The Giants are sitting at home watching the World Series this year, but not all's bad. For instance, there's the bright spot that was Sergio Romo's 2011 season.
Romo finished the year with 48 innings pitched, eight earned runs allowed, 70 strikeouts, a 1.50 ERA, a 0.708 WHIP, an unholy 239 ERA+ (his ERA relative to league average), and a 13.1 strikeouts per nine innings ratio.
To quote a great philosopher, "Damn, Gina."
Or to quote Bradley Woodrum from FanGraphs, "last year Romo backed the league into a corner and slapped it around like E. Honda in Super Street Fighter Turbo 2."
Woodrum's taking a look at a different set of statistics, though, one that's used a little less often, but one that makes sense, FIP. FIP is "Fielding Independent Pitching" which is good for our purposes, because it doesn't penalize anyone for the ball scooting through Miguel Tejada's five-hole.
And, actually, Woodrum's article on Romo focuses on where he stands in FIP- (which is simply his FIP relative to the league average; just like ERA+).
This is important because Romo had the fourth-best season-ending FIP- in baseball history (minimum, 20 innings pitched). Here's the list:
Sports
1) Ed Cushman, 10 FIP- (1884)
2) Henry Porter, 13 FIP- (1884)
3) Eric Gagne, 20 FIP- (2003)
4) Sergio Romo, 25 FIP- (2011)
5) Pedro Martinez, 30 FIP- (1999)
Um, yeah. So that Gagne season and that Pedro season? Those were magical, man. They were transcendent years from transcendent pitchers, even if the guy in the Dodgers cap turned out to be a blatant steroid user. (Or allegedly and almost admittedly one.)
And Romo's 2011 slots right there with them, even if the Giants didn't have the greatest of seasons.
