Editorials

Madison Bumgarner Better Than Clayton Kershaw?… Proving It’s Untrue

Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner

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Which brings us to 2015, an obvious anomaly in Kershaw’s career. Or is it?

If you look beyond traditional metrics — ERA, wins, etc. — it actually appears that Kershaw has been far better this season than many have given him credit. I

f we look at fielding independent pitching (FIP), which FanGraphs defines as “what a player’s ERA would look like over a given period of time if the pitcher were to have experienced league average results on balls in play and league average timing,” Kershaw has actually done quite well.

In fact, he’s pitching better than Bumgarner. In all of Major League Baseball, Kershaw currently ranks 14th, or 26 spots ahead of Bumgarner, who actually ranks third — on his own team.

This statistic essentially tells us that in what he can control, Kershaw has been fine, but has likely experienced some bad luck on batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and home run/fly ball rate (the number of fly balls that result in home runs).

If you take it one step further and example xFIP (which is the same as FIP except that it replaces the pitcher’s actual home total with how many home runs they should have allowed based on the league average of HR/FB), Kershaw actually ranks No. 1 in the league.

Simply put, in nearly every sabermetric statistic you can find, Kershaw ranks ahead of Bumgarner this season, which is what makes this entire debate so silly to begin with.

If we’re looking at a stretch of any amount of time more than the last four-to-five months of baseball, Kershaw blows Bumgarner out of the water. And, if you ask the stat geeks, even in the past four-five months, you could argue that Kershaw has probably been better — or at least comparable to Bumgarner.

We live in a culture that loves to overreact to things rather than letting them play out and develop, and a show like PTI gets paid to do so. But as fans, I hope we can look at the big picture and realize that 11 starts (dating back to the postseason last year) aren’t indicative of the kind of pitcher Kershaw is (or the pitcher Bumgarner is either).

At just 25 years old Bumgarner is a great pitcher, but Kershaw (who’s just 15 months older) has been the best pitcher in baseball for five years — and, regardless of what PTI thinks, that isn’t changing anytime soon.

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Clayton Kershaw Brushes Aside 100th Career Win

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8 Comments

  1. There’s nothing older than yesterday’s sports page. Kershaw has been “the best” for the last 4 years but in 2015 there are some live contenders for his throne. Cory Kluber, King Felix, Matt Harvey, Maxie Scherzer, Johnny Cueto and Zack Greinke come to mind. In Kershaw’s defense, though, it’s a long season.

    1. Unfortunately, Kershaw choked again tonight on Game 5 of the 2017 World Series. He has given up a record eight home runs this post season.

  2. …..and last night Kershaw goes 8 innings, gives up “1” hit, 0 era, “11” k’s….
    the numbers at the end of the season will more than likely show yet again that Kershaw is the better pitcher.

  3. Fuck bumgarner! kershaw is still the shit and those who don’t see don’t know baseball and kershaw’s career. kershaw is Hall of fame material while bumgarner is just solid B level player and will never have the accomplishments that kershaw has made.

  4. The Legends are those that dominate in both the regular season, and the postseason… Neither Kershaw or Bumgarner have accomplished this. Though I believe Kershaw’s road is far closer. He’s had two tough postseasons, but it only takes one good postseason, and the debate will end.

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