Tom from Third Place, California writes in and wonders if Edwin Jackson’s bloated ERA is mainly a function of facing hitters for the third time in a game. Actually, he’s emailed me twice about Edwin Jackson, and the first time his question was about innings 5 and later. Either way, I don’t think Jackson’s performance matches either of those patterns — and doesn’t really fit any meaningful pattern:
(All data was found using B-Ref’s PI feature. I typed in Edwin Jackson, chose the Pitcher Splits option, and scrolled down to the appropriate splits. These are compiled as career splits, but you can view the yearly results by clicking on the orange text. PI is awesome.)
Round PA BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip sOPS+ tOPS+ 1st 29 0.304 0.389 0.433 0.822 0.353 125 96 2nd 27 0.327 0.408 0.478 0.886 0.382 132 111 3rd 25 0.25 0.337 0.475 0.812 0.265 97 92
sOPS+ compares Jackson to league average in that situation. tOPS+ compares Jackson to his overall performance.
Jackson’s OPS+ is the worst the second time through the order, but look how drastically his BABIP varies. BA and OBP pretty much are proportional to BABIP. Jackson’s SLG the third time through is quite high given the low BABIP.
How about performance by inning?
Split PA BA OBP SLG BAbip sOPS+ tOPS+ 1st inning 126 0.286 0.392 0.467 0.325 120 104 2nd inning 130 0.316 0.385 0.395 0.365 112 87 3rd inning 130 0.33 0.422 0.528 0.383 148 125 4th inning 101 0.273 0.36 0.341 0.343 84 68 5th inning 97 0.306 0.392 0.541 0.328 141 120 6th inning 71 0.185 0.243 0.277 0.224 31 24 7th inning 14 0.692 0.714 1.769 0.625 546 472 8th inning 4 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.333 37 20 9th inning 3 0 0.333 0 0 8 -13 Innings 1-3 386 0.311 0.399 0.462 0.358 126 105 Innings 4-6 269 0.261 0.341 0.395 0.306 89 75 Innings 7-9 21 0.526 0.571 1.263 0.5 395 324
Jackson’s got three innings where he gets bombed: 3rd, 5th, and 7th (although he’s only faced 14 hitters in the seventh — look at that .625 BABIP!) Putting together innings four through six, Jackson actually looks like a MLB pitcher.
Naturally, small sample size warnings apply. If you look at his career splits in these situations, the story is a bit different. Any ideas on why Jackson’s splits would be any different from the typical pitcher in any of the various situations?
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.