Ceetar wrote: Edgy MD wrote: FIP is more meaningful because of where it leads than what is. You accurately portray its flaws, but for over a century we've accepted ERA as the definitive measure of overall effectiveness by pitchers, despite its obvious flaws --- pretending all parks are equal, pretending all fielding is equal, pretending all runs belong to the pitcher who first allowed the runner on base, etc. We can and must do better, and FIP can help take us there. Indeed. I saw a better FIP recently (Beyond the boxscore? not sure where..) that took into account, or more accurately, took out of account, the balls in play bit. FIP despite saying it's fielding independent, awards points for put outs. the new formula went by PA instead of IP. Seemed to work better. I tried some similar calculations in the past but these people put in way more time than me. Niese is one of those under perform FIP guys usually. Last year was better though, so it's interesting. ERA and FIP are both fair metrics.