FIP: A more advanced look at top pitchers

Baseball's a great game, isn't it?

Math's a great thing to study, isn't it?

If you nodded to both of those statements, then welcome! You're in the right place. If you nodded to only one, hopefully you'll agree with both by the end of this series. Here at MiLB.com this offseason, we'll be taking a look at some key advanced staistics -- think something beyond average, home runs, ERA, strikeouts, etc. -- to evaluate how some of the best prospects in baseball performed during the 2014 season in a slightly different light. We start today with Fielding Independent Pitching or FIP.

Quick background on FIP

FIP is meant to strip from the evaluation of pitching of things the hurler himself cannot control, namely the quality of his defense. Instead, it takes into account only strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches and home runs and puts them into the following formula:

FIP = ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP))-(2*K))/IP + constant

The constant is meant to put the result of the formula along the same lines as ERA. It's derived by taking the first part of the above equation and subtracting it from the league ERA. This gets the league-wide ERA and FIP to be exactly the same and helps us judge pitchers better based on the performance of their peers. For our purposes, I took the data from the 16 domestic circuits, ranging from the Triple-A International and Pacific Coast Leagues to the complex-level Gulf Coast and Arizona Leagues. When all that number crunching was done, the constant was 3.47, and that's what I've used to develop the FIPs you'll see mentioned here.

As for the rest of the equation, home runs are heavily weighted because of the damage they do to any outcome. Also, walks and HBPs have more impact, and are therefore weighted more, than strikeouts. FanGraphs breaks it all down here. The essence of it boils down to this. Pitchers who strike out a lot of opposing batters and rarely serve up walks, HBPs or homers are considered excellent by FIP. Of course, they're considered excellent by every other standard as well. But with this, we don't have to look at the number and say that the stat was aided or hurt by the other eight players on the diamond. 

If you want to dive into the numbers yourself, here's this handy table we've created for pitchers currently placed in the top 100 of MLB.com's prospect rankings. Otherwise, here are some of the FIP kings and duds from the 2014 season.

FIP shines on them

Luis Severino, Yankees: Severino's 2014 was the type of campaign FIP was made to highlight. While playing at three levels (Class A Charleston, Class A Advanced Tampa, Double-A Trenton), the right-hander struck out just more than 10 batters per nine innings (10.1 K/9 to be more exact), walked only 2.1 per nine and allowed as many home runs and HBPs, which is to say only three apiece in 113 1/3 innings. That all boils down to a 2.37 FIP, which would rank between AL Cy Young winner Cory Kluber (2.35) and AL Cy Young runner-up Felix Hernandez (2.56) for the third-best mark in the Majors in 2014, if translated directly. (Clayton Kershaw was tops at 1.81, and that is just as insane as you think it is.)

What's particular interesting is that Severino's FIP and ERA (2.46) actually correspond quite nicely. The 20-year-old hurler struck out enough to record his own outs, but when he needed his defense to be there -- and he did, thanks to a sinking fastball that led to several groundballs -- it was, for the most part. His .307 BABIP is right around average, indicating that his defense didn't do too much to hurt his regular stats. That's how you end with an ERA/FIP difference of only 0.06.

Noah Syndergaard, Mets -- On the other hand, Syndergaard is an example of how FIP shows us that sometimes pitchers were actually better than ERA alone gives them credit for. The Mets' top prospect had a pedestrian 4.60 ERA in his first season at Triple-A Las Vegas but just a 3.47 FIP. It's easy to just shrug off his ERA as coming in one of the most hitting-friendly parks and leagues in the Minors, but it helps to have the data to prove it.

Syndergaard's 9.8 K/9 mark was exceptional, and his 2.9 BB/9 was also above-average. His HBP (0.4) and home run rates (0.7) don't stand out quite as much, but they're not numbers that should result in a subpar 4.60 ERA either. An out-of-this-world .382 BABIP is a big reason behind that. So, though traditional numbers might indicate that Syndergaard needs more seasoning in Triple-A, his peripherals, along with scouting, show he should be plenty ready for The Show in early 2015.

Tyler Glasnow, Pirates; Lucas Giolito, Nationals; Daniel Norris, Blue Jays: FIP isn't always about turning around your expectations. Like the case of Kershaw, sometimes it just solidifies that a great pitching performance was a great pitching performance. That was true of this talented trio with Norris posting a 2.67 FIP, Glasnow putting up a 2.71 and Giolito notching a 3.04. Unsurprisingly, each climbed MLB.com's prospect rankings by at least 10 spots in 2015 and are now top-25 overall prospects.

A quick note on Glasnow: the 0.97 jump between his ERA (1.74) and his FIP was fifth-biggest among top-100 pitchers with at least 50 innings. Alone, that gap doesn't look good and tells us that he wasn't as good as we thought. When taken as part of the whole picture, it just means he went from an all-caps FANTASTIC to merely great. His still-low FIP is something we took into account when naming the Pirates right-hander our MiLBYs Starting Pitcher winner this fall.

FIP hurts them

Anthony Ranaudo, Red Sox: Ranaudo was the pick for International League Most Valuable Pitcher both by the league and this writer, so his inclusion here isn't meant to take away from an impressive 2014 at Triple-A Pawtucket that saw him lead the IL with a 2.61 ERA and 14 wins and earn his first ticket to The Show. 

But his 7.2 K/9 isn't eye-popping -- it ranked as the sixth-lowest number among top-100 pitching prospects in 2014 -- and he didn't exhibit the exquisite control (3.52 BB/9, 0.59 HBP/9) needed to help limit his FIP. A low .264 BABIP helped keep his ERA down, but his FIP stood at 3.61, making him a member of the six pitchers (out of 46) ranked in MLB.com's top 100 to see a 1.00-plus jump between his ERA and FIP. 

The 6-foot-7 right-hander struggled in the Majors, posting a 4.81 ERA, 6.89 FIP and 1.40 WHIP in seven starts, and with the Red Sox rotation already full at five, and with more tinkering likely to come, he's probably ticketed for a return to Pawtucket to start 2014. 

Kohl Stewart, Twins: The fourth overall pick in 2013, Stewart's 2014 was much more about setting a baseline as he got his first full season under his belt at Class A as opposed to the more veteran Ranaudo, who was knocking on the Majors' door. Off the bat, there is a lot to like about the 20-year-old right-hander, who nearly went to Texas A&M to play both baseball and football. His fastball (70) and slider (65) have both been given above-average grades by MLB.com, and the curveball (55) and changeup (55) aren't too far behind.

Those offerings helped him befuddle Midwest League hitters to the tune of a 2.69 ERA, .233 average-against and 1.14 WHIP across 87 innings. (He was limited by shoulder issues in the latter half of the season.) Some of his periperals aren't quite as attractive, notably a 6.4 K/9 and 0.7 HBP/9, and that led to a more pedestrian 3.71 FIP. 

Again though, we need to put this into perspective. Stewart's scouting profile is impressive, and there are plenty of reasons to project him as a front-end starter going forward. His 3.71 FIP in 2014 may not be much to write home about, but with plenty more years in the Minors to grow, it's only a start. 

Lance McCullers, Astros: McCullers' 2014, like Syndergaard's, was a lesson in location, location, location. The Astros' No. 6 prospect, who was a FIP darling in 2013, served up 18 home runs -- the ultimate FIP killer -- last season while at Class A Advanced Lancaster, and quite predictably, 13 of those dingers came at home. (The Hanger is notoriously favorable to sluggers.) And that's over 12 1/3 fewer innings, no less! That alone caused McCullers' FIP to surge to 5.46, highest among top-100 hurlers with more than 50 innings. His 5.2 BB/9 did little to help, although his 10.7 K/9 kept it from getting completely out of hand. 

If anything, we should take away from this that FIP isn't exactly a perfect stat either. It doesn't control for ballparks in the way that, say, ERA+ does. It's simply a way to measure how the pitcher would have done without offense, and for McCullers, who posted a 5.47 ERA in the Cal League, that wasn't all that great, even though he is a hurler with a 70-grade fastball and 65-grade curve. Still, the numbers should take a tumble when he moves to Double-A Corpus Christi, a much more neutral environment. If they don't, there may be reason to worry.

Other odds & ends

• Mark Appel's season wasn't great by any measure in 2014, and FIP is no different. His 4.25 FIP was between below-average and poor on the FanGraphs scale, although like McCullers, those numbers are slightly skewed by a 1.8 HR/9 rate in the Cal League. But let this be said, his 2.66 drop between ERA (6.91) and FIP was largest among top-100 prospects with at least 50 innings. Put another way, Appel's season was bad but not that bad.
• With a 4.74 ERA in his first Double-A season, Robert Stephenson would hope that his FIP would shine a more impressive light on his 2014. Instead because of a 4.9 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9, his FIP actually ballooned to 4.87. Chalk it up to a young hurler making some missteps at an advanced level. He'll be back in Pensacola in 2015, and thanks to a 70-grade fastball, 70-grade curveball and adjustments to come, he should remain on track as the Reds' top prospect.
• On a lighter note, Royals left-hander Sean Manaea was just as good as ERA would tell you. His ERA at Class A Advanced Wilmington: 3.11. His FIP: 3.06. And even better things could be on the horizon. MLB.com's Jim Callis pegged the 22-year-old southpaw to lead the Minors in strikeouts next season. He fanned 146 batters in 121 2/3 innings in 2014.