Clayton Kershaw Has The Fourth Best Nerd in MLB

Every week our friends at numberFire take a look and rank the best starting pitchers in Baseball. This week numberFire ranked Clayton Kershaw in their top ten again. Despite Kershaw’s slower than usual start, he is still one of the best pitchers in Baseball.

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Remember that nerd stat I told you about last week? Well, it exists for pitchers as well. It is a way of formulating a pitcher’s expected performance. It takes account for xFIP, and factors in swinging strike percentages, and overall strike percentages. Then it takes the difference between the pitcher’s ERA, and xFIP to determine the quantitative value for the pitcher.

Entering the Top 10: Cole Hamels, Chris Sale, James Shields

Falling out of the Top 10: Felix Hernandez, Tyson Ross, Carlos Carrasco 

numberFire has Clayton Kershaw with the fourth best nerd in MLB, at 2.81. Interesting that Corey Kluber, and Chris Archer are one and two. Max Scherzer , and Gerrit Cole round out the top five. Although Kluber has struck out 105, and walked just 14. So yeah, he’s pretty good.

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numberFire’s John Stolnis took a look at the best starting pitchers in Baseball through a bunch of other comparisons. He used rWar, fwar, nerd, and strikeout and walk percentages. And no matter what, Kershaw still comes out on top over everyone else. Stolnis talks about Kershaw’s track record. You know, his four dominating seasons in a row. Two down months do not make a season. Nor do they diminish his incredible talent. Three Cy Young awards, and an MVP say Kershaw will be fine. I believe that.

Clayton Kershaw is still one of the most dominating pitchers in the game. His stats are starting to look more Kershaw like, and I expect him to go on another torrid run throughout the summer again. His strikeout rate is about the same, and while his walk rate is up by almost a run from last year (2.1), it is still very impressive. If he can lower that hits per nine rate, and start limiting base runners, then we’ll see the normal Kershaw return. You know, the one that dominates opposing hitters.

I think Kershaw is going to be just fine, and so does numberFire.