Cliff Lee: Notions of Consistency and Luck

When fans or writers talk about Cliff Lee‘s year, the general consensus seems that he’s had a great, but inconsistent year. For example, in a recent article, Philly.com writer Marcus Hayes absurdly argues that Cliff Lee is not worth the money the Phillies gave him this offseason. His reasoning? Because he’s too streaky.

“Lee is on his second run of dominant pitching this season—but that’s what his is, what he has always been. Streaky. He was not better than decent for the first 2 months this season. He was poor in July. For $25 million per, streaky does not equal value.”

Of course, in the same article he also states Ryan Howard is worth the extension the Phillies gave him because of the Phillies’ consecutive sellout streak since 2006. The RBI diehards actually make a better argument than that. So already his argument of Lee should be taken with a grain of salt.

If you look at the arbitrary month to month splits of Lee, sure you will get bloated and minuscule ERA numbers. But, what if, instead of looking at the month to month cutoffs, you look at five game blocks over the course of the season?

Games	ERA
1-5	4.18
6-10	2.62
11-15	2.65
16-20	2.06
21-25	2.78
26-28(3 games)	0.00

Hmm, isn’t that something? By the looks of it, that same inconsistent and streaky Lee looks much more consistent.

And, of course, there’s the problem of using ERA in the first place. ERA, unlike it’s more predictive counterparts, FIP and xFIP, is far more swayed by good and bad luck.

Looking at his best and worst months, there’s one common theme. His best months show extremely favorable numbers in the primary luck-telling statistics, while his bad months show the opposite.

Month	ERA	FIP	xFIP	BABIP	LOB%	HR/FB%
April	4.18	2.78	2.47	.313	65.8%	11.8%
May	3.78	2.92	3.03	.356	76.6%	8.7%
June	0.21	2.21	3.10	.191	96.6%	0.0%
July	4.91	3.51	2.35	.359	71.0%	18.8%
August	0.45	2.14	2.72	.229	98.1%	3.4%
September	0.00	1.69	2.52	.208	100.0%	0.0%

For reference, over the last two years, Lee’s BABIP has been .286, his LOB percentage has been 74.4 percent, and his HR/FB has been 7.2 percent. You can clearly see how these stats play a huge part in his supposed best months(June, August, and September) compared to his supposed bad months(July, April, May).

You can even argue he was a better pitcher in July than June. His ERA and FIP wouldn’t suggest it, because of HR/FB percentage heavily influencing both numbers, but his xFIP, which normalizes this and other statistics, do suggest it.

In June, he struck out a season low 19.7 percent of batters and walked 5.4 percent of batters. However, in July he struck out 27.8 percent of batters while walking just 3.5 percent. Meanwhile, his strike-to-walk ratio was a silly 8.00 in July, compared to 3.63 in June.

It’s disappointing how many fans cannot look past ERA and record as a way to judge a player. All too often people, like Marcus Hayes, make shortsighted judgements based solely on those two stats in a vacuum.

When a player turns it around, they either attribute it to a reason that isn’t evident or call him streaky. If they took the time, or had the ability to think critically, they’d realize how much luck can play a factor in a player’s numbers. Heaven forbid they go out on a limb and state a pitcher is still dominant after a run of bad luck.

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