So I was scrolling through some baseball stats this weekend, right? Saw Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s name popping up a lot, everyone’s buzzing about how good he is. Then I peeked at the season rankings. Wait… hold up. Dude’s got these crazy numbers, why ain’t he higher on that list? Figured I’d dig in myself, make sense of it.
Started Simple: Just Wanted Names
First thing, I grabbed my laptop. Opened up a couple sites I usually check for MLB stats – you know, the big ones. Wasn’t doing anything fancy. Just looked up the top 10 or 15 ranked pitchers for this season. Wrote ’em down on a piece of scratch paper: names like Cole, Burnes, Skubal… Yoshinobu was like 15th or something? Nope, didn’t feel right.
Diving Deeper: The Stats Maze
Okay, now I needed actual numbers. Laid out a simple table on my notes app:
- ERA (gotta be low)
- Strikeouts (more the better)
- WHIP (walks + hits per inning)
- Wins-Losses (yeah, basic)
- Some new-fangled stat sites kept mentioning like WAR and FIP
Copied Yamamoto’s stats first. Then, one by one, started plugging in the numbers for every pitcher ranked above him. Man, this took forever. My eyes started glazing over spreadsheets. Coffee was cold by pitcher number five. Seriously felt like just quitting, this was boring.
The “Aha” Moment (Kinda)
Saw it slowly, piece by piece. Yoshinobu’s ERA? Beautiful. Strikeouts? Dude’s mowing them down. WHIP? Tight. Wins? Yep, solid. But some guys above him? Their ERAs weren’t always way lower. Some actually worse! Then I noticed the other stuff.
- A couple guys threw way more innings than Yoshinobu. Durability points.
- Those WAR and FIP things? Sometimes they favored the other guys, especially pitchers on weaker teams.
- Some rankings really leaned into those advanced stats or team context.
Started clicking between different ranking lists. Real talk? They don’t all agree! Some had Yoshinobu closer to 10th, others buried him. Depended entirely on what stats they decided were most important that day.
Putting It All Together
Sat back in my chair. Rubbed my eyes. Looked at my messy notes and five different browser tabs. Made myself summarize it:
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto is definitely filthy good. Any list without him near the top feels off.
- But rankings? They’re more than just ERA and strikeouts, apparently. They weigh innings pitched super heavy sometimes.
- Team performance sneaks in too – a win for a bad team counts extra? Maybe!
- Those confusing stats like WAR and FIP? They try to predict future performance or isolate just the pitcher. They love certain types of pitchers, and don’t always favor flashy starters like Yoshinobu immediately.
- Heck, some systems just haven’t updated as quickly for his recent dominance!
Holy smokes. Rankings are messy. It’s not about Yamamoto being bad. Not at all. It’s about how different systems cook their lists with different ingredients. Durability here, team help there, predictive stats everywhere.
Final Thought After Staring At Screens Too Long
Yep, I get why Yoshinobu ain’t always sitting pretty at the very tip-top right this second in some lists. But seeing the actual numbers side-by-side? Man, give him time. Dude’s electric. This deep dive honestly just made me respect his game even more, rankings be damned. Rankings are weird. That’s what I learned. And my back hurts from hunching over the laptop.
