Nationals and Max Scherzer agree on 7 year deal

[varoadking]

Are we seriously arguing about whether one of the 3 best pitchers in the NL, and top 5 in the MLB, who will get numerous Cy Young votes, is a good pitcher?!?!?!

Gio Gonzalez finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting.  Make of that what you will...

[houston-nat]

Gio Gonzalez finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting.  Make of that what you will...

Gio Gonzalez is a good pitcher and that was his career-best year. I don't get it.

[Slateman]

Gio Gonzalez finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting.  Make of that what you will...

Gio was a good pitcher in 2012.

[varoadking]

Gio Gonzalez is a good pitcher and that was his career-best year. I don't get it.

You don't have to pay $30MM a year to get a 15+/- win pitcher...we had that for less than $500K last year, and in Gio's case we did better than that for about $3.35MM.

Scherzer was a mistake that will haunt us for the next 6+ years...

[Kevrock]

What have you done for me lately fan forum dot net

[HalfSmokes]

I brought this up when we signed him...read the date on my posts...

Why is either ERA stat as a starter a fluke...they are what they are...

because fip thinks certain things are in a pitcher's control (ks, bbs, hr rate) and other things (hit rate, ground balls vs. fly balls...) aren't. If a pitcher is good because of the later rather than the former, their FIP will be higher than their ERA and people will call it a fluke

[JCA-CrystalCity]

No one should argue that ERA doesn't measure what it measures.  You can question whether it is predictive.  You can question whether a guy who has a lot of unearned runs deserves some punishment for all the contact he gives up rather than just blaming Desi.  But ERA measures runs per 9 innings that by the scoring rules are "earned."  I just don't find it as meaningful an indicator of the pitcher's performance as other measures like RA/9 and defense-independent measures.  I like to be able to isolate down to the pitcher's performance. 

[HalfSmokes]

I like to be able to isolate down to the pitcher's performance. 

do you believe that pitcher's have the ability to induce ground balls at a higher rate than average (i.e. is a ground ball pitcher something real or just a pitcher having a run of luck)? If you think it's real then you have to discount fip because it measures what it measures- home runs, BBs hit by pitches and strike outs and nothing else - not the ability to induce a ground ball, not the ability to strike out when needed and pitch to contact when not needed not the ability to stop the bleeding in a bad inning in stead of imploding (no different to fip between a home run in the first with none on and one out and in the seventh of a two run game with runners on)

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Sure, FIP is not perfect.  I think pitchers have some influence over the type of contact.  SIERA and other defense independent pitching stats measure this.  What I've read / seen says that, even if you introduce some sort of xBABIP measure based on type of contact, it does not result in that much better a predictor of future ERA than FIP or xFIP.  Some guys can consistently beat their FIP, but it usually takes multiple seasons for ERA to become a better predictor for future ERA than FIP.  With respect to Roark, it looks like FIP suggested the ERA might have been telling you this guy was a superstar rather than league average or slightly better considering HR rate, and this year FIP and XFIP suggest it is his HR rate that is screwing him.  Every measure of type of contact is similar or even better than last year.

[varoadking]

 

[Slateman]

Seems like a coaching issue to me.