ERA and luck vs. skill

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesThe Cardinals did something in 2019 that no other team did. They led all of baseball in a specific stat.

Earned run averaged (ERA) and fielding independent pitching (FIP) underscore the divide between old and new school thinking as it pertains to quantifying a pitcher’s performance. The primary difference between the two is the weight they ascribe to batted balls, which pitchers theoretically have less control over the outcome of. While all plate appearances contribute towards ERA, FIP only looks at strikeouts, walks, hit batsmen, and home runs. The latter has actually been found to hold more predictive power when trying to predict future ERA than past ERA…