Sabermetrics: Analysis of Danks, Floyd Through Magnum Start Value
Sabermetric analysis Magnum Start Value looks at the 2008 season for John Danks, Gavin Floyd on the South Side.
As many of you know, the White Sox and their fans have endured what is soon to be a nine-year playoff drought. To paint a better picture of the franchises struggles you would have to go back to 2008 in order to see their last appearance in October, which embarrassingly enough is in the last decade. Only four other teams can make such a dubious claim, and none of them reside in as large of a market as Chicago (Miami, San Diego, Seattle, and Colorado).
Since I brought up the postseason dry spell, you might be wondering why. There is a simple reason for it, and for those who do not remember the seasons John Danks and Gavin Floyd had in 2008 they were remarkable. Now, since those two starters helped pitch the Sox to a division title, I thought it would make sense to look at their seasons through the lens of Magnum Start Value (MSV).
More from White Sox News
- The Chicago White Sox might have had a season ending loss
- The Chicago White Sox are expecting Tim Anderson back soon
- Miguel Cairo’s words spark life into the Chicago White Sox
- Dylan Cease should be the favorite for the AL Cy Young Award
- Ozzie Guillen speaks the whole truth about Tony La Russa
Before I delve any further into potential data, there is something that needs to be added from an analytical standpoint. For those who read the Cy Young article, you might recall a new statistic titled Yearly Magnum Percentage (YMP). The purpose of YMP is to evaluate the overall percentage of a pitchers’ Magnum Starts throughout the course of his season without calculating his MSV score. Seem simple?
Here is where it is going to become a bit more complex. Another point I made in the previous article was that YMP would be broken down into multiple categories sometime down the road. Now since MSV’s formula is broken down into three outcomes, they will serve as the focal point of each classification.
With that said, it is time to introduce each category. First, I will begin by discussing those that analyze yearly performance. They will have the titles Minima Yearly Percentage (MYP), Median Percentage Yearly (MPY), and Yearly Premium Percentage (YPP). In case you are not familiar with the word “minima”, it is plural for minimum.
Just as with YMT and YMA, the aforementioned statistics will have a sister category that can be analyzed monthly. I am going to use the same exact terminology as before, inasmuch that it’s verbiage won’t be alerted. Keep in mind that I am going to list them from lowest to highest, and it should be easy to comprehend if you understand one iota of these words meaning.
Moving on to the actual terms, they are Monthly Minima Percentage (MMP), Median Percentage Monthly (MPM), and Monthly Premium Percentage (MPP). This is not the only portion of the article that they’re listed in a lowest to highest order, I also did so when divulging the yearly titles.
The final addition to MSV before I probe the actual study is twofold. In order to completely evaluate YMP, it is necessary to chart the percentages a pitcher’s Magnum Starts within themselves. While the previously added statistics are measured against all of his starts (month or year), these percentages will only be calculated into those that qualify as a Magnum Start (must find results of all three-month or year).
Without any more discussion here are the terms. First, to evaluate an entire season the term is MY-Dot and secondly, the monthly stat would be titled MO-Dot. To give some background on the verbiage, MY-Dot comes from Magnum Yearly Percentage, which I am replacing with a decimal hence the dot. The second term is MO-DOT, and has a combination of Magnum and Monthly along with the decimal aspect of it.
While those terms may have “dot” in them, their value will be written in percentages. This may have all been a lot to digest and understand, so do you think it is time for the study to begin? Me too!
April 2008
John Danks
4/15 vs Oakland Athletics: 7.2 IP, 5 H, 2 BB’s, 0 ER: 2.5 (W, White Sox win 4-1)
4/20 @ Tampa Bay Rays: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 0 ER: 3.0 (W, White Sox win 6-0)
Gavin Floyd
4/12 vs Detroit Tigers: 7.1 IP, 1 H, 4 BB’s, 0 ER: 3.0 (W, White Sox win 7-0)
May 2008
John Danks
DNQ for a Magnum Start
Gavin Floyd
5/6 vs Minnesota Twins: 8.1 IP, 1 H, 3 BB’s, 0 ER: 5.5 (W, White Sox win 7-1)
June 2008
John Danks
DNQ for a Magnum Start
Gavin Floyd
6/3 vs Kansas City Royals: 7 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 2 ER, 1 E: 3.0 (W, White Sox win 9-5)
6/8 vs Minnesota Twins: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 2 ER: 2.5 (W, White Sox win 12-2)
After three months of play, neither pitcher posted more than two Magnum Starts in a month. This seems a tad bizarre considering the level of performance the Sox received from Danks and Floyd, especially when the higher full-season ERA belonged to the latter at only 3.84 who won a career-high seventeen games. Another aspect to ponder is the era they were playing in, which may have limited the elite outings to some degree however their other numbers would not lead me to this conclusion.
Moving on to the actual MSV analysis from these months, Floyd outperformed Danks by a good deal. First of all, Danks failed to record a Magnum Start in two of the three months which caused his totals to sink tremendously. Danks values for April were low, as he put up a MMT of 5.5 and a MMA of 1.1, neither of which are quality scores by MSV standards. His MO-Dot was poor when you consider that 100 percent of Danks’ Magnum Starts were in the MMP department (not evaluating MMP just its category), and he only posted two of them to begin with. That means Danks put up goose eggs in MPM, MPP, along with every other category you can imagine due to the fact that he did not qualify for a Magnum Start in May or June.
Floyd definitely got the better of Danks in the first three months, as he qualified every month unlike the latter. Not only did he do that, Floyd also entered the MPM department once, as 20 percent of his outings in May ended in that category. On top of that, while he may have failed to put up a solid MMT or MMA score in any month, keep in mind that Floyd did record a Magnum Start in all three months. Is it much to choose from? No, but when Danks puts up zeros in two while Floyd puts up a MMT of three, and 5.5 (twice) you are left with very little option.
Ready to finish up? So am I.
July 2008
John Danks
7/1 vs Cleveland Indians: 8 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 1 ER: 5.5 (ND, White Sox win 3-2)
Gavin Floyd
7/5 vs Oakland Athletics: 7.1 IP, 3 H, 3 BB’s, 0 ER: 2.5 (W, White Sox win 6-1)
7/30 @ Minnesota Twins: 7.2 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 1 ER, 1 E: 3.64 (W, White Sox win 8-3)
August 2008
John Danks
8/11 vs Boston Red Sox: 7 IP, 2 H, 2 BB’s, 2 ER: 3.0 (L, White Sox lose 5-1)
Gavin Floyd
8/26 @ Baltimore Orioles: 8 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 2 ER: 5.5 (W, White Sox win 8-3)
September 2008
John Danks
9/21 @ Kansas City Royals: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 0 ER: 3.0 (W, White Sox win 3-0)
9/30 vs Minnesota Twins: 8 IP, 2 H, 3 BB’s 0 ER: 5.5 (W, White Sox win 1-0)
Gavin Floyd
9/16 @ New York Yankees: 7 IP, 9 H, 0 BB, 2 ER: 2.5 (W, White Sox win 6-2)
When looking over their years as a whole, it seems that Floyd got the better of Danks in virtually every category. Since this article focuses so much on the addition of YMP, I am going to begin with that statistic. Given neither posted many Magnum Starts, however Floyd had a 24.2 percent YMP while Danks only recorded an 18.2 percent YMP.
Considering those percentages are quite low, I want you to keep something in mind. Both of these starters posted a limited volume of Magnum Starts, which is going to hurt all their results drastically. Just by looking at Danks measly YMT of 22.5, it only foreshadows future problems such as his awful 0.68 YMA. One of the American League’s leaders when it came to wins in 2008 wasn’t much better, as Floyd put up an YMT of 28.14 combined with a YMA below one once again (0.85).
Even though neither pitcher recorded any starts in the MPP category all season, Danks was able to have an excellent final September outing and every White Sox fan remembers it. While his MO-Dot percentage was zero in the aforementioned classification, Danks posted both 50 percent in MMP and MPM for that month. The MPM was versus the Minnesota Twins and is in italic, and for those who don’t remember he put the Sox into the postseason in a one-game playoff at Guaranteed Rate Field. Had he gone the distance Danks would have easily registered for MPP, and by all accounts deserved its status.
Before I wrap things up there is a correction that needs to be made in the Cy Young article. On the final page where YMP scores are tallied up, there is a minor error you should know about. Corey Kluber’s YMP for 2016 is 40.6 percent instead of 40.3 percent, however the difference is so minute it had no real effect on anyone’s understanding of the term itself.
All in all, these new categories should aid further studies of Magnum Start Value (MSV) due to the fact that cross analysis is now much easier within the statistic itself. That aforementioned ability may help identify who will regress over time, not to mention expand what is analyzed altogether. I hope you continue to follow along, as more of these studies will continue over the next handful of months. So in other words, stay tuned!