Here’s another carry-over from the weekend. The author wrote it before Niese’s outing Saturday night. It has fancy “advanced” stats for you youngins.
Consider that Niese has followed up his 3.80 xFIP over 173 2/3 innings in 2010 with a 3.21 xFIP so far in 2011. That 2011 mark is 18th in all of baseball among starting pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched this season. It also rankes Niese ahead of pitchers like Dan Haren, Tim Hudson, Jon Lester, Ian Kennedy, Michael Pineda, and virtually everyone else.
