A couple of years ago, I wrote about Marco Gonzales and how the three major WAR formulations simply could not agree on how to value the guy. In 2019, Gonzales’ K:BB ratio wasn’t great, but he yielded few home runs in the season absolutely dominated by dingers; as a result, his FIP was brilliant. It didn’t penalize Gonzales for allowing more base hits than most pitchers, just as long as he didn’t walk too many or give up homers. In that season, Gonzales yielded plenty of unearned runs – 16 of them in all – that drove a pretty big gap between his ERA, which just pulled those 16 runs off the board, and his RA/9, which kept them.
Game 122, Mariners at Rangers – The Mystery of Marco
