I think this was brought up in another thread discussing the CY race, but Britton has also seemed to face a disproportionate number of bottom of the order hitters this year. The spot in the order he's faced the least, in order, is the #2, #3, #9, and #1. Some of that is obviously luck of the draw in who comes up in the 9th, but the fact is that he's made a lot of hay picking on the weaker parts of a lot of lineups. That's a luxury that starters don't get.
I do genuinely wonder what percentage of the CY voters dive that deeply into the stats.
If you look at how he's actually fared against the lineup spots, this probably isn't the argument you want to make. The 8th spot in the order has been the only one with an OPSA > .500. The 7/9 spots have equivalent OPSA to the 3/4 spots. Granted, that's not a deep dive into the numbers by any means, but he's been great against everyone.
Ballots are due before the first playoff game (so Tuesday) because they specifically are not supposed to include or be influenced by post-season performance. It's an important distinction with the possibility of make up games and/or Game 163s that can take place after the final scheduled day of the regular season.
That's BBref's WAR you're using. I think they use RA where Fangraphs uses FIP. FG has Sales, Porcello, and Kluber all within 0.2 of each other at the top of the league with 5.3, 5.2, and 5.1 respectively, with Britton far behind at 2.3. Which is pretty good testimony to the limits of WAR, especially when you're looking at just one version. If one system is saying the difference between two pitchers is one win, while another is saying it's three wins, then either one of them is wildly wrong or neither of them is very accurate.
In which case it's obviously a problem that they're called by the same name.
rWAR heavily rewards relief pitchers for leverage.
FIP- is park adjusted and isolates individual pitcher performance from team run prevention. Sale put up a 77 this season, vs. Porcello's 81, so that's a pretty clear difference. Porcello did make up for the deficit by inducing infield flies at a higher rate, which is why they have nearly identical fWAR.
A big difference is that for strikeouts the "you" is singular, and for outs on balls in play the "you" is plural.
That's a very elegant way of putting that, which made me rethink some assumptions: how does this square with what we've been all learning about the effect of catcher defense on called strikes?
To add to this point, how do you factor in ballpark for strikeouts? Crazy thought, one might ask? Well how many foul pops are outs in Oakland that are out of play in Boston, which ultimately turn into strikeouts? I know in this case it probably wouldn't help Porcello's argument because he benefits from this advantage, but if we want to seriously look at these things, this has to be taken into consideration, right?
It would be interesting to go through the gamelogs and see, but I would be very surprised if this is a significant factor. How often is a foul fly caught in Oakland that wouldn't be at Fenway? Every other game, maybe? That sounds like an overestimate to me, but let's go with it. So 40 times a year a PA at Fenway is extended relative to Oakland. Figuring a 33% K rate for those PAs (higher than average because the count by definition now has an additional strike about two-thirds of the time), that's 13 additional Ks per year--for the whole Boston staff. Maybe 2 per year for each starting pitcher. And that's presumably the biggest difference in the league.
I think you're probably pretty close on this. I suppose the same could be said for hitters too though. How many times does a hitter hit a foul ball out of play in Fenway that would have been caught in Oakland, and that at-bat turns into a hit? I think that ops+ and such factor in ballpark effects. I suppose era+ does as well?
There are definitely statistically significant park factors for BBs and Ks. http://www.hardballtimes.com/batted-balls-and-park-effects/ looks at it and examines it through the lens of park BABIP%, which is closely related to what you're getting at with small foul territory, etc.
