Strikeout to ERA Correlation

Robbing Home Runs (outfielder defensive rating)

Perhaps I do not understand this feature. But doesn't this come in to play on potential HRs which would relate to the number of HRs on a card, not the number of strikeouts. On a recent show in MLB network they had a graphic of the top 3 OFers robbing a player of a HR. Trout led with 8. The next 2 had 4. I do not know how often strat algorithm results in a HR robbery attempt but with a 5 man rotation even with the best of the robbery artists an individual pitcher on average would only benefit from 2 of those. If you had the top 3 in the same OF that would be 13 total which means on average any given member of the rotation would only benefit from 3. And that is assuming that rotation pitches all innings. Factor in bullpen and numbers go lower. I would want to see numerical evaluations of the odds of these events based on the strat algorithm but it would seem to me that the difference between a pitcher with 0 Ks and one with 50 would still only amont to 1 or 2 such events over a season. Certainly not enough to make me want to draft one pitcher over another.

Attempted Bunts

This is based on the offensive manager decision to bunt. I doubt HAL uses the number of strikeouts on a card to determine whether to bunt or not. Ditto for hit and run. When Hal does make the choice to use one of these the relevant charts are referred to and it is no longer relevant whether the pitcher card is filled with strikeouts or whatever.

Remember, we are not discussing whether a good defensive player is better to have than a bad defensive player. We are discussing whether the presence of Ks on a card or lack of Ks make a difference. It certainly does not with regard to number of plays referred to the X fielding chart. It does not when it comes to advancing a base on a gb(C) or getting more or less double play balls. Those are fixed values and can be counted on a card and the number of these on a card is not much related to the presence or lack of strikeouts.

For the record, robbing the homerun is NOT a feature in online som, at least this is my understanding.

Remember, we are not discussing whether a good defensive player is better to have than a bad defensive player. We are discussing whether the presence of Ks on a card or lack of Ks make a difference. It certainly does not with regard to number of plays referred to the X fielding chart. It does not when it comes to advancing a base on a gb(C) or getting more or less double play balls. Those are fixed values and can be counted on a card and the number of these on a card is not much related to the presence or lack of strikeouts.

You stated:
In strat defense stellar or defense poor has absolutely nothing to do with strikeouts.

Seriously. Look at all those strikeouts on the Nolan Ryan 73 card.
Look at all those stikeouts on the 65 Koufax card.

Now look at that 1920 Jim Bagby Sr. card. Quite a difference. Not many strikeouts on that card.
This was stated in regards to a comment that someone with poor defense may want a strikeout pitcher and in response you said defense and strikeouts were not related. However you are looking at this in a one time roll, when an inning consists of multiple opportunities and rolls and defense can come into play randomly at any time.

Indeed a team with poor defense and a strikeout pitcher will perform better than an non-stirkeout pitcher with poor defense. Why? Think of an inning that starts with Cobb hitting a double, next roll is a 4-6 you can either have Bagby’s FBrf(B) with Stan Musial out in RF or a strikeout from Koufax, true on that play infield defense does not matter but against Bagby Cobb likely will take 3rd, especially if down a run or tied late. Now Cobb is on 3rd instead of 2nd, or potentially even scoring if Musial makes a bad throw and next you have a X chance to your third baseman - McGraw, which results in an E1 and batter is safe and batter advances one base so Cobb scores. Same scenario against Koufax, same rolls and Cobb does not score, only difference is that Koufax got a strikeout instead of the fly ball to Musial. Indeed the worse the defense is the more Koufax’s value becomes as those strikeouts prevent base advancement and exposing the poor defense to allowing a lesser mistake to result in a run.

I have found over the years that high K pitchers typically do outperform low K pitchers who have the same "numbers" on diamonddope. But, never fully grasped why. Some of the intangibles being mentioned in this thread make perfect sense to me and would seem to shed some light on the subject. (thanks Charlie)

For the record I consider Popouts the same as a strikeout from a strat perspective. I've always thought it would be nice if we could see how many popouts a pitcher has in a spreadsheet. Basically wishing everything was sortable off of Diamonddope, not just certain things.

(BTW ... Not a complaint Adrian, just a wish list type of thing.)

I have found over the years that high K pitchers typically do outperform low K pitchers who have the same "numbers" on diamonddope. But, never fully grasped why. Some of the intangibles being mentioned in this thread make perfect sense to me and would seem to shed some light on the subject. (thanks Charlie)

For the record I consider Popouts the same as a strikeout from a strat perspective. I've always thought it would be nice if we could see how many popouts a pitcher has in a spreadsheet. Basically wishing everything was sortable off of Diamonddope, not just certain things.

(BTW ... Not a complaint Adrian, just a wish list type of thing.)

I actually key each card into my own spreadsheet adding chances of KO, Lineouts and popouts for pitchers in a category.

I have found over the years that high K pitchers typically do outperform low K pitchers who have the same "numbers" on diamonddope. But, never fully grasped why. Some of the intangibles being mentioned in this thread make perfect sense to me and would seem to shed some light on the subject. (thanks Charlie)

For the record I consider Popouts the same as a strikeout from a strat perspective. I've always thought it would be nice if we could see how many popouts a pitcher has in a spreadsheet. Basically wishing everything was sortable off of Diamonddope, not just certain things.

(BTW ... Not a complaint Adrian, just a wish list type of thing.)

I actually key each card into my own spreadsheet adding chances of KO, Lineouts and popouts for pitchers in a category.

Duh ... Forgot about lineouts too. Feel free to share that spreadsheet ...

In strat defense stellar or defense poor has absolutely nothing to do with strikeouts.

Seriously. Look at all those strikeouts on the Nolan Ryan 73 card.
Look at all those stikeouts on the 65 Koufax card.

Now look at that 1920 Jim Bagby Sr. card. Quite a difference. Not many strikeouts on that card.
This was stated in regards to a comment that someone with poor defense may want a strikeout pitcher and in response you said defense and strikeouts were not related. However you are looking at this in a one time roll, when an inning consists of multiple opportunities and rolls and defense can come into play randomly at any time.

Seriously...... I am disappointed at your lack of understanding here.

Each pitcher card has 108 36x3) chances per side. So on average for every 108 rolls you would get....
Looking at left side of card. Same principles apply to the right. I use shortstop as an example here but it is the same thing for every position.
Ryan73 40 strikeout rolls 7 gb(ss)X rolls
Bagby20 2 strikeout rolls 7 gb(ss)X rolls

So put any SS behind these 2 pitchers and the benefit or harm that shortstop brings to that pitcher is EXACTLY the same.
This is not rocket science. It is simple math any 5th grader could do.

next roll is a 4-6 you can either have Bagby’s FBrf(B) with Stan Musial out in RF

You are comparing one of the best pitching cards in the set with a well below average card.
Compare instead to one of the pitchers in similar price range who was not primarily a strikeout pitcher. Say 3 finger Brown or Addie Joss. And since we get to pick a specific roll would you rather have Koufax64 card with all those strikeouts on a 6-2 roll or 3 finger brown08 and his flyout? We can play this specific roll game all day. In the long run though I do not believe there are enough specific rolls and circumstances where it will matter how the out was recorded to make the number of strikeouts a primary focus of who you do or do not draft.

I looked at my most recently completed league. Sorted the pitcher stats by strikeout.
The top 4 had ERA above 4. #5 snuck in at 3.94.
The top 7 in strikeouts had more K than IP but only 2 dipped below 4 in ERA, McDowell and Pedro
Sort by ERA and none of the top 8 reached 300 strikeouts. McDowell finally slipped in at 9. Then you go all the way down to 19 where Santana finally shows up with 300 strikeouts.

Checked additional leagues.
Pete Alexander led league in ERA 2.28 while being 14th in strikeouts.
Greg Maddux led league in ERA 3.26 while being 20th in strikeouts.
Checked my last 200 mil league.
Babe Adams led in ERA with 3.48 while being 39th in strikeouts.
Next 2 were Coveleski and Chance neither of which reached 200 strikeouts.

How about some team totals from my 4 last teams.
200 mil League leader at 5.07 was 6th in strikeouts
140 mil league leader era at 4.42 was 7th in strikeouts strikeout leader
100 mil league era leader at 3.51 was 4th in strikeouts.
140 mil league era leader at 3.74 was 10th in strikeouts.

Based on this small sample size actual results what conclusion would you draw regarding the correlation between strikeouts and ERA?

If I had more time I would go through more leagues and see just how many led the league in strikeouts and ERA.
I would indeed be curious for anyone who has the data to find out what percentage of teams led the league in both strikeouts and ERA.

Would I avoid strikeout pitchers? No.
But I would argue that to draft primarily on strikeouts expecting that will lead to low ERA may be faulty thinking.

In Strat many prefer Ks if the defense isn't stellar. That ground ball turns into an error, runners advance, inning extended and some guy batting .425 steps to the plate with RISP.
In strat defense stellar or defense poor has absolutely nothing to do with strikeouts.

This is the statement I initially referred to and my response. I will omit my arguments following as anyone can go back and read those.

I will acknowledge that I would prefer a strikeout over a flyball(B). But since my statement was specifically addressing the quality of defense matters when there are few strikeouts on a card verses many I still stand by. Because the frequency of this circumstance is too small to make a significant impact as the numbers I just posted for league ERA leaders and where they ranked in the strikeout rankings demonstrate.

Might add regardless of conclusions reached this has been a fun discussion. For me purpose of discussion is to draw out information and get a variety of viewpoints. Based on that I think this has been a fruitful discussion.

It will be a while before I have the time but based on a couple comments here I am going to go back to my database and do some column compilations to differentiate between all outs which cannot lead to runner advancement and all those which could.

The flyball()B might be an interesting one to look at closer. Anyone have reliable data to show how often there is a runner on second with third base empty or a runner on third and less than 2 outs? At one time I had a chart with all those situational type things with respect to how frequently they came up in real games. But at the moment I cannot find it.

next roll is a 4-6 you can either have Bagby’s FBrf(B) with Stan Musial out in RF or a strikeout from Koufax .... but against Bagby Cobb likely will take 3rd

Perhaps you can help me out here. According to the rules on how to read a pitcher's card....

fly(cf)A, fly(cf)B, fly (cf)B?, fly(cf)C -- Flyout to listed position (left field, center field, right field). An "A" is a very deep flyout - all runners advance one base. A "B" is a deep flyout - runner on third scores. A "B?" means the runner on third has a chance to score using his speed rating and the outfielder's arm. A "C" is a shallow flyout - all runners hold.

Specifically

A "B" is a deep flyout - runner on third scores.

If I read the rules right Cobb will NOT take third. If he were already on third he would score but does so not matter who is in RF and what that RFers defensive ratings might be.

Only on a fly (cf)B? does the throwing arm of an OFer matter according to the posted rules. And regardless of how many strikeouts are on a card no pitcher card has any flyball B followed by a question mark. So that is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Am I misinterpreting the rule?