In the early years of Lance Lynn’s career with the St. Louis Cardinals, he struck out plenty of batters, walked an acceptable numbers of batters, and did so while clearing over 175 innings pitched per season. But his earned-run average was noticeably higher than one might expect based on his peripheral statistics. Whether this was due to bad luck or some other factor, Lynn’s results simply did not match what appeared to be strong performances.
And then, starting in 2014, things turned around, and the pitcher with formerly underwhelming results suddenly began to post earned run averages which were superior to his fielding-independent pitching and other similar peripheral statistics.