Stat Spotlight- FIP: Because Players like Brad Hawpe Do Exist

The best way to evaluate any player is to try and isolate their performance in relation to the rest of their team. The inherent problem with RBI as a measurement of hitting is that it is completely predicated on people being on-base for the hitter. 2 players on opposing teams can hit 2-out doubles off the wall, but if one of those players has men on base, he gets the RBI, despite the identical hitting performances. ERA, the best way to gauge pitching performance for the casual fan, suffers from the same problem. Although it does account for fielding errors (differentiating between runs and earned runs) it still factors fielding into the equation, something a pitcher can't control at all.

It is because of this faulty premise on which ERA is built, we have FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching). Created by Tom Tango, FIP mathematically assess all the major statistical categories for which a pitcher is solely responsible: walks, intentional walks, hit by pitches, strikeouts, home runs allowed, and innings pitched. Then, through some magical formula that at first glance makes no apparent sense to me, it creates a number that is weighted to look like an average run of the mill ERA,allowing for greater accessibility by the baseball masses.

Applying FIP to pitcher evaluation yield new ways of analyzing talent. Edwin Jackson's 2009 season, in which he posted a 3.64 ERA was hailed by many as the realization of his top of the rotation potential, after years of ERA's hovering around 5. But when fielding is taken out of the equation, we find that Jackson's '09 performance was actually a little more than half a run worse than what ERA indicated it was (FIP of 4.28). Conversely, Jackson's 2010 season thus far in which he's posted a 4.92 ERA has actually been, according to FIP, better than his previous season, despite the much uglier ERA (4.17 FIP).

Of course not every test case is going to look as wildly varied as Jackson's. Some players, like the Giants Tim Lincecum, have had ERA's and FIP's that are almost completely even statistically. Even Jackson's career ERA and career FIP are only off by .06 (Some of his early years with atrocious ERA's weren't as bad as you'd think). So ultimately what FIP does is take some of the guess work out of player evaluation. Instead of guessing which Edwin Jackson is going to show up, based on erratic ERA's, we have a smoother picture that tells us what Jackson really is, and has almost always been- a pitcher who will give up roughly 4 and a half runs per start.