Luck of the Draw

I've started investigating something with starting pitching. I was inspired when I read an article in the latest Bill James Gold Mine about season pitching matchups and season scores. For example: Felix Hernandez had x amount of starts against pitchers with season scores from 300-400, x amount of starts against pitchers with season scores from 200-299 and so on.

But a season score is a collection of games. I wanted to be more specific. I picked a pitcher and did an average game score for him and an average game score of all of his opponents in games pitched against him.

In 2001, for example, Mark Buehrle averaged a 56.3 game score. Opposing pitchers posted an average game score of 46.3 when matched up against Buehrle that season. And so on. Here is Buehrle year by year:

2000:
3 starts, 40.7 average.
Opponents: 38.0 average.

2001:
32 starts, 56.3 average.
Opponents: 46.3

2002:
34 starts, 54.0 average.
Opponents: 44.5

2003:
35 starts, 48.9 average.
Opponents: 49.7

2004:
35 starts, 52.6 average.
Opponents: 45.7

2005:
33 starts, 55.4 average.
Opponents: 51.8

2006:
32 starts, 45.0 average.
Opponents: 47.7

2007:
30 starts, 52.8 average.
Opponents: 53.5

2008:
34 starts, 50.8 average.
Opponents: 46.7

2009:
33 starts, 51.1 average.
Opponents: 51.9

It's pretty interesting how in 4 of 9 seasons, opposing pitchers outpitch Buehrle on average. Kinda points out how he's only a tick above average; something White Sox fans can easily see with his low strikeout rate and large volume of hits given up. I've started to investigate other pitchers. I think the opponents' game score average displays an element of luck which is interesting to look at. For example, in 2002, Buehrle's opponents on average were much worse than his string of opponents in 2007 by an average of 9 points; 53.5 to 44.5. That's a pretty big difference. I'll be looking more into that in the weeks to come.