Players · S · Pitcher · 2014 regular season

Joe Saunders

Age: 33
B/T: L/L
Height: 6' 3"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #51

Born: June 16, 1981 in Fairfax, VA, United States
MLB debut: August 16, 2005

dbWAR: 7.6
IP: 43.0
ERA: 6.70
FIP: 6.60
K/9: 4.8
FIP−: 176

Joe Saunders was a starting pitcher for the Texas Rangers. In 2014 he struck out 23 batters over 43.0 innings across 14 appearances, 8 of them starts, going 0-5. His ERA of 6.70 was 79.0% higher than the league average of 3.74 — 18th of 20 on his team, and 458th of 477 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 6.60 FIP suggests the ERA was no fluke. He missed bats on 12.6% of swings (5.3% of every pitch he threw), walked 11.2% of the batters he faced and struck out 10.7%. His -1.1 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2014 regular season.

FIP6.60

K/94.8

WHIP2.07

WAR-1.1

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2014	TEX/BAL	14	8	43.0	0	5	65	32	23	24	6.70	6.60	2.07	4.8	5.0	179	176	-1.1
2013	SEA	32	32	183.0	11	16	232	107	107	61	5.26	4.72	1.60	5.3	3.0	136	122	0.2
2012	AZ/BAL	28	28	174.2	9	13	195	79	112	39	4.07	4.08	1.34	5.8	2.0	101	102	2.1
2011	AZ	33	33	212.0	12	13	210	87	108	67	3.69	4.78	1.31	4.6	2.8	94	121	0.5
2010	LAA/AZ	33	33	203.1	9	17	232	101	114	64	4.47	4.57	1.46	5.0	2.8	110	112	1.0
2009	LAA	31	31	186.0	16	7	202	95	101	64	4.60	5.17	1.43	4.9	3.1	106	120	0.4
2008	LAA	31	31	198.0	17	7	187	75	103	53	3.41	4.36	1.21	4.7	2.4	79	101	2.2
2007	LAA	18	18	107.1	8	5	129	53	69	34	4.44	4.26	1.52	5.8	2.9	99	95	1.6
2006	LAA	13	13	70.2	7	3	71	37	51	29	4.71	4.08	1.42	6.5	3.7	104	90	1.1
2005	LAA	2	2	9.1	0	0	10	8	4	4	7.71	7.63	1.50	3.9	3.9	180	178	-0.3

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2013	SEA	3	6	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	33.3%	.000	-1.5	-122	-0.1
2012	AZ	19	46	3	1	0	3	7	.086	.154	.086	.000	.103	6.5%	15.2%	.122	-7.1	-34	-0.1
2011	AZ	30	67	12	4	0	2	15	.197	.222	.213	.016	.261	3.0%	22.4%	.199	-6.3	16	0.2
2010	AZ/LAA	14	28	2	1	1	1	8	.083	.120	.083	.000	.125	3.6%	28.6%	.101	-5.0	-55	-0.1
2008	LAA	2	3	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	66.7%	.000	-0.8	-127	-0.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Joe Saunders's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2012 Post	BAL	Postseason total	2	2	11.1	1	0	9	2	0	5	9	1.59	1.24	7.1
		Wild Card	1	1	5.2	1	0	6	1	0	1	4	1.59	1.24	6.4
		ALDS	1	1	5.2	0	0	3	1	0	4	5	1.59	1.24	7.9
2011 Post	AZ	NLDS	1	1	3.0	0	0	5	3	0	2	1	9.00	2.33	3.0
2009 Post	LAA	ALCS	2	2	10.1	0	1	13	5	1	6	5	4.35	1.84	4.4
2008 Post	LAA	ALDS	1	1	4.2	0	0	5	4	0	4	2	7.71	1.93	3.9
Career		Postseason total · 4 Octobers	6	6	29.1	1	1	32	14	1	17	17	4.30	1.67	5.2

Postseason batting

Postseason Joe Saunders's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2011 Post	AZ	NLDS	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	—	1.000	—	—

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2014. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	55	52	15	0	3	6	.288	.327	.288	.283	10.9%
vs RHB	160	134	50	9	21	17	.373	.456	.687	.490	10.6%

Pitch sequencing

What Joe Saunders throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamSliderChangeupCurveballSinker

Select a count to see exactly what Joe Saunders throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	57.1%	484	90.6	2,549	37.2%	4.2%	112	.348	1.025
Slider	14.9%	126	82.3	654	44.4%	36.1%	28	.250	.823
Changeup	12.8%	108	81.3	2,085	34.3%	20.5%	21	.524	1.307
Curveball	8.1%	69	75.0	782	34.8%	30.8%	8	—	—
Sinker	6.6%	56	91.2	2,011	39.3%	3.6%	18	.333	.649

Joe Saunders's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Joe Saunders

Similar players

Nearest 2014 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

André RienzoCWS

ERA: 6.82
FIP: 5.73
SO: 51
WAR: -1.0

Comparable

Mike PelfreyMIN

ERA: 7.99
FIP: 7.57
SO: 10
WAR: -0.8

Comparable

Paul ClemensHOU

ERA: 5.84
FIP: 6.17
SO: 16
WAR: -0.6

Comparable

Robbie RayDET

ERA: 8.16
FIP: 5.23
SO: 19
WAR: -0.3

Loosely similar

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.