Not Sheets...Yes Schmidt

This will be a very short article.

For my article "Sheets or Schmidt" I conducted research on every team that both Jason Schmidt and Ben Sheets has faced this year, and found out their total numbers. After conducting that research, I had found out that Ben Sheets and Jason Schmidt had faced pretty even competition-BY TEAM.

Well, I have now figured out an easier way to see what kind of competition each pitcher has faced. And that is to look at the "Quality of Batter Faced" report on www.baseballprospectus.com, in the statistics sections.

This section in Baseball Prospectus shows how tough the competition is for every pitcher based on each and every batter he has faced--more accurate than the team competition I used in my comparison.

After feeling stupid for conducting all that reseach, and punching in all those numbers, I just looked at those reports on Baseball Prospectus and saw that batters that have faced Schmidt this year are putting up a .260/.330/.418 line, while batters that have faced Sheets have put up a .254/.321/.411 line.

There you have it.

In my original article I had the competition being equal based on each teams total stats, and I was right, those numbers I used are real and factual. And since they were equa,l I gave the nod to Sheets based on both pitcher's home ball park ratings(Miller park being neutral, and SBC Park being a severe pitchers park).

But since Baseball Prospectus goes even deeper to find out the quality of competition faced by a pitcher, It is clear that Schmidt has faced the tougher competition of the two.

Even so, I guess a case could be made that even though Schmidt is facing tougher batters, he has a better chance of getting them out than Sheets does, because of the tremendously large ballpark he pitches in.

But the fact is, he is facing tougher hitters, while putting up the same phenomenal numbers as Sheets.

So the final question is: "Does a ballpark have a greater effect on hitting, than the actual ability of the hitter?"

I believe the answer to this question is no. Although the answer is closer than some may think, I can only take so much away from a pitcher based on his park; but not enough to cancel out the competition he is facing.

So finally, after 3 articles, a wrong calculation, alot of unnecessary number crunching, and a different answer, I can finally say that, by a slight margin, Jason Schimdt has pitched better than Ben Sheets this year.

Frank Bundy III