# Projecting the 2012 Nationals, Part 2:Top of the Inning: Pitching, Defense, and Runs Allowed.

In part 1 of this project, I sketched out how we might arrive at a projected win-loss total for the 2012 Nationals by using the Pythagorean win expectation formula. Again, let’s suppose the whole 2012 season is like a day at Nats Park. The visitors get to bat first. As Nats fans, then, the first thing we have to watch is the effectiveness of the home team’s pitching and defense.

# Total Runs Allowed: 615.72

Let’s get this out of the way quickly: I project that the opponents of the 2012 Nationals will score just under 616 runs against the Nats.

To be pedantic, the “visiting” team in our calculations will score 615.72 runs in 2012. Don’t be bothered too much about the fractional runs–they’ll all come out in the wash.

You might ask yourself: “Well, how did I get here?”

The short answer is this: we need to figure out how many runs the pitching staff allows–that means using FIP. In your mind’s eye, imagine the 5-run 9th-inning debacle against the Marlins on July 26th of last year.

Then we need to figure out if the defense can take any of those runs away. In your mind’s eye, think of a happier moment– Roger “The Shark” Bernadina’s unbelievable catch at Nats park, robbing Mike Stanton of at least a couple of runs.

The gist is: Runs allowed is the sum of each individual pitcher’s runs allowed, minus the sum of all the runs saved by each defender.

## Pitching: 619.02 Runs Allowed

You might have noticed that FIP looks an awful lot like the “traditional” pitching effectiveness statistic, Earned Run Average or ERA. This is not an accident. FIP is meant to remove the troublesome “earned/unearned” distinction and get to the question of whether the pitcher “caused” the opposing team to score.

ERA, of course, is calculated like this:

$\text{Earned Run Average} = 9 \times \frac{\text{Earned Runs Allowed}}{\text{Innings Pitched}}$

$\text{Fielding Independent Pitching} = \frac{13HR + 3BB - 2K}{IP} + \text{scaling constant}$

Where “scaling constant” is some constant figure (around 3.20 or so) to normalize things to a league average and make it look like ERA.

Notice that FIP only cares about things that are in the pitcher’s control: Home Runs, Walks, Strikeouts, and Innings Pitched. The rest is up to the defense (which we’ll get to). Notice also that it looks an awful lot like ERA, so we can use it like ERA. FIP tells us how many runs a pitcher is likely to give up, on average, for every 9 innings he pitches.

The only thing we don’t know for sure is the number of innings each pitcher will pitch–that’s what we have to project. But we already know, more or less, how “good” each pitcher is from the FIP data.

To figure out how many runs each pitcher is likely to give up, we calculate an expected runs allowed this way:

$\text{Pitcher's Projected Runs Allowed} = \frac{\text{FIP} \times \text{Projected Innings Pitched}}{9}$

Adding each of those numbers together for each pitcher will give you a total number of runs likely to be given up.

## Starting Pitchers

 Pitcher Name 2012 IP (Projected) FIP (2008-2011 Average) 2012 Runs Allowed per pitcher (projected) Stephen Strasburg 160.00 1.87 33.24 Jordan Zimmermann 180.00 3.59 71.80 Gio Gonzalez 200.00 4.06 90.22 Chien-Ming Wang 180.00 4.35 87.00 John Lannan 180.00 4.57 91.40

## Bullpen

 Pitcher Name 2012 IP (Projected) FIP (2008-2011 Average) 2012 Runs Allowed per pitcher (projected) Ross Detwiler 63.2 4.30 30.42 Tom Gorzelanny 98.1 4.64 50.69 Craig Stammen 61.0 4.23 28.67 Sean Burnett 62.0 4.20 28.93 Brad Lidge 60.0 3.72 24.80 Henry Rodriguez 72.2 3.22 26.00 Tyler Clippard 72.2 3.61 29.15 Drew Storen 73.0 3.29 26.69

## Defense: 3.30 Runs Saved.

Accounting for defense in these projections is, paradoxically, both easier to do and harder to explain.

It’s easier, because there’s not much to be done. We take our UZR data and add them up.

Yup, it’s really that simple. The end result tells us how many of the runs allowed by the pitchers the defense saves. Thus, a positive value means that the defense took away that number of runs that might have scored otherwise. A negative value, on the other hand, means that the defense bungled enough to allow more runs to score than they otherwise would have done.

We can say this, of course, because built into the pitching statistic (FIP) is the assumption that the pitcher would perform exactly the way FIP would expect him to perform in front of a perfectly average defense. UZR measures how much above or below average defense is.

I won’t reproduce the position player tables here–that would be too tedious, and you can read them here anyway. When you add them all together, the 2012 Nats defense will prevent 3.30 runs from scoring that might otherwise have scored.

There are a couple of quirks to this calculation. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that UZR is a “counting” statistic, not a rate. So over four years, the totals you’ll see in the tables are aggregates: the number of runs, total, in the last four years that that player is responsible for saving (or letting through). For the purposes of this calculation, I’ve had to divide that figure by four, to get a rough estimate of how many runs the player saves, on average, for each year under consideration.

I should note a few things I learned while looking at the defensive statistics:

• Ryan Zimmerman is every bit the defender that I thought he was, apparently. In each of the four years in my study, the Nats could expect Zimmerman to save 7.55 runs, on average. That’s phenomenal.
• As a right fielder, Jayson Werth’s average UZR in the period under study is a respectable 4.35. As a center fielder, he’s perfectly average, with a 0.00 UZR in the period under study. In left field, Werth is less than ideal, but serviceable, with a -1.60 UZR (allowing, on average 1.6 “extra” runs to score).
• By UZR, Roger Bernadina might be the worst center fielder on this roster (-2.10 UZR). He’s much, much better in left field (1.70 UZR). This surprised me. After all, it’s his spectacular diving catch in center field that I linked to above as an example of saving runs.
• On the bench, Mark DeRosa and Steve Lombardozzi are, overall, perfectly average defenders, but they can play an excellent spread of positions. If I were managing the Nats, I’d appreciate the degree of flexibility they can bring to a lineup.

Well, that does it for the top of the inning. The pitchers would have allowed 619.02 runs, but the defense took 3.30 of those away from the opposition. Going into the bottom of the inning, the 2012 score stands with the visiting team at 615.72, with the Nats coming to bat in the bottom of the inning. We’ll find out just how well they bat in the bottom of the inning in Projecting the 2012 Nationals, Part 3, Bottom of the Inning: Offense.