Hey everyone!! Today kicks off a series called “Let’s talk Baseball Stats!”. How does that old saying go again…give a man a stat and you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish for stats and you’ll feed him for a lifetime? Well, maybe it was something like that at least. Today, we’re going to talk about ERA and WHIP!
ERA
ERA has possibly been the number one referenced statistic regarding pitchers since the stat was created in 1912. It stands for Earned Run Average. An earned run is a run that the pitcher allows that is not attributed to a fielding error. It represents the number of earned runs per 9 innings. You can think of it as the pitching equivalent to a batting average (AVG). A pitcher with an ERA of 4.00 allows on average, 4 earned runs per 9 innings pitched. An ERA between 4.00 and 5.00 is considered average in MLB, whereas an ERA under 2.00 is considered elite.
The downside to the ERA (or more so to using it exclusively as the gold standard for pitching stats) is that if a pitcher exits a game with runners on base, any earned runs scored by those stranded runners will count against the first pitcher and not the relief pitcher. Another scenario that poses an issue with ERA for instance is if there are 2 outs, and the defense makes an error that would have been the 3rd out and multiple runs are scored, it comes to no fault of the pitcher whatsoever. It’s hard to paint an accurate portrait using just one color, so let’s add another color to the mix and move on to one of my favorite pitching stats: WHIP!
WHIP
WHIP stands for Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched. It’s calculated just the way it sounds; walks + hits divided by innings pitched. The stat was created in 1979, so it’s considered still a relatively new statistic. You can think of it as the pitching equivalent of on base percentage (OBP). WHIP essentially eliminates the problem that ERA gives us about stranding men on base that eventually score. It also eliminates the earned (or unearned) aspect to the stat; it simply denotes what happened with that pitcher while they were pitching, holding the pitcher responsible for the men he let on base. A WHIP of 1.00 means the pitcher allowed an average of 1 man on base per inning. A WHIP between 1.30 and 1.50 is considered average, whereas a WHIP of 1.00 or less is considered elite. But just like ERA, WHIP has a few deficits as well that should be noted.
WHIP does not factor in batters who get on base with a hit-by-pitch, creating a scenario that while accurate, isn’t 100% true to how many baserunners the pitcher may let on. It also does not factor in fielding errors or home runs. This creates a scenario where a pitcher that gives up a large amount of home runs in a season may still finish with a WHIP below 1.00.
TUCKER’S TAKE:
All in all, there are just as many people in the ERA camp as there are in the WHIP camp in which stat gauges the overall rating of a pitcher. Each stat uses a different perspective to try and tell the same story. ERA is great for calculating the runs that a pitcher is responsible for giving up, but it doesn’t tell you how many guys he lets on the bases. WHIP is great for calculating how many men the pitcher lets on bases, but doesn’t tell you how many runs the pitcher gives up.
That’s why I always use both! They each hold immense value in the overall look at a pitcher’s status. If I were ever in a hurry and had to look at just one or the other, I like WHIP. I feel it gives a more rounded picture into how easy or difficult the pitcher makes life for the defense. But if I am not pigeonholed into one or the other, I’ll take both all day long!
Authors note: There is a statistic called Baserunners Per Nine Innings (MB/9), which does calculate hit-by-pitch into its equation with hits and walks, but is not a stat as readily portrayed as WHIP or ERA.
