RIP it and BRIP it

Bear with me through the explanation and i think you will like where this one goes.

Let's start with an honest moment, the scoring system for our pitchers is way more subjective than it is for our pitchers*. The subjectivity for our hitters basically is pointed at the worth of stolen bases (and failed stolen bases). But with pitchers wins, losses, complete games, shutouts, no-hitters, perfect games, saves and blown saves are all granted a fairly subjective worth. Some of those numbers have fluxed through the years as well. And with the addition of quality starts being worth 2 points (which i highly approve of) that brings even more subjectivity to it as well.

Fortunately, we have the best scoring system in the world, and i believe that we very accurately portray pitchers against each other in our wonderful fantasy baseball league, WBI.

But what if we stripped down the pitchers from their "bonuses," all of the more subjective stats listed above? I attempted to do that. The first column lists the pitchers and their WBI point totals, and you'll notice that they are all of this year's 700+ point earners. The second column is filled with the same names, in order of their record independent points, aka RIP, their point total with their wins and losses subtracted from their WBI point total. Then the last column is BRIP, bonus and record independent points. BRIP subtracts all of the bonuses of quality starts, complete games, shutouts, no-hitters, perfect games, and RIP's wins and losses. The thinking behind this is that we strip down pitchers to the performance they put on the mound, not in the books. And another way to view starting pitchers and their performance.

WBI                    RIP                     BRIP
Dickey 839          Hernandez 715   Verlander 624
Verlander 810      Verlander 714    Kershaw 602
Hernandez 774     Dickey 709        Dickey 600
Cain 763              Kershaw 682     Hernandez 548
Kershaw 749       Cain 660            Hamels 539
Price 737             Hamels 615        Cain 538
Hamels 721         Price 615            Price 532

What stands out to me the most is how obviously Felix was affected by both RIP and BRIP. Taking away his win-loss record vaulted him to first among pitchers (cough cough Seattle Mariners cough cough, no offense Davis) and yet strip him of his great numbers in the categories of of complete games, shutouts, and his perfect game, and he's back down to fourth considerably behind Verlander.

Other notes:
*Verlander really is that good.
*Cain really suffered the most by these new stats.
*Hamels really gained from these stats.
*Dickey doesn't drop below third but lost the most points when he gets st(B)RIPped down (sorry, had to).

In no way am i suggesting that we ever take away these stats from our league's scoring system, and i'm not even suggesting that this makes a great scouting tool for 2013 and beyond. But i will suggest that we can know just a little more about a pitcher's mound performance by taking away some of the rewards for things outside of their control and for bonus points that are purely subjective.

Thoughts? Post them on here or on the facebook page!

*Of course, the ENTIRE scoring system is subjective. A hit is "worth" one positive point for hitters and one negative point for pitchers. But we could easily mess with ANY of the stats. There's very little true objectivity in fantasy baseball. That's the fun of it.