Fielding Independent Pitching, or FIP, is an advanced pitching statistic. FIP is the most popular form of a school of stats known as Defense-Indepndent Pitching Stats, or DIPS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DIPS theory first came about in the late 1990s, when sabermetrician Voros McCracken studied the impact that pitchers had on balls in play. To the surprise of many, McCracken found that pitchers had virtually no impact on whether balls in play were fielded or became hits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FIP, then, measures a pitcher’s performance based only on those things that he can control: strikeouts, home runs, and walks. Those are then weighted and put through a formula that presents FIP on a similar scale to ERA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FIP is meant to be the DIPS equivalent of ERA, measuring a pitcher’s overall performance scaled to their innings pitched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similar to ERA, the most elite performances will be around 2.00 or below while an average FIP will be around 4.00, depending on the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FIP is used, just like ERA, to see who were the best pitchers in a given season or range of years. It can also be used to compare players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lastly, FIP is often compared to ERA as a way of evaluating pitcher performance. In a short run, such as part of a season or even a full year, a discrepancy between FIP and ERA most likely means that a pitcher is getting lucky or unlucky on balls in play. If you are looking for players who might regress to the mean in either direction, comparing FIP and ERA is a good way to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, over a longer span, it could be the case that the pitcher is uniquely good or terrible at limited balls in play. While the pitcher doesn’t have a lot of control over balls in play, it might be overstating the case to say they have no control over it. Looking at FIP vs ERA over a large sample size and help us gauge a pitcher’s skill in this area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
FIP uses a very simple formula: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(13HR + 3<\/em>BB – 2*K)\/IP + C<\/p>\n\n\n\n HR is home runs, BB is walks, K is strikeouts, and IP is innings pitched. Lastly, C is a constant that changes year-by-year to re-center the league-average FIP to match its average ERA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can see the all-time career<\/a> and single-season leaders<\/a> in FIP on the Baseball Reference website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP)? Fielding Independent Pitching, or FIP, is an advanced pitching statistic. FIP is the most popular form of a school of stats known as Defense-Indepndent Pitching Stats, or DIPS. DIPS theory first came about in the late 1990s, when sabermetrician Voros McCracken studied the impact that pitchers had on balls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statistics"],"yoast_head":"\nInteresting Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) Stats<\/h2>\n\n\n\n