Rockies fans are all too familiar with the inconsistent nature of the game of baseball. Charlie Blackmon squares up a ball and hits it to the deepest part of Coors Field, only to have it tracked down by an outfielder. Next at bat, he bounces one off the hands that falls in for a single. One of those goes down in baseball history as a hit, the other goes down as an out, just like every other out. And while these inconsistencies are frustrating for fans, they are even more frustrating for pitchers, and for evaluating pitchers.
Fortunately, these days there are advanced stats for most everything, and decoupling events a pitcher does not have control over from a pitcher’s value is a pretty straightforward process.