Introducing XRA: The New Results-Independent Pitching Stat

There are a multitude of ways that we can judge pitchers. Most people look at earned run average to gauge whether a pitcher has been successful, while many old school announcers will still cite a pitcher’s win-loss record. ERA is a nice, easy way of looking at how a pitcher has performed at limiting runs, but it doesn’t come close to telling the whole story. In the early 2000s, Voros McCracken created the idea of Defense Independent Pitching Stats or DIPS, which credited the pitcher only with what he could actually control. Fielding Independent Pitching was born from this theory and only took into account a pitcher’s strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. It turns out that a pitcher’s home run rate is not terribly consistent, thus xFIP was created by Dave Studeman to normalize the home run aspect of the FIP equation by using the league home run per fly ball rate and the pitcher’s fly ball rate.

In 2015, a new metric was developed by Jonathan Judge, Harry Pavlidis and Dan Turkenkopf called Deserved Run Average or DRA. This new stat attempts to take into account every aspect that the pitcher has control over and control for everything that he does not, thus crediting the pitcher only for the runs that he actually deserves. DRA, however, is still dependent on the result of each batted ball. If the batter hits a ball deep in the gap and it rolls to the wall, the pitcher is charged with a double, but if the center fielder lays out and makes a remarkable catch, the pitcher is credited with an out. When evaluating pitchers, why should it matter whether they have a Gold Glove caliber defender behind them or not? It shouldn’t, and that’s where Expected Run Average comes in.

Expected Run Average or XRA gives pitchers credit for what they actually can control. FIP attempts to do this as well but assumes that pitchers have no control over batted balls. While the pitcher does not control how the fielders interact with the live ball, he does have an impact on the type of contact that he allows. XRA is based on a modified DIPS theory that the pitcher controls three things: whether he strikes the batter out, whether he walks the batter and the exit velocity, launch angle combination off the bat. After the ball leaves the batter’s bat, the play is out of the pitcher’s hands and should no longer have any effect on his statistics. The goal is to figure out a way to measure, independently of the defense and park, how each pitcher performs on balls in play. Since 2015, StatCast has tracked the exit velocity and launch angle of every batted ball in the majors. Each batted ball has a hit probability based on the velocity off of the bat and its trajectory. The probability for extra bases can also be determined. These batted ball probabilities have been linearly weighted for each event including strikeouts and walks to give each player’s xwOBA, which can be found on Baseball Savant. This is the perfect way to look specifically at how well a pitcher has performed on a per plate appearance basis.

Once xwOBA is found, then XRA can be calculated. The first objective is to find the pitcher’s weighted runs below average. To do this, I used the weighted runs above average formula from FanGraphs except I made it negative since fewer runs are better for pitchers.

wRBA = – ((xwOBA – League wOBA) / wOBA Scale) * TBF

For example, Max Scherzer has had a .228 xwOBA so far this season and has faced 487 batters. After finding the league wOBA and wOBA scale numbers at FanGraphs I can plug these numbers into the formula.

– ((.228 – .321) / 1.185) * 487 = 38.22

Max Scherzer has been 38.22 runs better than average so far this season, but now I need to figure out what the average pitcher would do while facing the same number of batters. To find this I need the league runs per plate appearance rate and multiply that number by the number of batters that Scherzer has faced.

League R/PA * TBF = Average Pitcher Runs
.122 * 487 = 59.41

So a league average pitcher would have been expected to surrender 59.41 runs facing the number of batters that Scherzer has so far this season. Now that we know how the average pitcher should have performed we can find the expected number of runs that Scherzer should have surrendered so far this season by subtracting his wRBA of 38.22 from the average pitcher’s runs.

Average Pitcher Runs – Weighted Runs Below Average = Expected Runs
59.41 – 38.22 = 21.19

Based on Scherzer’s xwOBA, he should have only given up 21.19 to this point in the season. If this sounds incredible it’s because this is the lowest mark of any starting pitcher though the first half of the season. Finally, XRA is found by using the RA/9 formula by multiplying the expected number of runs allowed by 9 and then dividing by innings pitched.

(9 * Expected Runs) / Innings Pitched = XRA
(9 * 21.19) / 128.33 = 1.49

Max Scherzer’s XRA of 1.49 is easily the lowest of any starter through the first half. The second best starter has been Chris Sale who has a 2.15 XRA. Of course these names are not surprising as they each started the All Star Game and are both currently the front runners for their leagues’ respective cy young award.

Here is a list of the top ten qualified pitchers:

Pitcher XRA
Max Scherzer 1.49
Chris Sale 2.15
Zack Greinke 2.26
Corey Kluber 2.33
Clayton Kershaw 2.34
Dan Straily 2.87
Lance McCullers 2.89
Chase Anderson 3.11
Luis Severino 3.17
Jeff Samardzija 3.23

And the bottom ten:

Pitcher XRA
Matt Moore 6.58
Kevin Gausman 6.47
Derek Holland 6.32
Matt Cain 6.26
Ricky Nolasco 6.26
Wade Miley 6.17
Johnny Cueto 6.10
Martin Perez 5.97
Jason Hammel 5.95
Jesse Chavez 5.84

Full First Half XRA List

It is interesting to see that three members of the Giants rotation rank in the bottom seven in all of baseball. In fact, AT&T Park is such a pitcher-friendly park that once you park adjust these numbers, Moore, Cain and Cueto become the three worst pitchers in baseball. It’s not surprising then why the Giants are having such a disappointing season.

One measure of a good stat is whether or not it matches your perception. Therefore, while it is interesting to see Dan Straily as one of the best pitchers in baseball and Johnny Cueto as one of the worst, it is much more assuring to see Max Scherzer, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw as some of the very best in the sport. The numbers for relievers also reveal how dominant Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel have been. This is all good evidence that XRA is doing what it is supposed to do, accurately displaying how good pitchers have actually been, independent of all other factors.

Another important characteristic of a good stat is how well it correlates from year to year. While ERA is the most simple and popular way to look at pitchers, it is not very consistent. XRA is much more consistent than ERA and FIP and also compares favorably with xFIP. However, it is not as consistent as DRA. DRA controls for so many aspects of the game that it should be expected to be the most consistent. However, being the most predictive or most consistent stat is not necessarily the goal of XRA. The real goal is to show how well the pitcher actually did, and XRA seems to do this remarkably. While not being as consistent as a stat like DRA, the level of consistency is extremely encouraging and puts it right in line with the other run estimators.

XRA is a stat that takes luck, defense, and ballpark dimensions out of the equation. When evaluating a pitcher, he shouldn’t be penalized for giving up a 350-foot pop fly for a home run in Cincinnati while being rewarded for that same pop fly being caught for an easy out in Miami. With XRA, no longer will people have to quibble about BABIP, since it is results-independent and removes all luck from consideration. A ground ball with eyes will now be treated the same whether it squirts through for a single or is tracked down for an out. Pitching ability will no longer need to be measured with an eye on the level of the defense. It takes a good offense, a good pitching staff and a good defense to make a great team, and with XRA we can finally separate all of these important factions.





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IV
6 years ago

This is really cool, nice work!

Giolito's changeup
6 years ago

Michael, very nice analysis and presentation of your ideas. Thanks for sharing.

Ryan Turesmember
6 years ago

Any plans to roll this stat out into a daily searchable section on the FG site?