I don’t think it has to be a “versus” situation. I’ve been into sabermetrics since before it was cool. If Archer were 25 and 2 seasons into his career, I’d still be pretty excited for him to bust out. As it stands, he’s on the tail end of what should be his prime years, and the results just haven’t matched the underlying numbers. At some point, you have to look at both saber and traditional stats. You can be the best saber pitcher in history, but if at some point it isn’t leading to actual run prevention and wins, what good is it?ZigZagCardsFan wrote: This is probably one of those saber v. traditional stats arguments.
He's got nasty stuff as he was a top-5 SP in all of baseball with an awesome 11.19 K/9 last season. He doesn't walk a lot of batters. His bad ball luck in what is probably baseball's toughest division inflated his ERA and his 3.39 xFIP suggests a correction. He's been the 8th most valuable SP in baseball in the last three seasons with a 13.0 fWAR.
I'm a saber geek and those type of stats make my pants tight.
We’re also giving way too much credit for pitching in the AL East. He pitches half of his games in a pretty pitcher-friendly park. The Yankees, O’s, and Jays are all pretty high K teams which helps boost that K rate.
Citing K and BB rates, FIP/xFIP and fWAR is a circular argument. The K and BB rates are going to drive the rest.