Pitcher Statistics

First of all, I enjoy reading about your exploits in Korea and Japan. I just got a new camera (Nikon D60) for Christmas and hope to one day be able to take a shot that can be entered in a photo contest (even with little hope of winning).

Nonetheless, this is not an easy question to answer. But the question on the significance of ERA can with some simple high school statistics. Isn't there a rule that the greater the denominator (innings pitched for pitchers), the more accurate the result? For that reason, pitchers require a minimum of 3.1 innings pitched times (X) the number of games his team has played in order to qualify for a pitching title. Over a 144 game season, that comes to a minimum of 446 1/3 (rounding to the nearest third) innings. In baseball, any pitcher who threw less than that is statistically irrelevant with regard to ERA.

To compare pitchers with varying degrees of innings, though, there are a number of other stats that do a better job. Hits per 9 innings (H9 or H/9) is a good one, as it gives an idea of how many hits a pitcher gives up per game - if he were to throw a complete game every time out on the mound. If the ratio of HR/9 is close to H/9, then you know you have trouble (see BayStars pitchers). Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP) is another very good one.

Tom Tango (aka Tangotiger) wrote "The Book" on baseball stats. He basically expanded on what Bill James (the founder of SABR - the Society for American Baseball Research) had done, which really started the whole statistical analysis of baseball boom. Tango can explain all of this much better than I can.

Thanks for your reply! That's very useful stuff. Here is a list of Japanese stats I have translated. For me the problem is as much the English as the Japanese - any incorrect terminology please correct. From what you've said the useful stats would be [garbled] and [garbled], right? Hope others find this list useful - if so I'll do the batting stats, too. The ones I don't understand are in bold - especially the last two, which I really don't get!

登板 - Number of Games
完投 - Pitching The Whole Game
無点勝 - No Score Victory
無四球 - No Four Balls
勝利 - Victories
敗北 - Defeats
セーブ - Saves
勝率 - Winning %
被打数 - Opposition Time At Bad (?)
球数 - Number of Pitches? Total? Really?
被安打 - Number of Hits The Opposition Get
被本塁打 - Number of Home Runs The Opposition Get
四球 - Four Balls
死球 - Dead Balls
三振 - Strike Outs
失
点 - Run Charged To The Pitcher?
自責点 - An Earned Run?

PS: Glad you still check the blog. The D60 is a good choice! I'm thinking about upgrading to a D90 in the near future.

A good place to start for baseball stat terminology would be the Baseball Statistics Wikipedia page. It explains the commonly used abbreviations and how to calculate some of the formulas. Here are the pitching ones:

登板 - G: Games
完投 - CG: Complete Games
無点勝 - SHO: SHut Outs (sometimes SO - victory is assumed)
無四球 - NoBBCG: Complete game not allowing any walks (Japan-only stat?)
勝利 - W: Wins
敗北 - L: Losses
セーブ - SV: Saves (sometimes just S)
勝率 - W%: Winning Percentage
被打数 - OAB: Opposition At Bats (sometimes just AB)
球数 - PIT: Pitches Thrown
被安打 - OH: Hits by Opposition (sometimes just H)
被本塁打 - OHR: Home Runs hit by Opposition (sometimes just HR)
四球 - BB: Bases on Balls/Walks (W on Project Scoresheet)
死球 - HB: Hit Batsmen (sometimes HBP)
三振 - K: Strike Outs (sometimes SO which gets confused with SHO)
失点 - R: Total Runs allowed (earned and unearned)
自責点 - ER: Earned Runs allowed

Unfortunately, not all of the English abbreviations are used consistently. But these are the most commonly used ones.

Hope this helps.

- 無点勝

I don't know where the OP found this, but the more popular term is 完封, which does not necessarily mean a win record.

- 無四球 - NoBBCG: Complete game not allowing any walks (Japan-only stat?)

This stat isn't popular in Japan either. It's not that useful in this day and age because it's so rare.

- 被打数

Should be 被打率.

I agree, 完封 is used more often than 無点勝. But this was coming from the Tigers' web site which used it (TBS Radio uses it, too).

And there were 25 pitchers who threw complete games without allowing a single walk in 2008:

+-------------+------+------+
| Name        | Team | NoBB |
+-------------+------+------+
| Sugiuchi    | SFT  |    4 | 
| Iwakuma     | RAK  |    3 | 
| Shimizu     | LOT  |    2 | 
| Darvish     | NIP  |    2 | 
| Yamamoto    | ORX  |    2 | 
| Ohba        | SFT  |    2 | 
| Ohtonari    | SFT  |    2 | 
| Wada        | SFT  |    2 | 
| Ishikawa    | YAK  |    2 | 
| Utsumi      | YOM  |    2 | 
| Chen        | CHU  |    1 | 
| M. Yamamoto | CHU  |    1 | 
| Andoh       | HAN  |    1 | 
| Iwata       | HAN  |    1 | 
| Shimoyanagi | HAN  |    1 | 
| K. Maeda    | HIR  |    1 | 
| Lewis       | HIR  |    1 | 
| Karakawa    | LOT  |    1 | 
| S. Watanabe | LOT  |    1 | 
| Nagai       | RAK  |    1 | 
| Tanaka      | RAK  |    1 | 
| Wakui       | SEI  |    1 | 
| Douglass    | YAK  |    1 | 
| Kobayashi   | YOK  |    1 | 
| Miura       | YOK  |    1 | 
+-------------+------+------+

Does anyone notice the quality of pitchers who top this list? NoBB is a very good indicator of good pitchers.

Another one I like to guage pitchers by is OBA, or Opponent's Batting Average. Pitchers with high OBA usually also have high WHIP, and that means they're allowing runners on base. You'd like to have your OBA, WHIP, and BB/9 as low as possible because that is a way you can at least get a sense of how often the opponents get on base, which can translate into a high ERA, unless you have a pitcher who is amazing at getting out of jams.

For pitchers, I like:

k/9ip
k:bb ratio
groundball:flyball ratio

I like WHIP, but it is a little misleading as it doesn't take total bases into account. Total bases / innings pitched would be a good stat.

I think the save is kind of a garbage stat. For relievers, I like to see how many inherited runners they allow to score.

Anyone who can provide an accurate translation of Japanese baseball stats to English I'd be most appreciative! Michael, I ordered "The Book" used off Amazon - looks like good reading for a rookie like myself.