Stats Couldn’t Decide if This Player Was Good
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ก.พ. 2022
- Creator: Mike
Twitter: / srsmike
TH-cam: / srsmike
Stats are often how people decide what players are good. But, what if the stats can't give you a good enough idea? Meet the player who stumps analytics.
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Elmer was a pitching coach for Cincinnati minor leagues after his playing days and he was heavily focused on teaching us to learn to throw to hitters weakness by reading body language, stances and reading the situation to force a play in the field he was a really good coach
In other words, Elmer could teach the team how to pitch in the band box known as GABP.
It’s interesting how some of the best coaches ever were very mediocre or poor professional ball players. They understood the game well, even if they weren’t the best or physically gifted at playing the game.
No he wasn't
I just checked Dessens' Goose Egg stats that year from Nate Silver. A Goose Egg is a counting stat for relievers like the save, but instead of only caring about closers it rewards relievers for throwing a scoreless inning in the 7th or later while his team is tied or up by at most two runs. It's a shame this stat never caught on. In 2010, Elmer Dessens recorded 11 Goose Eggs against only 1 "Broken" Egg. Comparing him to other relievers that season, this stat seems to think he was elite! I would've signed Elmer if I was a team's GM in 2011.
Thats a lot of words
@@sturgman9478 ya
Salary considerations for a veteran are always a factor.
Where do you check goose egg statistics for a player?
Wow this is important and changes my perception. He did have high leverage situations and executed. Wow.
10:05 Respect for using Poofesure
Modern stats undervalue high-contact, low-strikeout guys. It's why every pitcher throws 117 mph and hitters strike out 300 times a year. Analytics can be stupid.
I remember Elmer Dessens because he was one of those Reds pitchers who always seemed to dominate the Cubs. The Cubs could come off a three-game sweep where they slapped around Johnson and Schilling then go into Cincinnati and get worked by Elmer Dessens and Chris Reitsma.
Also stupid is how these same pitchers can have incredible"skill" inducing weak contact for a low BABIP one year, then all of a sudden they lose that "skill" the next year...
@@pullt I suspect the entire difference could be accounted for in a new stat, Exit Velo Against. (This could already be a thing, but I've never seen it before, which is weird because all that data should be available.)
Exhibit A: Zach Davies. 2.73 ERA / 3.88 FIP / 1.067 WHIP in the shortened 2020 season, 5.78/5.45/1.601 in 2021. Oof.
@@qfmarsh64 Exhibit A just looks like bad traditional stats matched with bad newer metrics and good traditional stats matched with good metrics
But *d wager any ExVA (Exit Velocity Allowed) stat we came up with would have a similar phenomena to BABIP where a guys "skill" comes and goes year to year.
@@pullt Yes, but I suspect he was getting barrelled more in '21. A lot more.
When Aroldis Chapman misses his spot, it's still 105. When control guys miss their spot, they're serving up BP.
Hundreds of MLB pitchers over 150 years got by with intelligence, late movement, reading the batter, changing speeds and pitching to contact. Elmer was the last of a dying breed. Unfortunately, pitchers who don’t throw 95 barely get drafted anymore
It don’t matter how you do it. Even if it isn’t sexy. He did get lucky, but at the end of the day he didnt give up runs. He succeeded at his one job, providing value to his team. Great season
Unsustainable though
Like just for that Chief Keef reference
4:43
Chief Queef
@@GeeEm1313 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣
Facts just subscribe to him for that lmao
1.0 bWAR and -0.3 fWAR?!?!?! The stats have betrayed us!
Fwar is usually better especially with catchers due to better defensive statistics. I don’t know which is better for pitching though
Andrelton Simmons had 1.5 bWar and -0.5 fWar just this year.
pretty sure its because fangraphs uses fip and b ref. uses ra9
Fwar uses fip exclusively, which isn't very good at times because it will reward bad strikeout pitchers cause their strikeouts lower the fip while also hurting pitch to soft contact guys who don't strike a lot of guys out. A great control artist will usually overperform their fip and bad pitchers with elite k/9 can be expected to underperform theirs. It's why I don't really like fip. 2.50 era 5.5k/9 will probably give less war than 4.40 era 11.50k/9
I'm sure the A's, Rays, Braves and Cards have someone in their front office that focuses on these stats
You know who this reminds me of...2015-2016 Jared Hughes!
He would have an ERA between 2.30 to 3.00 throughout those two years and then at the end of Spring training 2017 the Pirates just chose to straight up cut him.
Why would they cut a valuable piece of their bullpen who has a low ERA? He would always get himself into jams with runners on the base paths, and then the guy right after him would usually just come in and bail him out of that mess.
Because Hughes always ran to the mound like he was in the Special Olympics, and pitched with his mouth open - no hate just facts.
Regardless, i never try to make sense out of Pirate personnel decisions.
I would imagine they felt it was luck and not skill based on some of his other numbers, eventually they were worried the bill would come due...although they were a few years early on that I guess.
You should make a video about the career of Matt Carpenter! His career is interesting from being a contact hitter early to almost hitting 40 home runs and then finally his quick descent to not being good anymore
^^^
Agree, as a Cardinal fan I love ole Matt. Apparently he’s changed his swing a little bit this off-season so who knows maybe he makes a lil come back next year
He, in fact, did make a lil comeback this year.
@@Fantasyremix he was a huge reason i won my fantasy playoffs - never bet against the mustache
Looking at his career stats because I'm very unfamiliar with this guy, I was surprised he appeared in 28 games in 2009 without picking up either a win or a loss
Wonder how many other players have done that
Look up this pitcher Scott Aldred
On the 1998 expansion Devil Rays he pitched in 48 games and had an ERA of 3.73
His record that year: 0-0
And I believe he holds the MLB record for most games without a single decision in a season
@@JWex-jy7sk just found a page about it and Trever Miller broke the record in 2007 with 75!
There's actually a surprising number of players with more appearances than Dessens without a recorded decision
Edit: Miller actually went 121 games without picking up a win or a loss before recording a win in August 2008
@@Karmy. Dang! Imagine going two years on an MLB team without a decision and then when it finally ends you get hit with an L
@@Karmy. Well okay, let's think about Trevor Miller's role. In those 76 appearances he only had 46 innings pitched. He only had 211 batters faced. If he's in there to face 2 or 3 guys and then leave, often in the same inning he came in, there's very little chance for a lead change to occur while he's pitching and therefore won't get a decision.
The record isn't that impressive or unusual when the player's role is directly conducive to that activity taking place.
For the WAR differences. FanGraphs uses FIP (expected) in its calculation for pitcher's WAR. Baseball Reference uses ERA (results) in its calculation. That's why he's both a negative/positive value player according to these sites, respectively.
Nice breakdown of just how lucky and overall weird his season was, and why context matters! Long live that scwewy Elmer!
Elmer Dessens oh my thats a name I forgot about, my Mets PTSD kicking in lol. Great content as always
Kinda tired of hearing pitcher that pitch to contact being called lucky, im gonna start saying strikeout pitchers are lucky cause 70% of the leagues doesn't care about making contact unless it goes over a fence
"Strikeout pitchers are lucky because it's all luck as to whether or not a guy swings and misses"
Excellent video! I really enjoyed. Believe it or not, I actually have heard of Elmer Dessens thanks to MLB 2k11 on my Wii. Keep up the good work!
5:00 that was one of the smoothest fastballs I’ve ever seen.
I feel FIP doesn't capture outlier pitchers like him very well. His main skill is limiting hard contact, which FIP puts zero weight on. I would have been interested to see his hard hit % or avg exit velo. That's probably the best way to judge someone who excels at limiting contact. I bet his soft % was like 30 % and hard hit being super low, if these are true I would classify him as a good pitcher for that season at least
I do remember a few outliers from older times. One pitcher on the 1919 champion Reds, Slim Sallee, won 21 games but only had 24 Ks. I think his K per 9 rate was only 0.91.
On the flip side he only walked 20, and i remember reading up on their manager, Pat Moran, who was evidently one of the more defensive minded managers ever.
Ted Lyons made the Hall of Fame and he only had 1000 Ks in 4000+ innings. (Though he did throw the knuckleball some, especially later on, and that pitch is known for anomalies)
Love the ice jj fish reference, well made video on an interesting topic. Thank you
did they measure spin rate? low velo pitching on contact with high spin rates = not alot of good contact
Even then so, high spin rates don’t correlate well with ground ball rates, when in regards to sinkers and 2-seams. The highest GB%’s amongst qualified pitchers (that threw a lot of sinkers) last year resulted from arms with a wide margin of spin rates, Dallas Keuchel and Max Fried both finished top 5, with avg spin rates under 2000. Sandwiched between them was Sandy Alcantara, a much harder thrower with a much higher avg spin rate (2324 rpm). Pertaining to their entire arsenals, Fried and Alcantara were virtually equal, with incredibly similar K%’s and xBA.
@@benkazel so happy baseballs back!
Love the vids would love to see one on how the 2014 O's were able to sweep the tigers 3 headed monster of verlander Scherzer and price.
LOVE these videos
Elmer Dessens... That's a name I really haven't heard of in a long time... Well done
He was good. He was one of those pitch to contact ground ball guys who are basically a discredited trope in the 2020s, but he was good at it. Those 6 IBBs screwed his FIP, but that's the manager doing that, not Dessens.
Good rule of thumb: if a good player has a statistically confusing season, assume he was mostly good. If a bad player has a statistically confusing season, assume he was mostly lucky. Dessens was an above average player for his career. Assume he was good in 2011.
Excellent video, mate
Great videos!
The Mets had one of the best team defenses in MLB in 2010, as well as a pitcher-friendly park, which I'm sure helped ol' Elmer quite a bit.
Still yeah, he got a raw deal, not being a strikeout pitcher who threw gas or even a weird sidearmer who could saw off same-handed hitters with grounders. He was an ordinary get-it-over reliever, a Todd Jones type after Todd's time, who understood that even in ordinary circumstances hitters will get themselves out 70% or more of the time.
Id say he was good simply because he did his job, He didn't give up runs.
Yeah I remember him
Also Brian stokes had a year like that
As well as Orber (I think that his name ) Moreno of the 03 or 04 season of the Mets
They never pitch again after a decent year
Good defense behind him and limiting damage. I think he had a great season.
These types of videos are pretty cool finding these sort of oddball players but I wish you’d expand your eras that you do these videos about! Baseball has a lot more history than just the past 30ish years so I think you should try finding other cool baseball characters who played somewhere like 1900-1960. Start by searching up Bobo Newsom as a baseball legend nobody talks about
Your content is just top notch.
I watching this guy start a game for the diamond backs between a johnson and schilling start. We were travelling to az and not sure who was gonna start in that game but the legends were both coming up in rotation for the game we had tickets to. We showed up and found out this guy was starting and we were all pissed!
LOL! I feel that... but did he win?
Was the Wii sports clip from Poofesure?
sure was :)
@@StarkRavingSports I want to see a clip from him playing Nicktoons baseball now
@@StarkRavingSports Awesome; I never thought I would see his content on this channel - that’s amazing.
That 2010 Mets team was heartbreaking to watch. Mets fan here
A poofesure clip in a stark raving sports video???
I would never have expected this crossover LMAO
Expected stats are the worst stats invented in baseball
Before watching the video and not knowing about this guys season prior I checked the stats. Overall seems like a reliever that probably needs a solid defense behind him considering the K/9 of like 3. Overall though if you can give him that defense he seems like a great option. However have a defensive shortcoming, specifically in the middle infield or lack of range for outfielders and I can see how this guy could have some issues. But again, with a defense seems like a consistent reliable option.
I would say a theoretical guy like that, if he is a heavy groundball pitcher and you invest in infield defense, they could be extremely valuable. And actually you want to put in to kill rallies (with double plays)
hey there's a little league field with his name on it in my city from when he was on the diamondbacks :)
His BABIP and K/BB ratio was better the year before too, but he gave up an extra HR in less innings pitched and so was "worse". I think the best way to to think of it is advanced stats like WAR are calculated by the "root" elements of a pitcher, like Ks, HRs allowed, etc. to eliminate luck from the equation, with the idea that with enough innings pitched the luck will even out in the wash. But with only 47 inning pitched, I guess it wasn't enough time to regress to the mean. That, or maybe those last two seasons he watched lots of Greg Maddux tape in the off-season and figured out how to influence BABIP, because IIIRC, he's the only pitcher in recent memory that consistently was good at that. ;)
So I love advanced stats and analytics, they're incredibly useful, but what they're great at doing is predicting. When it comes to looking back, we don't need them. The only thing we need when it comes to Dessens and saying whether or not he was good that season is did he give up runs? The answer is no, he didn't. The only goal of a pitcher is to not give up runs, if every hitter hits every ball 110mph off of him, but they were all caught and he ended up with 0Ks and 40 perfect innings, I would say he had the best season of all time, he couldn't have possibly done any better! What I would not do is ever sign the guy to my team or trust him with ever throwing a pitch in the majors. I think you summed it up well when you said (as I get to that point in the video now) that the most important stat is that he didn't give up runs, and I'm not surprised that he didnt get another job.
I may be wrong but I think there’s a higher average velo on breaking pitches than fastballs. Doesn’t mean faster pitches don’t have greater potential when barreled though.
Edit: exit velo*
You’re correct. It’s a fallacy that faster pitches create higher exit velocity. Ever see how far balls are hit at the Home Run Derby? Those balls are thrown relatively slowly.
I had no idea Elmer was still pitching in 2010. I think I saw him pitch for the Red vs the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in 2000.
I just think he might be a groundballer who came out in a jam that other pitchers made in a losing situation. His WHIP, FIP and K/9 proves it. Also, I do think that WAR for pitchers, especially for bullpens, is unstable and often mesmerizing. It is also unfair to those does not get strikeouts that much.
It could be that his location was just so good that it was deceiving, but his velocity was so low that a lot of balls got put in play. He kind of reminds me of Zack Greinke during his tenure with the Astros but I doubt his stats look anything like this so there’s definitely some good luck involved too.
On the other hand, you could also look for extremely unlucky pitchers too like 2021 Brooks Raley
Pitch speed has a ratio of .2:1 of pitch velo to exit velo. Bat speed has a 1:1 ratio so that faster pitches contributes pretty minutely to how hard and then how far the ball will go. Driveline just did a study and published this recently it’s a cool read
Theoretically, wouldn’t someone be more likely to have to speed up their swing to catch up to a faster pitch?
That Chief Keef joke got me rollin dawg 😭
A really simple way to summarize most of this discrepancy: if you (somehow) consistently give up say a single, followed by a single or double that doesn’t score the runner from first, followed by a walk, followed by say three popups/strikeouts or an inning ending double play thrown in, you will have a horrible WHIP, but your ERA will be fantastic, and yes that’s taking it to the extreme but the point is the amount of clustering and exact order of walks/hits matters A TON for what your ERA ends up at, there’s absolutely HUGE amounts of luck involved in the clustering/specific order of hits and walks you give up, there are ways that will end up allowing far more or fewer runs to score than average
And ERA is a ‘sensitive’ enough stat that unless you have a huge volume of innings pitched, giving up just 5-10 runs more or less than average, which can largely be attributed to the ‘luck’ involved in the clustering of the hits/walks you allow
Basically, ERA isn’t a good stat at all, UNLESS it is accompanied by large volume of innings pitched to smooth out the variance
Good point, but also remember that a pitcher who can get out of trouble with runners on base can probably handle pressure, and may be an excellent strategist, etc.
You're absolutely correct that a few base-clearing hits can turn a relief pticher's 2.30 ERA into a 4.50 ERA, but there's something to be said for a pitcher who doesn't allow the base-clearing hits to happen.
FanGraphs’ WAR for pitchers is based on FIP (plus infield fly balls). We also have a version called RA9-WAR which is based on runs allowed. Baseball-Reference uses runs allowed and attempts to correct for the team defense. - FanGraphs
Elmer Dessens 2010
RA9: 2.68
FIP (HR, BB, HBP, K):4.72, BB%: 8.2%, K%: 8.2%,
xFIP (It’s calculated in the same way as FIP, except it replaces a pitcher’s home run total with an estimate of how many home runs they should have allowed given the number of fly balls they surrendered while assuming a league average home run to fly ball percentage (between 9 and 10% depending on the year) - FanGraphs ): 5.35,
HR/FB: 6.0%league average: 9.4%
BABIP: The best advice is to expect batters to BABIP close to their career average and for pitchers to gravitate toward league average, but very large samples can move the needle for pitchers. It is not right to observe that a high BABIP or low BABIP is simply due to luck even if luck plays a role. Luck influences short term changes in BABIP that can impact a player’s stat line, but not every player should be expected to approach league average BABIP. - FanGraphs
So what I'm hearing is me with my 59 mph 4 seam and 52 mph circle change should be signed asap for a key transitory role between two dudes who chuck it 100? Sweet!
1:55 Jose Reyes Pitching!
please do a video on how weird Dellin Betances' career has been. his stats didnt show how un clutch he was
The IceJJFish reference! A man of culture!
Sorry, I’m way, waaaay too young to remember the 2010 Mets. I don’t remember how their trash bullpen undid pretty decent work by their starting rotation (positive run differential, negative fun differential!), Ollie Perez’s hanging on to a roster spot despite being too terrible to use (because reasons), Jeff Francoeur’s existing (because reasons), or how the team actually kept Ryota Freakin’ Igarashi on the MLB roster for most of the season (WHY?! WHY, I ASK YOU?! Just kidding, I’ve never heard of him). I don’t remember the 20-inning game in St. Louis when the Cardinals had to use _two_ position players to pitch, and K-Rod STILL nearly blew it for the Mets in the 19th (thank you, Joe Mather-not-Mauer). And I definitely do not at all remember the early 2000s, when Elmer Dessens was ostensibly the Reds’ “ace” (where have you gone, Chris Reitsma? I only know you from Baseball Reference), or the fact that he basically only pitched in Mets’ losses (I learned that from this video!), which happened a LOT that summer, thanks to that aforementioned trash bullpen (according to Baseball Reference’s handy game log, and not my own memories). Nope, I’m much, much too young to remember any of this. Hello, fellow kids! _[sobs quietly in corner]_
That's wild you mentioned that 20 inning game in st Louis. I was there and they stopped serving beer after the 8th inning. My friend and I were there for 12 innings without a single drink and we were pissed!!! We didn't want to leave the game and wanted to finish it, but the time it was over, we were both sober and too tired, and it was almost too late, to go to the bars afterwards. I remember Joe Mather as well. He was supposed to be this good power hitter for st Louis, boy that never happened lol.
is there not some stat for "outs per run" or something. Where an average pitcher might get 9-12 ish. And an elite pitcher 15-18 or higher?
Relief pitching is the hardest to evaluate by stats.
Elmer Dessens 2010 made him look like a poor man's Gregg Maddux.
Do a video on Ike Davis’s one good season
As a Met fan, my impression of him back then was that he was having a good season
pitch to contact with weak contact does that
That sosa reference was incredible
SRS: " You don't even know who Elmer is "
Me: a Cincinnati kid who grew up watching guys like him and Ryan Freel every day... actually yes, yes I do
74.2 fWar on the fnaf phone guy impression 😤
Why didn't he pitch in 2011? Wikipedia says he had a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training with the 2011 Giants, but it "fell through" on February 14, 2011. That would be before spring training games started.
While the Giants were defending World Series champions that year, the fact that it was a minor league contract suggests that Dessens wasn't in demand that year, which tells us that teams were aware that his 2010 season wasn't that impressive. Maybe he could have gotten a guaranteed contract with a less competitive team. Maybe if he were younger he would have gotten a better contract.
He was good
But his only downfall was being on the mets
Missed opportunity to put an 80s baseball player on the screen when you said speed at the beginning
velo from the mound has almost no connection to velo off the bat or everyone would throw underhand
Getting outs is what matters. I see a solid season from a middle RP.
Dessens the quintessential Mets relief pitcher - looks like shit on the mound but then somehow manages to not let up a run (except when they do)
Dessens is the answer to a trivia question: who was the winning pitcher in the final game at Milwaukee County Stadium?
Damn every weird stat always has something to do with my Mets..😢 It’s so hard being a Mets fan😂
Ecstatic Rate (ER): 100.00. How happy I am that baseballs back baby!
As long as you’re on the Mets anything can happen and make sense
Thank you so much for the Chief Keef S/O!
These memes were great 😭🤣🤣
Analytics can sometimes over complicate a simple issue. All the manager should care about is if he reduces runs that cross home plate. If the answer is yes. You have your answer
I remember his name. He played in Japan.
I was a diehard Mets fan already by then, and I don't even remember this guy 😂
That was the most defensive plays ive ever seen in a video. Is this a Omar Vizquel tribute?
Naranjeros de Hermosillo Legend Elmer Dessens
Wait until OP watches college basketball
It really shouldn't be that shocking how he was successful. It's the same thing that's keeping Adam Wainwright successful at 40. Bob Tewksbury made a career out of it. Bartolo Colon did it for years at the end of his career. Pitch to contact and use your good defense behind you, move the ball in and out AND up and down, pitch to the hitters weakness, throw strikes. If you hit your spots you can get away with pitching in the mid 80s.
Dan Quisenberry says hello from somewhere out in the cornfield...
But seriously, anyone who hasn't read it, should Google Joe Posnanski's 'Ode to Quiz'...a fantastic tribute to a very good pitcher, and an analysis exactly in line with this video.
Talkin baseball/ like Reggie, Quisenberry/ talkin baseball/ Carew and Gaylord Perry
That was the most defensive plays ive ever seen in a video. Is this a Omar Vizquel tribute? Lol
If only teams still valued sinkerballers.
There's no mystery here. FIP, by design, leaves out singles, doubles, and triples, the very things included in BABIP. So, the better a pitcher's BABIP is, the better you'd expect his ERA to be compared to his FIP. Also, his stats were better with runners on base than without.
Other commenters here have explained the discrepancy between bWAR and fWAR, and WAR is a counting stat. A WAR of 1.0 in 47 innings is good.
Players like this are why I dislike Sabermetrics. Numbers may lie, but your eyes don't.
Fangraphs doesn't have his expected ERA because he played pre-2015
I hate FIP. It assumes all balls put in play is “lucky.” You’re at the highest level of the game. Your defense is EXPECTED to get those outs. Only a small % of all plays are web gems and THAT you can consider luck. His ground ball rate and low BAPIP shows he was good at pitching to contact. Ks are overrated. However it seems he was a low-leverage reliever. If you’re always coming in when the team is down, you’re gonna have an easier job than the guys coming in tied or trying to hold the leads.
This guy was the best bad pitcher ive seen
I'm a Mets fan. Elmer did alright for us :-)
You sound exactly like the coaster youtuber Cedar Flags
Low velo equals weak contact!😳
I'm not sure what universe you're from but I've been watching hanging sliders get pounded into oblivion since the 70's.
It’s always about my Mets
ice jj fish san antonio legend
Definitely a Mets moment
So all of his stats that are provable stats were really good, but all of his speculative stats were bad? This is why advanced analytics tend to be ridiculous, turns out the game is played on the diamond and not on a calculator.
You know who this reminds me of...2015-2016 Jared Hughes
He would have an ERA between 2.30-3.00 throughout those two years and then at the end of Spring training 2017 the Pirates chose to straight up cut him.
He would always get himself into jams with runners on the base paths, and then the guy right after him would usually just come in and bail him out of his mess.
Mexican Legend
appreciated the poof cameo
This video is just proof baseball over values strike outs. He had a great year and were talking about if it was "good" or not. Lol seriously? Almost 85% LoB from a reliever is nuts