pitcher than he is a hitter, and striking him out. The problem of course is the pitcher does have some control over the batted ball, and no one knows how much or how to measure it. (You can see a pitcher one year induce a ton of soft contact, and then all of a sudden induce al ot of strong contact another year. Hard to measure) Cain is one example, Chris Young another. inducing soft contact, something groundball pitcher seem to do better, is something that _can_ be done.
No stats are perfect, and we shouldn’t hold FIP to a higher standard (or use it in a more absolute manner) than any other stat.
I don’t hae the tools to measure this, but I could see FIP being a stat to analyze the reliever you most want to bring into runners on situation. These pitchers should theoretically be the most likely to get an out without a runner scoring due to a lucky bloop, or a home run doing lots of damage.
Ceetar
7/8/2011-1:56pm at 1:56 pm (UTC -4)
specifically to the BABIP: BABIP is meant to try to analyze the luck off the batted ball, FIP is meant to analyze the picture by taking BABIP (really just BIP) out of the equation.
Kirk_C
7/8/2011-2:58pm at 2:58 pm (UTC -4)
Very good points Ceetar.
Prismo
7/8/2011-12:44pm at 12:44 pm (UTC -4)
I don’t understand the equation. What the frac is frac?
metsfan4decades
7/8/2011-1:48pm at 1:48 pm (UTC -4)
So what is the an average FIP for a solid rotation pitcher?
In other words, if a pitcher’s ERA is 3.00, would a FIP of 3.00 be better or worse as compared to the same number ERA?
Even though Math is not my forte, I understand the concept and formula shown but not sure what a good FIP would be if you were looking for say a solid #2 pitcher for your rotation.
Ceetar
7/8/2011-1:55pm at 1:55 pm (UTC -4)
It’s normalized for ERA. that +3.1 in the formula is a constant that changes to match league averages.
Prismo
7/8/2011-3:29pm at 3:29 pm (UTC -4)
Hypothetically, it would be the same. However, it would serve to show that the pitcher’s ERA of 3.00 is indeed a good indicator of his effectiveness.
Ceetar
7/8/2011-1:58pm at 1:58 pm (UTC -4)
A good example might be to look at Mike Pelfrey’s 2009 pitching line compared to 2008/2010. his ERA jumped, and this probably has a lot to do with Alex Cora.
SRT
7/8/2011-11:04pm at 11:04 pm (UTC -4)
Thanks, guys.
Be interesting to look at Pelf’s FIP this year because from what I’m seeing, Pelf has suddenly turned into more of a fly ball pitcher than the ground ball type he used to be.
TRS86
7/8/2011-11:30pm at 11:30 pm (UTC -4)
No doubt there, don’t need FIP for that one.
Ceetar
7/8/2011-8:48pm at 8:48 pm (UTC -4)
broke the blog attempting to switch to disqus again?