Defense independent pitching statistics
In baseball, defense-independent pitching statistics (DIPS) (also referred to as fielding-independent pitching, or FIP) is intended to measure a pitcher's effectiveness based only on statistics that do not involve fielders (except the catcher). These include home runs allowed, strikeouts, hit batters, walks, and, more recently, fly ball percentage, ground ball percentage, and (to a much lesser extent) line drive percentage. By focusing on these statistics and ignoring what happens once a ball is put in play, which – on most plays – the pitcher has little control over, DIPS claims to offer a clearer picture of the pitcher's true ability. The most controversial part of DIPS is the idea that pitchers have little influence over what happens to balls that are put into play. Some people believe this has been well-established (see below), primarily by showing the large variability of most pitchers' BABIP from year to year. However, there is a wide variation in career BABIP among pitchers, and this seems to correlate with career success. For instance, no pitcher in the Hall of Fame has a below-average career BABIP. Origin of DIPS In 1999, Voros McCracken became the first to detail and publicize these effects to the baseball research