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DERA Watch
Publication Date: January 4, 2005
The Opening Look Back
It's time for this year's look at Defense-Independent ERA, or DERA, an attempt to look at pitching performance independently of the factors of defense and luck that can distort a pitcher's record. Last year's report contains the formula that I'm using and links further back to introductory material.
Before I get into the overall picture for 2004, though, I want to see if one of my reasons for doing this paid off. The reason that I started last year delaying this report until the beginning of the next season is that I thought it might be useful in identifying pitchers who might have their results improve dramatically during the season. The following chart contains the pitchers that I identified as likely to break out, with another column added for their 2004 ERA:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA 2004 Fairfield Pablo Tamayo 4.16 10.64 4.87 Norfolk State Andrew Renshaw 3.78 8.71 4.35 Santa Clara John Redmond 4.46 7.63 6.08 Quinnipiac Dave Bennett 3.31 6.34 5.50 Southeastern Louisiana Jeremy Mizell 4.26 7.06 5.43 Villanova Nick Allen 4.40 7.15 4.55 Central Michigan Ryan Cremeans 4.32 6.99 4.30 Duke Russell Durfee 4.35 6.85 15.43 California Kyle Crist 3.74 6.02 5.73
These are obviously encouraging results. Only Cremeans got his 2004 ERA to be better than his 2003 DERA, but everyone but Durfee improved (Durfee threw only 4 innings last year, all in relief), and half of them improved considerably.
Leader Board
The full reports for starters and relievers are online now; here are the top 25 for each group:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA Long Beach State Jered Weaver 1.60 1.62 Wichita State Mike Pelfrey 2.29 2.18 Illinois-Chicago Ryan Zink 2.44 2.07 Northeastern Jordan Thomson 2.58 2.13 North Carolina A&T Michael Hauff 2.61 3.30 Virginia Commonwealth Justin Orenduff 2.65 2.43 Southern California Ian Kennedy 2.66 2.91 Nebraska Justin Pekarek 2.70 3.16 Rice Philip Humber 2.76 2.27 Stony Brook Jon Lewis 2.81 3.06 Fairfield Tim Dugan 2.83 3.56 Cal State Fullerton Jason Windsor 2.86 1.72 Fairleigh Dickinson Jesse Anziano 2.89 3.89 Mount St. Mary's Dustin Pease 2.89 3.19 Memphis Jarrett Grube 2.90 2.82 Virginia Andrew Dobies 2.93 3.41 Minnesota Glen Perkins 2.93 2.83 Central Florida Matt Fox 2.93 1.85 South Carolina Matt Campbell 2.94 3.05 Texas A&M Zach Jackson 2.95 3.58 Gardner-Webb Zach Ward 2.95 3.16 Princeton Ross Ohlendorf 3.01 3.46 Mercer J. R Mathes 3.04 3.64 Winthrop Kevin Slowey 3.06 3.23 Team Pitcher DERA ERA Army Milan Dinga 1.55 3.86 Auburn Chris Dennis 1.71 2.61 Wichita State Tommy Hottovy 1.79 2.25 Southern Mississippi Austin Tubb 1.84 0.93 Kent State Ryan Davis 1.95 6.43 Brigham Young Kalen Parsons 2.00 6.10 Princeton Brian Kappel 2.10 3.19 Miami, Florida Andrew Lane 2.13 2.84 Virginia Commonwealth Cla Meredith 2.15 2.55 Nebraska Mike Sillman 2.19 2.86 Notre Dame Ryan Doherty 2.26 2.38 North Carolina Michael Gross 2.30 2.24 Southeast Missouri State Brad Smith 2.33 2.48 William and Mary Bill Bray 2.37 2.44 Winthrop Jon Wilson 2.42 1.88 San Diego State Ryan Schroyer 2.46 2.85 Santa Clara Anthony Rea 2.47 1.68 Mississippi State Saunders Ramsey 2.52 3.50 Wichita State Danny Jackson 2.52 0.00 South Carolina Chad Blackwell 2.56 2.57 Troy State Nate Moore 2.57 1.25 Birmingham-Southern Connor Robertson 2.60 2.37 Texas A&M Kevin Whelan 2.61 4.15 Old Dominion Jason Godin 2.62 5.87 Brigham Young J. D Stambaugh 2.65 5.46
None of this is competition- or park-adjusted, so make your own mental adjustments there (the whole question of how to adjust pitching stats is one I've got to work on this year; the hard part is identifying where a pitcher makes his starts).
Guys to Watch
Since last year's crop did so well, I'm excited about this list, then. Here are the guys with the biggest gaps between their ERA and their DERA who should be returning this year:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA Air Force Paul Vignola 6.93 11.87 St. Joseph's Al Braun 4.68 8.50 Kentucky Craig Snipp 4.46 7.62 Murray State Billy Fares 4.23 6.97 Old Dominion Andrew Bucher 4.45 7.12 James Madison Brian Leatherwood 5.16 7.73 Mount St. Mary's Steve Stone 3.53 6.05 High Point Josh Cotten 6.33 8.73 Hofstra David Huth 6.35 8.66 Nevada-Las Vegas Matt Luca 3.71 5.99
Again, there's no reason to expect any of these guys to be All-World this year (although Stone and Luca were both good enough to have a chance), but given the value of an average pitcher to eat innings, they're all worth a shot. On the flip side, they'll both still be decent, but I wouldn't pick up Birmingham-Southern's Mac Godwin (5.95 DERA/3.03 ERA) or Lamar's Derrick Gordon (4.49/1.92) for your fantasy team just yet.
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