Saber Bomb: The Best Season Ever?

Saber Bombs are MLB FanHouse's introduction to sabermetrics, those new and sometimes unwieldy metrics that are changing the way we think about baseball

Earlier this week, Brinson issued a strong, "Sell High!" warning on the Reds' pitching phenom Edinson Volquez. It's probably good advice, but it's easy to underestimate just how good Volquez has been this year. The Cincinnati Enquirer did some digging and found that his 1.33 ERA puts him on pace for the best adjusted ERA since 1930 and it's by a wide margin.

Now since this is the Saber-Bomb and the purpose of the Saber Bomb is to educate, let's talk about adjusted ERA (more commonly known as ERA+) and just how insane the starts the Volquez and Cliff Lee have gotten off to this year. ERA+ is used to normalize ERAs across ballparks and eras and it's a very easy stat to understand. It's calculated by taking the league average ERA, dividing it by the player's ERA, and multiplying by the park factor, which is represented by a number based on 100 as neutral, over 100 favoring hitters, and under 100 favoring pitchers. The result is ERA+ with 100 being exactly average and anything over 100 being better than average. It's a quick and easy number to compare players across eras with, because it measures individual performance against league performance.

So how good have Lee and Volquez been? The best adjusted ERA since 1930 belongs to Pedro Martinez, who had a 291 in 2000. Right now, Volquez is at 336 and Lee is at 305. Unfortunately for them, their peripheral numbers don't really show a path to a record breaking season. Volquez has a WHIP of 1.27, which is a good number for a young pitcher, but nothing earth shattering. It's a good indication that his ridiculous ERA has involved some good luck and will catch up to him. Lee, on the other hand, just isn't enough of a power pitcher to stay as unhittable as he's been. It's been fun watching these two dominate, but it's not very likely to last.