My biggest problem with fWAR is that it disregards balls in play entirely. Some pitchers pitch for weak contact and/or ground balls and I feel like fWAR unrightfully punishes those guys and builds up the “3 true outcomes” pitchers even if they don’t perform all that well. I think using fWAR’s formula plus the pitcher specific FRV and some sort of quality of contact metric(s) would be the best way to calculate pitcher WAR

FIP WAR is probably better than RA9 WAR for a single year, especially the baseball-reference version that uses drs to grade defense, but both are really flawed. I honestly prefer RA9 WAR for pitchers when I'm looking at their entire career since FIP has the capacity to be consistently wrong (some players outperform or underperform their FIP every year for their entire career) while RA9 WAR regresses to the mean over a long enough career.

Thank you for doing this video I have wondered about this comparison. It’s also seems hard to fully compare these two as they are opposites. Sanchez is a ground ball pitcher and heavily relies on one of the worse defenses in the league (why his 50 inning scoreless streak was even more impressive) and Miz is a strikeout pitcher who just doesn’t allow contact so the defense has basically nothing to do. Sanchez also is a classic workhorse who is pitching more often, deeper into games on a team who can’t afford to rest any of their starters and has a bad bullpen. while Miz pitches less innings and less games but is more dominant while he’s in the game and the Brewers have a better bullpen. So in terms of value, I can see how Sanchez would come out on top even though his run stats are worse. I can also see it the other way as well. Very interesting honestly with two very different pitchers.

Something I’ve always wondered about pitching stats: why isn’t “wRC+ allowed” a more popular stat? It seems like it would be better than fip or era+

People like to say war isnt the be all end all, yet when you disagree with war at all they freakout and call you an idiot

When you get down deep in the weeds of WAR calculations, you start to realize just how many shortcuts are taken where it doesn’t feel necessary, and it’s incredibly bothersome.

Does anyone ever try to base pitcher WAR off SIERA? I’ve always considered it to be a much more comprehensive peripheral than FIP.
For batters we always ask “what’s the value of a single, double, walk, homer, etc.” but we never ask for pitchers “what’s the value of allowing a ground ball, a pop fly, a line drive, a fly ball, etc.”

Sanchez's headshot is gorgeous and Miz's looks like a slice of bread LOOOL

I think if I'm going to evaluate a pitching performance, the one metric I'd use would be expected OPS against. It's still a bit of a predictive, rather than descriptive stat, but I think it captures every aspect of pitching. Strikeouts are still good, walks and home runs are still bad, but batted balls make an appearance too. Giving up a piss missile of a double down the line is bad, coaxing a soft grounder is good. It should average out over many batters faced to be a consistent metric.

This is incredibly helpful! Well done sir!

All models are imperfect, and try to describe reality, but that's impossible. War is just another instance of a model's limitations.
That is why we have tons of other metrics (models).

This is like saying that an average disagrees with reality, when what you need to use is the median.

I don't know if you mentioned this at the end, but maybe combine the two WAR's in like an average or something because B-R and Fangraphs both measure different things that are important. By the way, first time watching this channel. I've never seen what you look like until now. Great video. Maybe we could all try to figure out the perfect WAR together.

I’m not a fan of ignoring defense for a pitcher. If you’re a pitch to contact guy and 90% or your ABs are ending with hard contact that stays in the park, but you occasionally strike someone out, you could end up looking like a much better pitcher than you really are.

You don’t control how the defense handles a play, but you are the one who allowed a ball in play, and if you do it a lot, then it may be more important than your FIP.

I loved this breakdown!
What I hate about fWAR is that it doesn't reward the pitcher for inducing soft contact.
This basically makes strikeout pitchers always more valuable regardless of if they actually prevent more runs or not.

Calculating how much defense affects a pitcher is pretty much impossible to do accurately. I don’t think it’s possible to fully quantify whether the Phillies play better defense with Sanchez on the mound or if he is just making it easier for them because they’re able to defend more aggressively and confidently because they can rely on him getting so many ground balls and missed barrels.

Innings are that valuable.

This channel rocks

it has more to do with war being cumulative. Sanchez has pitched 30 more innings, which, lets say equates to 5 more starts. For those starts he earns war that Miz doesn't.

Another great example is Aaron Nola his bWAR is 3.2 while his fWAR is 1.4, pretty big difference.

I still look at wins losses and era for pitchers.  For batters avg, homeruns, rbi and obp.   Jack Morris was 21 and 6 with a 4.04 ERA the year they won the world series.  I dont mind a 4 ERA on a starter.  Somethings stats dont measure.

Wow, I had no idea thats how bWAR was calculated, great video. To further point out the absurdity of just dividing DRS across all pitchers, the Brewers put out a worse defense consistently when Miz pitches.
Bauers plays RF nearly every time Miz is on the mound, and they even played Andrew Vaughn at 3B for a couple of his starts