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Breakout Candidates -- The DERA Report for 2005
Publication Date: January 3, 2006
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. The 2003 report contains the formula that I'm using and links further back to introductory material.
As a way of establishing my bona fides, I always like to look back at last year's list of candidates for improvement (which is one of the reasons why DERA is so interesting) and see how they did. Here's last year's list, with 2005 ERA added in:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA 2005 Air Force Paul Vignola 6.93 11.87 13.29 St. Joseph's Al Braun 4.68 8.50 4.20 Kentucky Craig Snipp 4.46 7.62 5.29 Murray State Billy Fares 4.23 6.97 4.67 Old Dominion Andrew Bucher 4.45 7.12 9.72 James Madison Brian Leatherwood 5.16 7.73 7.58 Mount St. Mary's Steve Stone 3.53 6.05 7.50 High Point Josh Cotten 6.33 8.73 6.75 Hofstra David Huth 6.35 8.66 6.88 Nevada-Las Vegas Matt Luca 3.71 5.99 4.94
These results aren't quite as encouraging as last year's. Braun and Fares can be called good calls, and seven of the ten improved their ERA from 2004, but the pattern isn't quite as clear as I'd like. One of these days, I need to run a study comparing the correlations between year-to-year ERA and DERA to next year ERA, to have more definitive proof on the matter.
Leader Board
The full reports for starters and relievers are online now; here are the top 25 for each group:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA Massachusetts Matt Torra 1.65 1.14 Louisiana-Monroe Matt Green 1.97 2.65 Texas Christian Lance Broadway 2.14 1.62 UC Davis Dave McKae 2.22 2.43 Yale Josh Sowers 2.27 2.10 Boston College Joe Martinez 2.56 2.63 Winthrop Kevin Slowey 2.58 2.26 Southern California Ian Kennedy 2.60 2.54 Wichita State Mike Pelfrey 2.64 1.93 Arizona Kevin Guyette 2.66 3.73 Sacred Heart Chris Aldrich 2.70 2.69 Miami, Florida Cesar Carrillo 2.71 2.22 Army Nick Hill 2.74 1.21 Long Beach State Cesar Ramos 2.77 2.64 Cal State Fullerton Wes Roemer 2.78 3.80 Rice Eddie Degerman 2.81 3.28 Missouri Max Scherzer 2.81 1.86 Lehigh Kyle Collina 2.86 4.27 Pittsburgh Billy Muldowney 2.87 2.47 Yale Alec Smith 2.88 3.12 Sacred Heart Jay Monti 2.88 2.20 Tulane Micah Owings 2.88 3.26 Boston College Nate Jeanes 2.89 2.48 St. John's Anthony Varvaro 2.89 2.32 McNeese State Jacob Marceaux 2.91 3.05 Team Pitcher DERA ERA Wichita State Damon Sublett 1.14 0.00 Elon Brian Ebert 1.61 2.35 Cal Poly Casey Fien 1.68 4.32 Georgia Joshua Fields 1.70 7.00 Georgia Rip Warren 1.84 4.18 Northeastern Tim Bush 1.95 3.46 Hawaii Steven Wright 1.99 3.26 George Washington Joel Brookens 2.04 2.53 Houston Justin Vaclavik 2.08 3.21 St. John's Craig Hansen 2.09 1.68 Central Florida Dominic Petracca 2.11 3.00 Northern Iowa Bryan Westphal 2.14 4.45 Southwest Missouri State Chris Krawczyk 2.24 2.59 Ball State Kyle Heyne 2.25 2.59 Minnesota John Gaub 2.25 2.08 Minnesota Gary Perinar 2.30 2.70 Long Beach State Neil Jamison 2.31 0.00 Army Dan Pluff 2.31 1.33 College of Charleston Brett Harker 2.33 2.47 Louisiana-Lafayette Ian Pecoraro 2.34 0.95 Pacific Josh Schmidt 2.38 1.79 George Mason Jason Mills 2.45 3.25 Virginia Sean Doolittle 2.47 1.64 Wichita State Noah Booth 2.47 2.13 South Alabama Justin Rayborn 2.49 4.11
Again, none of this is competition- or park-adjusted, so make your own mental adjustments there. No huge surprises here, other than my surprise at how little buzz Josh Sowers generated -- between those bloodlines and those numbers, you'd think he'd get a bit more attention.
Guys to Watch
Here are the guys with the biggest gaps between their ERA and their DERA who should be returning this year -- this is the top ten plus anybody in the top 25 who had a DERA under 5.00:
Team Pitcher DERA ERA Fairfield Steve Tyburski 5.92 10.67 St. Peter's Grevin Rodriguez 7.13 11.41 Lafayette Brian Cope 7.27 11.54 Canisius Jordan Neufeld 9.10 12.91 St. Peter's Santo Maertz 5.25 9.00 Lafayette Tom Phelan 3.32 6.91 Wake Forest Matt Hammond 7.14 10.69 New Mexico Darren Coltrinari 4.96 8.50 Coppin State Matt Bellon 5.24 8.71 Air Force Paul Pratt 6.26 9.62 Cal State Northridge Craig Baker 4.82 7.88 Davidson Matt Meade 3.69 6.52
Now, bear in mind that I'm not predicting that any of these guys are going to go under 2.00 in ERA this year. What I'm saying is that, if you're coaching them and trying to figure out their place this year in your plans, you might want to factor in a bit of bad luck or bad defense that they had last year into your thinking. If that still only gets you to an ERA of 7, you can pull the plug, but 4.50 is worth quite a bit these days.
R. I. P., Coach
We lost one of the giants of the game this week when retired Southern California coach Rod Dedeaux passed away on Thursday. More information on Dedeaux, who won eleven national championships, and his family is available on the Trojan web site.
If you're interested in reprinting this or any other Boyd's World material for your publication or Web site, please read the reprint policy and contact me
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