Right, like I said it will help close the gap. I thought you were implying that the pitching wasn't actually performing as well as their FIP suggested because of the huge gap between the two stats that Corbin has. My bad if that was not your point.
That point would be nonsensical. Corbin's performance doesn't affect Irvin's performance and so on.
My point is that part of the composite numbers this year is Corbin. Corbin most years underperforms his FIP (or more correctly, his FIP overestimates his actual results) by a large amount. Those years aren't affected by this year's defense, because they're not this year. It's a separate independent variable.
Corbin will be gone. That will make the relationship between FIP and ERA on next year's team look different even if nobody else's performance changes.
