David Price

David Price had, for all intents and purposes, a great year in 2010. He went 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA, good enough for a second place finish in Cy Young voting. At first glance, his 2011 season to date looks to be not as impressive. 12-11 with a 3.40 ERA this year, David Price's season hasn't gone quite as well as many hoped. When you dig a bit deeper into his stats though, this season takes on a different light. To start off, Price outperformed his FIP last year by a significant margin - 3.42 to 2.72, good for a .70 advantage. To compare, this year his FIP has actually decreased to 3.19, while his ERA increased to 3.40. This shows that Price perhaps benefited from better defense behind him or better luck in 2010 than he has this year.

A similar story occurs when looking at Price's peripheral stats. The most significant change is his decrease in BB/9 from 3.41 in 2010 to 2.22 in 2011. Price's H/9 has increased this year from 7.3 to 7.6, but his BABIP has also increased from .270 to .282 showing that it probably hasn't been solely his fault. Combined, Price's WHIP has decreased from 1.193 to 1.096, or about 1 baserunner/9 innings. The only stat that has really declined this year over last year for Price is his HR rate. He has allowed 3 more HR this year than he did in all of 2010, and his HR/FB rate jumped from 6.5 last year to 9.4 this year. This is likely due to some bad luck, or else his 2010 rate was unsustainably low.

A significant contributor to Price's poorer W/L record this year has been the decrease in run support by the Rays. Last year, Price received 5.3 runs of support/start, while this year that number has dropped to 4.01.

Price's WAR figures also back up the notion that Price is having a very comparable, or perhaps even better year in 2011 than in 2010. FanGraphs lists his WAR at 4.3 for 2011, the exact same figure as in 2010, although in 3 less starts and 18 less innings pitched. All told, Price should probably have a better W/L record this year than he does, but if you look past the basic stats, Price's year has still been very good.