Starting Pitchers on Game Day

For the Central League, the pitchers aren't officially announced until just before the game.

The Japanese sports dailies (paper versions - not on-line) list probable starters, and they're accurate more often than not. But that doesn't appear to be an option.

The only manager left who likes playing childish games with the starting pitcher appears to be Hara-kantoku of the Giants.

If you're willing to volunteer to maintain it, I'll set up a page for tracking starting pitchers. You'll just need to check the box scores daily and update the chart.

What say you?

Hi westbaystars,

Sorry I haven't been on the forums for a few days, personal business that had to be taken care of.

I'd like to give it a try, sure. But before I commit to it, could I see a sample of what you plan to put up?

If it's just updating the win-loss daily, that wouldn't be a problem. But if you'd want me to go through the box scores to fill out the complete pitching stats that you show for individual pitchers, like this:

    BA RISP Gs ABs RS Hs 2Bs 3Bs HRs TBs RBIs SBs SH SF BBs HBPs Ks DPs Es OBP Slug 
1 Aoki (TYS)  .3488 .338 102 407 83 142 19 2 18 219 46 12 1 1 53 3 49 4 0 .427 .538 

That would probably be too much for me to reliably handle.

I'm very interested. Give me a more precise idea of what you'd want me to do.

Thanks!

No, no. Nothing anywhere that complicated. Just enter the starting pitchers on a daily basis into a spreadsheet.

Here is the general viewing page for the Starting Pitchers. You, Beethoven-san, have edit permission, so you can click on the link in the lower right-hand corner of the spreadsheet and edit it with your Google Docs account.

I've entered all of the August pitchers for the Central League up to this point, and probable starters for today (August 21).

If you don't feel like doing the Pacific League, don't worry about it. This is an all-volunteer effort. If you're not having fun tracking the pitchers, then it's probably best not to. And you sound like a Central League kind of guy. (Just so you know, though, I didn't pay any attention to the Pacific League until after I started writing about NPB - and it gave me a whole new appreciation of the game.)

You're free to redesign the spreadsheet or enter more information, such as including decisions. It's also possible to right-click ([CTRL]-click on Macs) in the cells and enter comments. For example, if you read that a pitcher is sent to ni-gun after an awful performance, that'd made an excellent comment on that pitcher's entry.

If you need any further assistance, you know how to contact me off-forum.

Enjoy the new toy.

Heh. I'm having fun alright. It's keeping me up half the night! LOL.

I sent you an e-mail.

*Yawn* Good Night! 3:54 a.m.

Okay, the Pacific League Starting Pitchers is now also complete.

A couple of explanations may be helpful. First of all, you'll see "W" and "L" after the starters' names.

W = Win

L = Loss

In several cases, the official win or loss went to closers or bullpen pitchers who pitched far fewer innings than the starters. If the starter pitched more innings, I'm crediting the starter with a win or a loss, but if you look at the footnotes below, you'll see who was officially credited. Going to the actual box score will show you the innings pitched and when the runs were made, and so on.

In some cases, I wasn't sure that the starter stayed out long enough compared to other pitchers to earn either a win or a loss. In those cases, I have no "W" or "L" after the name. But in most of those, you'll have commentary on who got the win or loss credit.

I'll appreciate it if some of these can be double-checked. I worked through the night on these, and I was getting tired. I did my best and I hope there's not too many mistakes.

7:28 a.m. Cock-A-Doodle-Do! Time for breakfast or bed. I'll flip a coin.

If you've read my previous post on this thread, please ignore it. I've changed the win and loss descriptions to exactly match what is shown in the Box Scores.

There's either a "W" or an "L" after the starting pitcher's name if he is credited with either a Win ("W") or a Loss ("L") in the Box Score.

If there is no letter after the name, someone else is credited with the win or the loss. In many cases I will have a commentary showing which pitcher other than the starter was credited with the win or the loss. To find the details for those pitchers performances, you still have to refer to the Box Scores.

But our notations are now completely compatible with the Box Scores.

I've added more information to the Starters pages. The teams are now color-coded. There's a dual purpose to that.

First, you can see what team the starting pitcher was playing against. That should make it easier to assess how various starting pitchers fare against certain opposing teams.

It will also hopefully show at-a-glance which teams were playing against each other, and how the teams did against each other in any given series.

In addition to the capital "W" for starter's win and "L" for starter's loss, I've now added a lower-case "w" where the starter's team won with another pitcher getting the credit (see the commentary on those) and a lower-case "l" where another pitcher (not the starter) was responsible for the loss.

Among other things, the "w" and "l" together with the color coding should help give you an at-a-glance look at how a series went for each of the teams and their starters playing against each other.

The colors are a little strong for the Central League Teams. I apologize for that. I have a very limited color palette to work with. I wanted to have different colors for each team, so far as possible, regardless of league. That way, we may be able to do a Starter Chart for the inter-league series as well. I thought it would help if one league's colors were stronger, primary colors, and the other league's colors were lighter, pastel shades, to show up the different leagues in an inter-league series. That was the idea, anyway.

Does all of this seem okay to you?

Please let me know what you like, or dislike, and any additions, deletions, or other changes you'd like to see, won't you?

Although it's growing fast with new games, there's still time to make changes.

All the best,

Beethoven

Good evening Yakyu-sans,

I've added new abbreviations for home and away games. "h" for home, "a" for away.

Don't let the background colors confuse you here. They only show which team the starter was pitching against. Go by the team columns, as for everything else. If there's an "h" after the starter's name, he was pitching at home. If there's an "a" after his name, he was pitching in an away game.

This might be a good time to review the abbreviations:

• W = Win - Starting pitcher
• L = Loss - Starting pitcher
• w = Team Win - another pitcher gets the Win
• l = Team Loss - another pitcher held for the Loss
• h = Starting pitcher and his team played at home
• a - Starting pitcher and his team played away from home

Good Morning Yakyu-sans!

In an effort to give the Starting Pitchers pages a less cluttered look, I have eliminated the "h" and "a".

Instead, the starters will be shown in bold when playing at home, and in normal type when playing away.

Please send some feedback, okay? We aim to please.