General Forum

In his first 20 big league seasons, John's ERA never went above 3.91.   Wasn't until years 21-27 did his ERA start to slide.

His ERA was higher than league average in year 2 however, and was exactly league average in year 9. 

This seems like a perfect time to ask/expose my ignorance, but what does ERA mean? I've seen it hundreds if not thousands of times on here, cards, Sports Illustrated, the newspaper, etc. 

Somebody needs to do a blog showing how to read the statistics on the back of cards. I have been inspired and will post the NBA version tonight.

ERA is Earned Run Average.  It just basically means how many earned runs the pitcher gives up per 9 innings.  It is probably the most important traditional stat when evaluating a pitcher.  

ERA doesn't include unearned runs, which would be like a batter getting on base due to an error and then later scoring.

Most would consider an ERA under 2.00 the best of the best.

An ERA in the 2.00s would normally be an ace or all star pitcher

And ERA in the 3.00s is the mark of a solid, if not all star pitcher.

ERA in the 4.00s and higher is leaving much to be desired.  Hovering around 4.00 to maybe 4.50 is usually average.  Anything higher is not good.  

Billy, ERA = Earned Run Average. It gives you the number of earned runs a pitcher has given up for a 9 inning average.

Some examples:

Pitcher goes 9 innings, gives up 2 earned runs, ERA = 2.00

Pitcher goes 6 innings, gives up 3 earned runs, ERA = 4.50

Earned run vs. unearned run - If a run scores because of a fielding error, the run is not earned. There are some caveats around that rule, but that gives you the basic idea. Enough to understand.

Probably because he had that surgery.

Thanks guys. Hopefully I'll actually retain it, hah! 

ERA can be miss leading like Wins and loses ifyou look deep enough

Have a bad inning in first couple and get pulled and do it again later in same season you could go from low to were you know you will never be close to winning title.

There was a pitcher that aloud 6 runs 2 innings  then he allowed another 7 in a game first 2 innings. In those 2 games his era is  13 runs  divided by  innings pitched  (3.25)  times 9 equals 29.25. Now if pitcher throws next 2 games a shut out out for 7 innings  his new ERA is 6.49.  He will work whole season to get it down.   Who can remember Steve Carlton being left in a game to long.

I never thought about wins in a record vs Team wins in games started,  until Lasorda pointed out once  that his pitcher may be  13- and 7  but of the 24 games his pitcher started the Dodgers won over 20  His pitcher kept them in the game so Dodgers bats could win it. 

Stats  you can twist them anyway who want. 

What bkim wrote is all true, and a pitcher really has no control over when he can come out or not. If it's the 2nd inning, and he's starting to get rocked, the relief pitcher may not be ready, starter has to stay in until the next guy is ready. Might mean a couple more runs. And so thus, ERA can be misleading because of the fact that one really BAAAD outing can push it up real high, real fast. IN that same regard, a lot of baseball's stats can be misleading when looked at by themselves. Since we're talking pitching, and it hasn't been mentioned yet, another stat some people like to throw around is WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched). A pitcher could actually have a WHIP of 4.00 throughout the entire game, and never give up a run! (The likelihood of that happening is very, very low, but you get the idea.) Now, you look at a pitcher who has an ERA of 1.87 and a WHIP of 0.74, and you know you have an elite pitcher. If one of those numbers skewed higher (but not the other), you'd have a pitcher who can get out of jams (high WHIP, low ERA) or someone who allows a high percentage of their baserunners to score (low WHIP, high ERA).

A famous author once titled a section of his book Tell Your Statistics to Shut Up (Jim Bouton, Ball Four). I couldn't agree more!

FALL FOUR  I remember reading that book when it came out first time in paper back. 

I was in 9th grade at the time.