Even More Feliciano And Mota! Hooray!

Looking into it further, and thinking about JK47's should-have-been-obvious "dumb luck BABIP" comment over at Metsgeek, I found this over at the Hardball Times:

Huh. So it looks like the difference between Pedro and Guillermo this season is just that, dumb luck. Based on peripherals like home run rate, K rate, etc., one would expect that Feliciano and Mota should have the same ERA (xFIP, or expected Fielding-Independent Pitching). Shocking. Seriously. Pedro has pitched, basically, twice as well as Mota. But I guess if their HR rates normalize back to around 11%, and we don't spot Pedro a 65-point advantage in BABIP, their results should be about the same. Wild.

You know, that's the thing about relievers. Pitching in such a small number of innings, luck can play a huge role in how well they do in any given year. I guess I could look up Feliciano and Mota's career BABIP rates, to see if one of them is getting historically lucky or unlucky, but . . . ah, I just don't care that much anymore.

Boy, did my eyes deceive me on this one.