The Most Important Stats for Starting Pitchers
Let’s get this lesson started with some key pitching statistics that you need to get acclimated with if you want to begin and sustain MLB DFS success. I’ll be breaking down some key statistics that will go a long way in helping you improve your process of selecting starting pitchers for your MLB DFS contests, as well as providing examples of each statistic.
FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) gives an accurate assessment of a pitcher’s success, because it removes defense from the equation. The full formula for it can be found on FanGraphs, but I’ll break it down for you here. The purpose of FIP is to focus on everything that the pitcher can control, such as strikeouts, walks, home runs, and HBP (hit by pitch). It removes defense (or lack thereof) completely, in order to give a more accurate assessment of a pitcher’s performance. When you remove the potential for errors, bad decision-making, and just sheer luck from batted balls, you can see a truer indication of a pitcher’s success.
Here’s an example: Last season, Hector Santiago finished 34th among qualified starting pitchers in ERA (3.59), yet was 76th out of 78 with a 4.77 FIP. In the past, a 3.59 ERA looks like a solid middle-of-the-rotation number, but when you take into account what we know now, only Rubby de la Rosa (4.81) and Aaron Harang (4.83) had worse FIP numbers among qualified starting pitchers. Utilizing advanced statistics such as FIP can go a long way toward determining which pitchers you want to target and which pitchers’ numbers are misleading by surface statistics.
To read the rest of this lesson, you must purchase the course!
