{"id":26280,"date":"2019-11-04T18:45:17","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T23:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=26280"},"modified":"2019-11-04T19:15:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T00:15:01","slug":"arizona-diamondbacks-all-decade-pitchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/11\/04\/arizona-diamondbacks-all-decade-pitchers\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Diamondbacks All-Decade Team: Pitchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diamondbacks All-Decade Team: Pitching Staff<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> All-Decade Team of the 2010s has a formidable pitching staff. Although their only awards were for defense or hitting, they still put up some impressive pitching numbers. Consequently, these choices were not always easy.<\/p>\n

Selection Criteria <\/strong>\u2013 <\/strong>Starters<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For starting pitchers, the four criteria are a starter\u2019s ERA- (from FanGraphs<\/a>), strikeouts, walks, and WHIP. Why those four? ERA- compares his ERA to the rest of the league, with the league average being 100. The lower the ERA-, the better, and each number is equal to one percentage point. For example, if a player has an ERA- of 90, that means that his park-adjusted ERA is 10 percentage points better than the league average. Strikeouts and walks do a good job at determining a pitcher\u2019s control. Finally, WHIP shows how many baserunners he allows per inning. Pitchers who rank high in those four categories, with rare exception, end up having a good win-loss record.<\/p>\n

The players are then ranked in each of those four statistical categories. His overall score is the average ranking in the four. For a player\u2019s season to be considered, he must have started at least 15 games. Furthermore, for pitchers who split time in the rotation and the bullpen, only his numbers from games he started will be used in the calculation.<\/p>\n

Selection Criteria <\/strong>\u2013 <\/strong>Relievers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Relievers must have a minimum of 40 innings pitched in relief. The reason for 40 is that most relievers pitch in one inning per appearance. If he pitches in 40 innings, then he pitched in roughly one fourth of his team\u2019s games. For rankings, the four starting pitcher categories will be used. However, a fifth one is added \u2013 inherited runners scored percentage (IS%). A reliever\u2019s job is to get guys out without allowing runs to score, and he often comes in with men on base. An average IS% is around 30%.<\/p>\n

Relievers who are effective in all five of these categories go a long way toward helping their teams win games. For reference, the relievers will have Goose Eggs (GE) (and their counterparts, Broken Eggs (BE) and Mehs (M)) listed. A Goose Egg<\/a> is a statistic for clutch relief innings invented by Nate Silver of the website Five Thirty-Eight, and it is quite telling. Anyway, here is the pitching staff for the Diamondbacks All-Decade Team of the 2010s.<\/p>\n

Diamondbacks All-Decade Starting Rotation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Zack Greinke (2019)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>