Edinson Volquez.
Show of hands, how many people read that in the movie trailer guy's voice?
In any case:
Through his 9 starts this year, Edinson Volquez has thrown 53 1/3 innings and allowed 18 earned runs (21 total), at least according to Baseball-reference.com. MLB.com says that in the same time he’s allowed 20 earned runs and 21 runs total. Let's stick with BR for now, since they have ERA+ calculated already. Normally his ERA (3.04) would equate to an ERA+ of 123. His ERA+ pitching in Petco? 115. Still a decent number, but enough difference to notice. He’s really pitching 8% worse than it looks because of Petco.
And that brings us to the diatribe for today. That ERA is on its way up. His FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, which uses the things a pitcher can control the most, K’s BB’s and HR’s, to estimate what his ERA should be) is 3.37, and his xFIP (FIP calculated with league average HR rates) is 3.83. Once he makes a few more road starts and is outside of Petco, those HR rates (0.51 this year, 1.01 career) will start to normalize. When that happens, he’ll give up more runs.
It’s amazing me that his ERA is as low as it is, since his K/9 is roughly the same as his career and his BB/9 is also roughly the same. Big difference is his BABIP (Batting Average On Balls In Play-measures the frequency of hits that remain in the park and stays pretty constant over a career) is about 30 points lower than usual. I don’t know if he’s getting better defense (Cinnci usually had some good defenders) now in San Diego so I think that his BABIP is going to return to normal which will also cause him to give up more runs because he’ll be giving up more hits. That WHIP is still mediocre (1.31) and again is causing me to really think that he’ll be coming down to Earth real soon. I’d be surprised if he’s still pitching this “well” by the All-Star Break.
If he doesn't, Foment will pay everyone here $150.
I don't know how I should take to the notion that you're volunteering money to our readers on my behalf.
ReplyDeleteI can agree Volquez has isn't necessarily going to continue to look dominant in spite of his peripherals, but stranger things have happened. That said, your Cards, and a stat correction on Baseball-Reference have brought his ERA up to a 3.49 and left his ERA+ at an "As average as it gets" 100 even.
With any luck I'll be looking through the NL West very soon so I'll try to paint a realistic picture of Volquez then.
Never mind someone as superflous as Volquez. Do you think stanton has earned his way to ALL-star derby?
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Oh hellz yeah. Dude hits the ball hard and far. The Home Run Derby is supposed to be fun, and him swinging there would be awesome.
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