Yeah, DIPS is hard on those extreme groundballers, but then, it's sort of a semantic question, isn't it? What do we regard as "valuable?" Is a groundball pitcher whose home park is artificial turf with a terrible fielding team "valuable," just put in a poor situation? Or does a groundball pitcher only attain value when pitching with a better than average defensive team?
I guess the question is, is a groundball pitcher valuable in a vacuum, or only in the right situation? Take player A, who is a groundball pitcher of approximately the same talent as player B, who strikes out a bunch of guys but gives up a lot of extra base hits. On a poor fielding team, A may actually be a bad pitcher, while he becomes valuable on a good fielding team, and vice-versa for pitcher B. Is value context dependence?
I don't know, I'm babbling...does any of this make any sense?
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