A closer look at the real numbers

10 games started. 9 wins against just 1 loss. 71 innings pitched, and 61 strikeouts to go with that. Pretty tidy numbers, no? While it appears that Mr. Ubaldo Jimenez is tearing up the league, allow me the following comparisons.

Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched:
2010 - 0.93
Career - 1.27

Batting Average On Balls In Play:
2010 - .226
Career - .284

Left on Base %:
2010 - 91.7%
Career - 73.3%

Line Drive %:
2010 - 14.4%
Career - 17.8%

Home Runs per 9 Innings Pitched:
2010 - 0.13
Career - 0.54

Fielding Independent Pitching (scaled to ERA):
2010 - 2.71
Career - 3.66

True Earned Run Average(tERA, scaled on total runs allowed, not just earned runs):
2010 - 2.64
Career - 4.08

What do all these numbers mean? Its means he is going to regress. Is Jimenez an ace? Absolutely. But do not get confused, his LOB%, LD% and HR/9 will normalize. No one starter can sustain those rates. Few 'closers' can for that matter. He isn't getting as lucky as Livan Hernandez or even Mike Pelfrey, but make no mistake, Jimenez is good...but not this good.

Now the entire point of this was not to rip on Jimenez, but to really take a step back and look at the absurdity of most of the worlds popular baseball "statistics." Every time someone cites Wins, ERA or even Saves, my blood boils. To judge a pitcher based on ERA and Wins alone is about as naive as judging a hitter on Batting Average and RBI's. ERA, Wins, Batting Average and RBI's are about the worst stats in the history of the known world. They were invented along with the game. To say the game of baseball hasn't become mainstream and evolved since its conception would be absurd. Why haven't the statistics to judge the players evolved into mainstream society as well?

If you don't believe me? Then Sabremetrics ain't dead yet.