Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike D
BTW - This is NOT an example of moneyball analysis.  |
If you want to use advanced stats instead, Archer had a lower FIP and xFIP over the whole season, and a FIP 1.24 below/xFIP 1.42 below Hellickson in the 2nd half. Hellickson did have the slightly better numbers vs. Boston this year (18.1 IP/7 ER vs. 8.2 IP/5 ER), although Archer's 2 starts vs. Boston were among his first 4 in the big leagues, and that seems a real bad idea to focus on those combined 5 starts over Hellickson's last 10 - where he got through 6 innings once, and given up less than 3 runs once - vs. Archer's last 10, where he got through 6 5 times, and gave up less than 3 runs 7 times. Saying Hellickson was "well-rested" isn't worth anything either, because the decision to start Hellickson and put Archer in the bullpen was made before the series started. Qualifying things by saying "if Hellickson was on" is also silly, because he hasn't been for even a single start since like June.
The Rays do a lot of good "moneyball" things, like signing cheap reclamation project relievers/1st basemen at the GM level, or embracing defensive shifts at the managerial level, but there are times when Maddon over-thinks things and tries to get too cute imo, and this was one of them. From our side, Felix Doubront and Ryan Dempster had the lowest ERA's vs. TB this year, but there was never any question we were going to start our 4 best pitchers.