Explaining LIPS

this was actually really great.  The explanation was easy to understand, thanks a ton.
I would love to ask one more question: What are the main differences between Lips and xFip?

I haven’t followed these things as closely as I should, so take these comments as possibly uninformed.  But I find a couple of the statements here astounding and counter-intuitive:

“Outside of forcing ground balls there is little a pitcher can do to prevent home runs.”

“we know that a pitcher has little or no control over his line drive rate”

Really?

I’m also wondering where in all of this is one of the REAL things a pitcher can’t control - the quality of the opposition batters he faces.  Simplistically, if I pitch in the AL, I’m facing better hitters than I would in the NL.  Unlucky?

David,

Excellent piece.  This type of LIPS primer is something many people have been looking for.

With respect to the previous post and the issue of data supporting a pitcher’s inability to control his line drive rate and HR/FB, why did you suggest The Hardball Times Annual 2007 and not a more recent version (such as 2009)?  Is there a piece in the 2007 book that discusses the research behind these principles, or were you just referring to the raw data underlying previous analyses?

I ask mainly because I would be interested in such an article, where the research itself is discussed, even if only superficially.  (And if the same discussion is in the more recent book, that would be preferable to the 2007 version.)

Great article, I use xfip religiously in fantasy baseball, but this stat seems even more accurate, any chance it gets added to the THT pitching section?

does a pitcher really have no control over his line drive rate? It seems there an extreme groundball pitcher (Wang, Lowe, Halladay) would be lower than league average.

I am currently working on a study regarding relief pitchers and evaluating their regressions.  Currently, I am using DERA as a means to evaluate, but this sounds much better.  Is there anywhere around the site to find info on players from 98-current?

Late to the party, yes, I know, but….

If you’re trying to design LIPS to be a most accurate evaluation of a pitchers effectiveness, why would you estimate how many errors would occur behind a pitcher and adjust for earned runs? The point is to try to come as close as possible to the real world in examining a pitchers ability to prevent runs, no? If a pitcher’s “style” results in more errors, that leads to more real world runs. It seems like trying to make a correction for earned runs actually makes this formula less accurate.

Which means, of course, that the stat is less accurate at estimating real world runs allowed. People are still in love with the ERA stat, aren’t they?