I don't believe in ghosts, but when you work on these formulas for so long, some things just haunt you until you want to scream. aIt's so easy to assume that if hitters get half, and pitchers get half, that everything should be in half. Ohhh, not to be.
There's a certain amount of fear when you enter the dark, mirrored side of pitching. The pitcher' sand batter's formulas are similar and interact. For instance, if you subtract 9.1 from the batter's walk, you would also subtract 9.1 from the pitcher's walk in the same league.
The formulas you will see for pitchers' WALKS, Ds, Ts, HRs, and Ks are reliable. But looming heavily over the pitcher's card are the X-Chart chances. Those chances, which are affected by the team's fielding quality, add to or subtract from a pitcher's hits, doubles and triples. And that variable makes the formula for pitchers' HIT the scariest of all.
First, pitching statistics must be translated from innings pitched (IP) into plate appearances (PAs), or, commonly known as Total Batters Faced (TBF). This eliminates the erratic behavior of IPs, such as counting a double play as two outs. The statistic TBF is available to you through the USA Today Baseball Weekly or maybe through your local paper. If no source is available to you, here are some suggestions for estimating TBF:
FORMULA #14: Total Batters Faced
(TBF)
TBF = ( IP * 2.95) + Hits + (walks minus
intentional walks)
OR
TBF = ( hits I pitcher's batting average)
+ hits + (walks minus intentional walks)
Use either of these, depending upon the
statistics available to you.
TBF is the equivalent to plate appearances
for hitters. Now equipped with a pitcher's baseline, let's pursue the pitcher's
formula for Walks.
FORMULA #15: Pitcher's Walk
PWalk = (( W - 1W) * 216 ) I ( TBF)) -
9
Pitcher's walk = (( walks minus inten-tional
walks ) times 216) divided by (total batters faced )) minus 9
How it works: Intentional walks are de-ducted
from the walk total. Then multiplied by the overall card chances (216).
This figure is then divided by the Total Batters Faced. Finally, subtract
the walk on the average hitter's card (9). Intentional walks are as important
to pitch-ers as they are to hitters. If you can't find this difficult-to-locate
statistic, try using the 10-percent rule as suggested with hitters (walks
minus ~0 percent). Or, maybe 5 percent for starting pitchers and 15 percent
for relievers. Along with that, you may want to research pitchers' prior
seasons to determine their ratio of walks-to-intentional walks. This is
usually reliable.
Advanced: Replace the average hitter's walk (9) with the same number formulated for the advanced hitter; that is, 9.1 for the 1991 AL and 8.7 for the 1991 NL
Hit By Pitch does not appear on the pitcher's
card, soit doesn't enter into the formulas here. The 93 percent accuracy
rate of this for-mula depends on accurate intentional walk data. The better
your source, the better the result. Find a good final stats publication
and you'll be in good shape. Easy, huh? Fearlessly, our next step is into
the abyss known as the Pitcher's Hit.