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Publication Date: February 24, 2004
Out of My Hands
I finally got around this week to putting up the DERA reports for the 2003 season, both starters and relievers. I realize this is a bit late; the reasons are a combination of procrastination, which got it back to about October, and a realization that DERA is probably more useful as a predictive tool than an analytical one.
The extra time, though, turned out to be productive, as I realized along the way that the formula I used last year, one of the early versions released by the inventor of DERA, Voros McCracken, now of the Red Sox, was much more suited to the offensive context of professional baseball than to current college baseball -- it produced values for college numbers that were too tightly banded between 3.00 and 5.00. After reducing things back to their basic components and doing some regression work, I came up with the following formula which is both a bit simpler and which produces results more accurate for college baseball:
-2.54 * SO + 4.13 * BB + 14.78 * HR
DERA = 3.93 + -----------------------------------
IP
In other words, a pitcher with perfectly average defense and luck behind him and no strikeouts, walks, or home runs should have a 3.93 ERA; each strikeout should reduce ERA, while walks hurt and home runs hurt a lot. All intuitive, assuming that you buy into the basic premise of DIPS and DERA, which I still do (those of you scratching your head at this point should go back and look at this introductory piece), and worth a look to see which pitchers are likely to bust out this year.
Leader Board
You can read the full reports linked in above if you're interested in any given pitcher, but here are the leader boards for starters and relievers:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA Ohio State Scott Lewis 1.61 1.61 Richmond Tim Stauffer 2.01 1.97 Vermont Jamie Merchant 2.15 1.56 Rice Wade Townsend 2.27 2.20 Jacksonville State Jessie Corn 2.51 2.19 Wright State Casey Abrams 2.52 2.83 Long Beach State Jered Weaver 2.58 1.96 Marist Chuck Bechtel 2.61 1.59 Charleston Southern R. J. Swindle 2.63 1.96 Old Dominion Justin Verlander 2.68 2.40 Central Connecticut State Barry Hertzler 2.68 2.59 Minnesota Glen Perkins 2.71 2.91 Rice Jeff Niemann 2.74 1.70 Notre Dame Chris Niesel 2.78 2.65 Maryland Steve Schmoll 2.86 3.49 Navy Rich McDevitt 2.94 2.52 Minnesota Cj Woodrow 3.00 4.34 Richmond Mike McGirr 3.02 2.25 Tennessee Tech Dusty Eubanks 3.02 5.00 Southwest Missouri State Bob Zimmermann 3.07 4.25 North Carolina-Greensboro Scooter Michael 3.09 3.49 Virginia Commonwealth Justin Orenduff 3.10 2.27 Quinnipiac Buddy Bengel 3.13 2.66 Virginia Commonwealth Michael Leishman 3.14 2.66 Marist Chris Tracz 3.14 3.19 Team Pitcher DERA ERA Houston Ryan Wagner 0.47 1.93 William and Mary Bill Bray 1.48 1.95 Washington Will Fenton 1.49 0.00 Wichita State Noah Booth 1.77 2.41 Clemson Paul Harrelson 2.05 3.31 Utah Martinez 2.08 3.02 Marist Chris Homer 2.09 1.32 Notre Dame Tyler Jones 2.12 5.27 Notre Dame Ryan Doherty 2.13 2.20 Tennessee Joey Andrews 2.16 4.46 Cal State Fullerton Chad Cordero 2.26 1.58 Elon Adam Acosta 2.28 4.50 Cal State Fullerton Sean Martin 2.29 2.84 Notre Dame Ryan Doherty 2.39 2.55 Georgia Southern Steve Cogswell 2.43 1.51 Florida State Kevin Lynch 2.47 2.59 George Mason Mike Puckli 2.49 3.95 UC Irvine Steve Schroer 2.55 2.17 Virginia Commonwealth Cla Meredith 2.57 1.19 Northwestern Jon Mikrut 2.58 2.81 Baylor Zane Carlson 2.60 2.61 Minnesota Jeff Moen 2.63 1.42 Arkansas-Little Rock Travis Trammell 2.66 3.08 Notre Dame Brandon Viloria 2.66 1.57
Now, the fact that Lewis had the same DERA and ERA with this formula is one of those things so freaky that it made me lose half a day checking the math; as far as I can tell, it's just a bizarre oddity. He's good, either way, and apparently he's almost devoid of luck, either good or bad, and OSU has a normal defense (or things balanced out, whatever). Ryan Wagner is a good example of how bad ERA is for measuring relievers; he was absolutely obscenely good last year -- almost two strikeouts an inning against one walk every four innings and exactly one home run all year. Then remember that these aren't competition-adjusted, and Houston played a top 10 schedule.
No matter what it looks like, I can't manufacture information out of thin air. The NCAA ERA leader last year was Furman's Tom Mastny, who had a stunning 1.09 ERA. Unfortunately, I have no idea how many home runs he gave up, because it wasn't in the team stat report, so I can't include him here. His strikeout rate was good, his walk rate was great, and he wasn't prone to giving up the long ball in 2002, so I suspect he'd look good here, but I can't say for sure.
Jeff Niemann's DERA points out one basic truth that has to be accounted for in prospect analysis -- it's a lot easier to pitch in front of Rice's defense than it is in front of, say, Tennessee Tech's. Relative to their competition level, Niemann had the same basic success as Dusty Eubanks (competition changes that, of course), but having good D behind you will cover the few mistakes a pitcher of his quality makes a lot of the time.
Guys to Watch
Now, the part that really interests me. Here's a handful of guys who are in school again this year and who did the parts they had control over well but put up bad numbers because of bad luck and/or bad defense behind them. Defense doesn't tend to even out, but luck does, so some of these guys could be worth watching, either for success this year or for talent that might be worth trying in a different context:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA Fairfield Pablo Tamayo 4.16 10.64 Norfolk State Andrew Renshaw 3.78 8.71 Santa Clara John Redmond 4.46 7.63 Quinnipiac Dave Bennett 3.31 6.34 Southeastern Louisiana Jeremy Mizell 4.26 7.06 Villanova Nick Allen 4.40 7.15 Central Michigan Ryan Cremeans 4.32 6.99 Duke Russell Durfee 4.35 6.85 California Kyle Crist 3.74 6.02
Pitch Count Watch
Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.
| Date | Team | Pitcher | Opponent | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | AB | BF | Pitches | ||||||||||||
| Feb 15 | Texas A&M-Corpus Christi | Trey Hearne | Texas A&M | 7.1 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 33 | 38 | 125 | ||||||||||||
| Feb 20 | Arizona | Koley Kolberg | UC Irvine | 9.0 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 37 | 38 | 123 | ||||||||||||
| Feb 22 | Northern Illinois | Zach Minor | Texas Tech | 6.2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 24 | 29 | 128 | ||||||||||||
| Feb 22 | West Virginia | Ryan Lipscomb | The Citadel | 5.0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 17 | 26 | 124 | ||||||||||||
| Feb 22 | California | Adam Gold | Fresno State | 9.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 26 | 34 | 130 | ||||||||||||
| Feb 22 | Arizona State | Jason Urquidez | Rice | 9.0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 30 | 32 | 139 | ||||||||||||
| Feb 26 | Texas-Arlington | Michael Gardner | Dallas Baptist | 8.0 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 26 | 30 | 127 |
The Hearne pitch count is a correction based on an actual count sent in by a reader.
(*) Pitch count is estimated.
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| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> DERA Report for 2003 | About the author, Boyd Nation |