Talk:Adjusted ERA+

Joe Wood
There are three such ball players; which one? --Jerzy•t 03:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * One of those was not a pitcher and another had a short and undistinguished career. The correct link is to Smoky Joe Wood. Mind  matrix  15:33, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Mo Rivera
Why isn't he #1 on the Single-season list? In 2005 his ERA+ was 307. I know he didn't have 100 IP but the article does not specify that as a requirement. His ERA was 1.38 and the lgERA was 4.23. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.136.215.85 (talk) 02:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I assume he isn't listed because the single-season record is implicitly only for qualified pitchers, this is standard for rate statistics. Emmy571 (talk) 07:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

David Robertson
On David Robertson's article, it says that his Adjusted ERA+ was 410 for the 2011 season. Shouldn't he be listed as the highest on the single-season leaders? Yankees Expert (talk) 05:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * He isn't included because he didn't pitch enough innings that season, the list seams to be only for qualified pitchers Emmy571 (talk) 07:17, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Cutoffs (1500 innings for career list)
TL;DR: I set the cutoff to appear on the career list at 1500 or more innings.

For individual seasons, I'm assuming that we're only interested in talking about pitchers who are eligible for the ERA title. That's why seasons of 100 innings and so forth are not included (in non-truncated seasons). If 100-inning seasons are allowed, why not 50-inning seasons and so forth. Let's stick with the generally accepted (and reasonable IMO) standard used by MLB and everyone else for determining eligibility for season leaderboards. This does eliminate relief pitchers, which IMO is fine, otherwise they would dominate the season leaderboard, and that would be misleading (they have an inherent advantage often coming in with one or two outs already; they are not usually the game's best pitchers).

For careers its a little trickier. AFAIK MLB does not publish an official career ERA leaderboard (maybe they do, IDK). So what standard to use? Baseball Reference (a much used and, I guess, respected site) uses 1000 innings. Baseball Almanac does too.

The problem with 1000 career innings is that it puts relief pitchers right on the knife edge. Most relief pitchers with full, long careers have over 1000 innings -- just a little over, and in some cases just barely over. But a lot of relief pitchers with full careers didn't pitch 1000 innings. Robb Nen pitched 751 innings, Billy Wagner 903, Todd Worrel 693, Keith Foulke 786, Randy Meyers 884, Troy Percival 708, John Wetteland 765. These are some of the career saves leaders and they had full careers. You gonna leave in Trevor Hoffman (1089 innings) and not these guys? Why? Because 1000 is a nice round number? What if we had 12 fingers, would Hoffman be out and Lee Smith (1289 innings) be in? Or because Baseball Reference took the easy big-round-number way out? We don't have to be poodles for Baseball Reference.

OK, not poodles. But what number then? It makes no sense to include Hoffman and exclude Billy Wagner. 900 innings just gets Wagner in. Although it excludes a lot of other relievers with full careers, Wagner goes second on the list (behind Rivera) and those other relievers probably don't.

But what we want to do is exclude relievers. They are excluded from the seasonal list by the 162 inning rule and rightly so. They don't pitch enough IMO, but much more importantly relievers have an inherent ERA (and ERA+) advantage, mainly because they often come in with one man already out, or two, and also because they can bear down hard for one or two innings.

The list has Mariano Rivera first, Billy Wagner second (if you use a 900 inning limit), and a top twenty that includes Hoyt Wilhelm, Dan Quisenberry, Trevor Hoffman, John Franco, and Bruce Sutter. Worthy as those pitchers are, does anyone think that John Franco is a better pitcher or a more valuable pitcher than Koufax or Alexander or Grove. Well then why present a list that seems to imply that.

Well 1500 innings gets in all the great starters with long careers, while excluding most if not all relievers. It also excludes some starters that had full careers, such as Ralph Branca and Tim Leary and Dennis Rasmussen and Ed Figueroa etc., but none of the those are anywhere near to being on the list. Except for Mike Devlin (1405 innings) and Smokey Joe Wood (1435), and Brandon Webb (1319).

Should they be on the list?

I dunno. Maybe. None of them had full careers, really. None had a decline phase. Wood wasn't a full time pitcher after his age 22 season and didn't pitch at all after age 25. Devlin only pitched three years (he was banned after that) and is over 1221 innings only if you include his National Association season (which I wouldn't). In his two years in the National League he started all his team's games but one and pitched essentially all his team's innings. The League was just getting started, the pitching distance was 45 feet, pitchers threw underhand with a stiff-arm delivery... really there's nothing much of useful info imparted to the reader in including Devlin in with Pedro Martinez and Walter Johnson and so on. Webb only pitched in six years (plus one year of one four-inning game).

You could include them by dropping the innings requirement to 1300, which still excludes most relievers (not all; Kent Tekulve pitched 1436 innings, Don McMahon 1310...). But since Wood and Devlin and Webb are marginal cases, and since 1500 is a nice round number... I know I said round numbers don't matter, and they don't, but for political reasons of defending a given choice, round numbers are better since most people are unimaginative and attracted to round numbers... 1500 looks good.

But that cuts out Spud Chandler. Chandler pitched 1485 innings. He had a full career. He pitched in 11 years, started 10 or more games in eight of them (30 or more games twice), won 20 games twice... 109 complete games... led the league in wins once... and he'd appear on the list, in a tie for 20th place. It's not a service to reader to exclude Chandler I don't think. We can't make "1485 innings" the cutoff, that wouldn't fly I don't think... There's really no perfect solution, but I'm saying that it should stay at 1500, which unfortunately excludes Chandler. Herostratus (talk) 01:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a nice bit of analysis, but I don't think it's our job to determine the cut-off/innings minimum if there are reliable sources out there that have reported it. And from what I've seen, most sources have either used a 1,000 inning minimum or have called Mariano Rivera the all-time ERA+ leader. If you can find any sources that use a 1,500 inning minimum, I would use those to support your view. Otherwise, I don't think we should have to make this determination ourselves. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk &bull; contributions) 15:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Baseball assessment comment
Substituted at 14:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)