I'd like to bump this thread just to see some opinions. We recently spoke with Vince Gennaro, president of SABR, on the HS Baseball Web Radio and he is a weekly contributor to Clubhouse Confidential on MLB Network. While watching the show, I've seen that a lot of emphasis is put on WHIP for pitcher evaluation. It got me thinking that there could possibly be an even more accurate way to evaluate in this respect.
I realize that this is nearly impossible to compute in high school for the same reasons listed above, but for college and above it is possible and quite easy for analysis. Here is my question:
Theoretically, wouldn't opponent's OPS be a better indicator than WHIP? OPS factors all aspects of WHIP into its calculation plus acknowledges if the hit was an extra base hit or not. There's a big difference between giving up 10 singles in nine innings and 5 singles, 3 doubles and 2 home runs in those same nine innings. The results may or may not show up in ERA, but it would most certainly always show up in opponent's OPS.