Because Hanley Ramirez sucks at playing defense, baseball will not officially recognize Clayton Kershaw’s effort tonight as a “perfect game”. But I would like to submit that if this doesn’t qualify as a perfect game, nothing should.
28 batters came to the plate; 15 of them struck out. Of the 13 who managed to put the ball in play, nine of them hit the ball on the ground. One of the four balls hit in the air didn’t leave the infield. His FIP for the game was -0.24, because the model isn’t designed to handle dominance at this level. His xFIP was 0.19.
Here is the full list of nine inning outings with a Game Score of 102 or better, since 1914.
Kerry Wood: 105 (9 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 20 K)
Clayton Kershaw: 102 (9 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 15 K)
That’s it. That’s the entire list.
Clayton Kershaw did not retire every single batter he faced tonight, so technically, he wasn’t perfect. Screw technicalities, though; what Clayton Kershaw just did was far more impressive than going 27-up, 27-down and relying on your defense in order to do it. Clayton Kershaw just threw one of the most dominant performances in the history of baseball.
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It might not have been perfect. It was better.
I’m fairly new to this… but FIP is supposed to “Mimic” ERA while providing a better evaluation that is context-neutral, correct?
So how exactly does one have a negative FIP?
Models designed to work in normal environments break at extremes. It’s pretty common, not just with baseball modeling, but with basically any model you create. You set parameters that mimic real life, and then when something insane happens, your model says “haha what” and falls apart.
I gave the literal answer below, but yeah, I know exactly what you mean. In a college class, we had to devise a model to determine the optimum number of tollbooths based on rate of cars approaching and number of lanes before approaching the toll plaza. I can’t remember the exact criteria (something like a 6 lane highway with a very low rate of traffic), but there was one situation where the model told us we needed a negative number of tollbooths, while the other ~11 situations all worked.
Part of why I love Sabermetrics so much is because I’m an Economics major starting some higher level courses and this science (Can it be called that?) combines two of my favorite passions. I’ve never really seen a model break completely like this one though, haha.
At risk of sounding pathetic, I’m starting my thesis this fall (And want to be well on my way by the end of summer) and would love to do it on the impact of taking pitches separate from the increased walk rates and would love some help from one of you guys!
You can only call it a science if you use the word “dismal” in front of it. It’s in the econ bylaws.
hi dave, could you explain why FIP doesn’t have an artificial floor at 0, the way LOB% has an artificial ceiling at 100%? thanks.
It’s a straight up linear formula. If there are too many strikeouts relative to walks and home runs, it will become negative.
The ceiling of LOB% is not artificial. LOB% is not a stat, it’s a record that measures what percentage of allowed baserunners don’t end up scoring. There is no way for more than 100% of baserunners to be prevented from scoring.
As for why FIP doesn’t have an artificial floor, it’s because it’s not meant to be used over a single-game sample. Over a sample the size of a half-season to a season, there is no way for it to be negative. No pitcher could possibly manage that.
@Bip
according the fangraphs library, LOB% = (H+BB+HBP-R)/(H+BB+HBP-(1.4*HR)). if you take a look a koji uehara’s 2014 season so far, you’ll see it shows his LOB% to be 100%. he’s given up 18 H, 4 BB, 0 HBP, 3 R, and 3 HR. plugging these into the formula gives you 106.7%.
obviously 106.7% LOB doesn’t make sense, so it’s capped at 100%. similarly negative FIP doesn’t make sense, so it should be floored at 0.
That’s odd, didn’t know that.
But anyway, another reason that FIP wouldn’t be artificially floored at 0 is that it’s not accurate at that level anyway, so there’s no point. Obviously a pitcher with a true-talent 56.3% K rate, 0% BB rate, and 0% HR rate would give up almost no runs, but he would give up some runs, so even an artificially floored FIP of 0 would be too low.
It would be more worthwhile to adjust the FIP formula to work better at extremes than to just floor it.
Tons of strikeouts with very few/no home runs and walks. Since the formula adds HR and BB while subtracting K, if you have the right mix you can override the constant added to the end, causing a negative FIP.
Like Dave said, FIP isn’t meant to handle pitchers that pitch this well.
OH! I see, the presence of the constant makes this possible.
Makes me curious if anything like this has happened before, haha.
On a single game scale, it happens all the time with dominant relievers. Craig Kimbrel has already had 102 games with a negative FIP in his young career.
Maybe we should have a new stat for any game with a negative FIP: a “Kimbrel”.
Look at Eric Gagne’s splits from his prime. I think I remember reading that he had a negative FIP vs. RHH for an entire season, or something crazy like that.
You’re right. Gagne in 2003 vs RH batters, over 151 PAs:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=650&position=P&season=2003
His 2003 season was the only time in MLB history that a reliever had 100 more strikeouts than hits allowed (137 vs. 37)
Forget all of these relievers doing it in pitchers’ parks. Koji Uehara last year, between Aug. 21 and Sept. 13: 11 games, 12 innings pitched. 36 up and 36 down, with 17 K’s. Five of those games in Fenway and one in Yankee.
It didn’t matter which park Gagne was pitching in since no one could hit him.
And here I thought it’d be *weeks* before anything outdid Bartolo Colon’s double.
Heck, it took weeks for Colon to get to second on that double.
I’m going the be the party pooper and argue Pedro’s 17K game was more impressive. He faced a far superior lineup in a more difficult ballpark in a more difficult era.
Not sure park effects going to make a big impact on balls in play in these comparisons since hardly any balls left the infield.
One line drive foul, one hard hit grounder to 3B.
Ball Park effect was non-existant tonight.
And I can’t think of a lineup any more difficult to nono than the Rockies who have the best Batting Average in baseball.
Not to take away anything from Kershaw but:
Colorado BA:
Home: .330
Away: .242
Not to take anything from Colorado but:
Kershaw’s ERA/FIP/xFIP this season:
2.52, 1.60, 1.54
Colorado may be better at home (whodathunkit?), but Kershaw is actually this good.
It does matter, a lot. Dodger Stadium is a bad hitter’s park not just because it’s hard to hit one out, but also because the batter’s eye is awful there, and a huge foul territory. That’s why power pitchers are so incredibly dominant in that park. Kershaw is a great pitcher anywhere, but he has an ERA about a run higher in road games, both in 2014 and for his career.
It’s a lot easier to strike someone out in Dodger Stadium than it is in Fenway, it’s a lot easier to induce weak contact, it’s a lot easier to get a foulout, and it will hold long fly balls that turn into wall ball doubles in Fenway.
Per Guts, The Dodgers had a neutral park factor for strikeouts in 2013 (five year regressed team park factor, as Guts does).
The Red Sox in 2000 had a +1% strikeout park factor, so it was actually easier to strike out a league-average batter in 2000 Fenway than 2013 Dodger Stadium, and it is close enough to make pretty much no difference on the single game scale.
If you want to talk about strikeouts in relation to the league-average strikeout rate, then you probably have to defer to Koufax’ perfect game in 1965.
Historically Dodger Stadium has had pretty roomy foul territory, but renovations starting in 2000 to add more seats has eaten into it considerably…
And that pesky Chili Davis homer in that one too:
Line up that night
C Knoblauch
D Jeter
P ONeill
B Williams
T Martinez
C Davis
R Ledee
S Brosius
J Girardi (PH – D Strawberry)
Perhaps a better line up than the injury depleted Rockies, but “far superior” might be a little strong. I mean… Ricky Ledee.
Plus Chili parked one.
Ricky Ledee had a .350 wOBA that year.
Remember, we’re just talking about raw runs here. There’s no adjustment for environment.
That lineup averaged a .357 OBP and a .363 wOBA to Colorado’s team .337 OBP and .347 wOBA.
The 1990s were a crazy offensive era.
Chili with closed eyes…
You could argue, but you’d be wrong.
Arguing that “the best pitching _ ever” is Pedro Martinez is a good way to avoid being wrong, and this is coming from a huge Dodger/Kershaw fan.
I’ll go with Harvey Haddix going 12 innings of perfect ball prior to being spoiled by an error in the 13th. Granted, he gave up a homer later in the inning, but he went 12 perfect which is a record unlikely to ever be broken.
1999 Yankees were actually worse at home than on the road, although the (reverse) split isn’t quite as drastic as the Rockies’ this year.
1999 NYY: 110 OPS+ (.282/.366/.453)
2014 COL: 105 OPS+ (.281/.353/.456) so far
Sorry, I know I’ll be shunned for not using wOBA or some other linearly weighted metric. My bad, fellas.
“I always say you can call your friends. But now, you can text your friends, or hashtag #Kershaw or something.”
-Vin Scully
Now 20 no-hitters that Vin Scully has called. 20. Incredible!
sadly, the game was not available in LA
I went to Vegas for my girlfriends birthday. Put some money on the Dodgers, went to go watch my favorite team aaaaaaaaaaand.
Blacked out in Vegas too.
Thank god for MLB Network I’d have killed myself.
Blacked out in Vegas? I know that feel bro.
AAA is in Vegas, yes?
AAA is in Albuquerque. The Las Vegas AAA team is the Mets affiliate.
um, yeah it was
I’m a Giants fan but still think Vin is the best. I learned a lot about baseball when I was a kid listening to Vin call games. A HOF voice describing a future HOF pitcher.
I dunno, John Miller is pretty fantastic. And the Giants drive me to emesis.
How many times do you see puig making a catch using both of his hands? 😀
Flawless game for Kershaw, I’m really sad it’s only a no-no.
And so the two no-hitters of this season belong to the dodgers!
Obviously game score is more of a fun-type stat than anything else, but is there an equivalent that adjusts for quality of opponent?
Not that it would make it much less impressive if he did this to the Padres, but the Rockies (even with injuries) put some good hitters up there tonight.
There is so much luck and random variation associated with a single game performance it still would not be a very meaningful stat.
It is something that we don’t really like to acknowledge, but we actually have no idea if this was even one of the best 100 games ever pitched. It is certainly one of the top 10 in terms of outcome, but Kershaw could make the exact same pitches with the same stuff and command on a different day to this same lineup, and maybe that day the Rockies have some long at bats, a few hits fall through, and Troy Tulowitzki squares up a well-placed fastball and powers it over the fence with a man on. Kershaw leaves the game with a nice 7 IP, 2 ER 11 K performance, and no one thinks to talk about the all time greatest games.
That may have been a little more than you wanted, but the short answer is that even with that adjustment, the stat would not be very meaningful.
The Houston Astros lineup Kerry Wood faced on May 6th, 1998 was no slouch. Craig Biggio, Derek Bell and Jeff Bagwell (the killer b’s) plus Moises Alou, all at or near their primes. And Wood was only 20 when he did it.
That was one gritty performance.
That was one bold comment.
God I wish you two would stop showing up on every thread. Don’t you have a baseball team to run?
I agree with you Dayton.
Laughing myself horse at this exchange!!
Just NEIGHHHING in…hoping to get some upvotes.
I thought you and your Manager had better things to do than make comments on a baseball blog. You know, like defining and then redefining the rules on who your pitchers are going to hit with pitches….
Hanley Ramirez has the most errors in the Majors since 2006.
Hanley Ramirez was taken out/left the game early the night before because of an injured throwing hand.
Hanley Ramirez had a hit earlier in the game and was shown shaking his throwing hand while at first base.
WHY WAS HANLEY RAMIREZ NOT TAKEN OUT OF THE GAME FOR A DEFENSIVE REPLACMENT?
Add “Dodgers had an 8 run lead” to the list.
Add “Kershaw had a freaking perfect game going” to the list as well.
Turner would have had it.
Add this to the list of reasons Don Mattingly isn’t getting it done as Manager.
Hell of a play by Miguel Rojas. It seems like there is always some spectacular play in every no-hitter.
Actually, funnily enough, Josh Beckett’s no hitter didn’t really have one of those plays. Obviously there’s no way to argue that Beckett’s game was better pitched, but for whatever reason, the balls in play he allowed were basically all very makable.
Cause the Dodgers literally have “two” backup infielders right now and one of them is Jamie Romak
Was lazily scrolling channels stumbled on MLB network, Harold Reynolds predicted no hitter in the 5th inning, Byrns called a perfect game, watched the last 4 innings incredible. Anybody remembers when Hanley Ramirez fielded a grounder for the last out of Anibal Sanchez’s no hitter and took all day to throw the ball that the runners was almost safe?
Greg Amsinger actually predicted perfect game in the 3rd inning. Gotta give him props on that.
It’s kind of a running joke on MLB Network, Amsinger calls every possible no-hitter by the fourth inning.
For what it’s worth, Greg Amsinger predicted a perfect game in the third. Then again Aminger would probably tease a no-hitter if Ricky Nolasco put the first nine down in order… That’s just good TV.
This is what I get for getting distracted while typing. Posting the same comment 10 minutes after the fact and looking dumb.
THANKS A LOT BROCK!!!
Incredible.
Wasn’t that the ‘Jim Joyce call’ that was called safe yet was actually out? Oh no wait that was Andres Galaraga, wow what a fluke that was. And shows ow many friggin no hitters theres been the past 5 years. All Tigers starters seem to get them.
Oh wait Anibal got it playing for the Dodgers yeah, another brain burp.
He got it pitching for the Marlins. Runaway train of brain burps.
Armando; Andrés was The Big Cat.
The fact is, Kershaw beat 28 hitters out of 28, not 27 of 27. Perfection is fundamentally a witless concept. It’s a bit like striking out four hitters in an inning. Great pitching, maybe not so much the catching.
Reminds me of Gallaraga. Twenty-eight up, twenty-eight dominated. Oughta be a new category.
Jonathan Sanchez’s no-hitter too. Only reason it wasn’t perfect was because Juan Uribe booted a ball in the eighth.
There should be a difference between a pitcher’s perfect game and a team’s perfect game. Kershaw pitched a perfect game but the team did not play a perfect game.
The Game Score metric is a great way to rate pitcher performance, but in a perfect game, 15 strikeouts may or may not be a better performance than 12 strikeouts. A strikeout means that there is no chance for a hit and so it’s under the pitcher’s control, but getting a strikeout has some input by the umpire and catcher, which is not at the pitcher’s control. A perfect game or no hitter can include a “gift” by the umpire or from a catcher’s framing.
This is not a comment on Kershaw’s gem, rather it’s that Game Score is not a perfect metric for dominance. There needs to be additional information for how dominant a performance was, such as only 3 of Kershaw’s batted balls left the infield.
For the effect of umpire/catcher framing. According to PFx numbers, he had 5 called balls that were actually strikes in five different ABs, and three of them were with a 2-strike count. Four of those ABs ended up as strikeouts anyways, and the one that didn’t: a 2-2 curveball. He had two pitches out of the zone called for strikes, an 0-1 slider and an 0-0 fastball. Those have an effect on an AB, but not as direct an impact as missing what should be a called strike 3. He had to throw two strike 3’s four times, and “should” have ended up with 16 Ks.
Context and trivia (from Baseball Reference)
Seven weeks before Sanchez threw his no-hitter, the rookie one-hit the Nationals for seven innings in his fourth MLB start. The Marlins acquired Sanchez and Ramirez from the Red Sox for — speaking of no-hitters — Josh Beckett, a future Dodgers teammate of Ramirez’s. Two years ago next month, Sanchez rejoined the Marlins first baseman in the no-hitter, Miguel Cabrera, with the Tigers.
But back to the game. No fielding chances for Ramirez until the fifth, but he made plays on six of the final 11 outs. He tripled leading off the bottom of the first but didn’t score. After walking in the third and with Cabrera at the plate, Ramirez failed on a steal attempt of second for the third out. (No matter; Cabrera homered in the fourth for the last run in a 2-0 Marlins win.) Ramirez later struck out swinging and flied to the Diamondbacks center fielder, who soon grounded to Ramirez for the game’s final out. The outfielder was, of course, Eric Byrnes.
Postscript: Miguel Olivo — who played this season for the Dodgers with Beckett and Ramirez (he even caught a Beckett start against the Marlins in Miami) and who, yes, lost his job after he bit a minor-league teammate valued by the Dodgers at $28 million — caught the no-hitter. He reached base on a hit by pitch — the last pitch by Diamondbacks starter Edgar Gonzalez – but Ramirez stranded him at third when he flied to Byrnes.
Actually, I am the owner of the most perfect non-perfect game
This man is an impostor.
Someone stepping on your turf, eh?
I suck.
You were better than me!
Hey remember me? Am I still a thing?
I guess you don’t know what I’m capable of, internet tough guy.
http://www.fangraphs.com/not/classic-f__king-brawls-armando-benitez-vs-everybody/
I got to hand it to you guys.
the correct joke would involve fingers, but ehhh…let’s not.
I am the owner of the best almost perfect game and almost no hitter but not quite because Alex Rios is an idiot and doesn’t know how to call for a pop up.
Bill James wrote an article once on how unique 15K and 0BB is. In recent years it has become less so as guys like James Shields and Erik Bedard have done it int he last decade but it is still pretty unique as Shields was the last in 2012 and then you have to go back to 2007 when Bedard and Johan Santana did it. Before that it’s guys like Clemens and Johnson and Martinez and Mussina and Gooden, etc.
However Kershaw is the 1st pitcher to go 15+K and 0BB in a no-no.
He wrote about it more than once. The first time was when Clemens did it in 1984, as a rookie, against an awful Royals lineup (no McRae, no Brett). He said that even though it was one game, and the lineup he faced sucked, that only a good pitcher can pitch a game like that.
The only example I can think of where a pitcher who wasn’t very good was that dominant was a three-game stretch by Bob Sebra in 1987, when he pitched three straight CG’s with a 30-1 K/W ratio and an 0.67 ERA. But even then, the best he did in one game was 14 K’s and a walk; the others were 10-0 and 6-0. He went back to being Bob Sebra after that, with a 5.33 ERA the rest of the season.
I read once that you shouldn’t “infinite” when you mean “really big” because then you wouldn’t have any words to describe “infinite” when you saw it.
“Perfect” is perfect, you cannot improve on it. Technically speaking, a “perfect game” should be 27 outs on 81 pitches, no? Or would it be 27 outs on 27 pitches? The problem is that we have too low a view of perfection.
They have a term for an inning where the pitcher strikes out all three batters on exactly nine pitches: it’s an “immaculate inning.” So a start where the pitcher strikes out all 27 batters on 81 pitches would have pitched an “immaculate game” I suppose.
The cognitive dissonance here is coming from viewing a “perfect game” as an individual achievement, when it obviously is not. Have to say I find it surprising that a sabermetrically inclined website would make this error. This was not “better” than a perfect game because a perfect game is a team achievement, and the Dodgers, as a team…really, Hanley Ramirez, as a person…failed to record 27 outs in a row. But a Game Score and a perfect game are simply two different animals, like how FIP is different from a pitcher win. Every team that has recorded a perfect game throughout history was better than the Dodgers last night. The pitchers in those games were arguably not as impressive as Clayton Kershaw.
Well, if we’re going to quibble:
“Every team that has recorded a perfect game throughout history was better than the Dodgers last night.”
Not necessarily; a 1-0 perfect game win is probably less impressive than an 8-0 no-hitter win. I would think 7 more runs and much better offense >> one error leading to 0 runs.
S-t-u-d.
STUD.
He says “Kershaw pitch really good. I use two hands to catch fly ball. We score many runs, Hanley is shit head. Long live Cuba.”
Gamescore has the flaw of valuing Ks equally in different eras. 15 Ks in 2014 is less impressive than 10 Ks in some other parts of baseball history.
Kerry Wood’s hit allowed could possibly have been scored an error. It wasn’t a very hard chance at third. He did hit a batter, though, so I’d say that’s less perfect, though perhaps hitting a batter probably adds to the “dominance” part of it.
Damn right it does!
Brendan Morrow came close in 2010 with a game score of 100 in a 1-hitter against the Rays. It’s a higher game score than Roy Halladay’s perfect game from the same year (score was 98 in that one).
Some guy named Ryan had a game score of 101 in a game in 1990, where he pitched 10 innings with no walks, allowing three hits. He also had two other games that year where he scored 99, one of them a no-hitter. He had another 101 in 1991, in a 16K, two BB no-hitter.
I was more impressed with Halladay’s one-walk no-no in the ALCS that season than I was with his perfect game against the Marlins.
Watching Anibal Sanchez throw six innings of one-run ball with no strikeouts today brought this question to mind:
Historically, what is the best pitching performance in which a starting pitcher registered zero strikeouts for the game?
Has there ever been a no-hitter with no strikeouts? Complete-game shutout?
Since 1914, a pitcher has thrown a complete game shutout with 0 Ks 371 times.
Most recent was Derek Lowe in 2012.
Al Milnar in 1942 went 14 shutout innings with 0 Ks. Game Score of 104, mostly due to innings pitched.
Ken Holtzman in 1969 and Sad Sam Jones in 1923 both threw no hitters with 0 Ks. Holtzman walked 3 and Jones walked 1.
Awesome. Thanks!
I’d rather watch a no hitter develop than a “perfect” game. It cuts down on the obsessive ritual that inhabits baseball. The “cycle is the dumbest obsession in all of sports, but the perfect in perfect game comes close. Wood’s one-hitter is the best game ever thrown and all the perfectos can take a back seat to it, and to Harvey Haddox for that matter.
Anyway, good for Kershaw. I wondered if he might be done after opening day.
I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for the perfect game, and Harvey Haddox went 12 innings perfect even if it ended up busted, I’ll take that over Kerry Wood’s one-hitter any day.
A perfect game is really a team effort, so why does everyone say “the pitcher threw a perfect game”? (As in the pitcher gets credit for it?) Kershaw was as perfect as a pitcher can get last night!
Probably because “the team threw a perfect game last night” sounds really awkward, since only the pitcher is pitching, and “the team had a perfect game last night” would imply offensive perfection too.
Why does you subtract more for a hit than a walk when calculating game score?