What does ERA mean?

In baseball, one of the most common stats for pitchers is ERA. Most pitchers get alluded to by their win-loss record and their ERA next. Last season, Atlanta Braves pitcher Kyle Wright was 21-5 with a 3.19 ERA.

That statistic stands for earned run average. It essentially asks the question: if a pitcher were to throw a full nine-inning game, how many runs would he give up? The decimals make it a little difficult, but the answer to that question for Wright would have been about three.

Another way of looking at it is to ask the question: in the next nine innings, how much would the pitcher allow to score? This is a good way of looking at it for a reliever, since they don't throw full nine-inning games.

Last season, the Milwaukee Brewers stud relief pitcher had a 1.93 earned run average. So if it took him five appearances to record a full nine innings, he'd give up about two runs on average.

This stat can be misleading because there is an entire defense behind the pitcher (and a catcher in front) that directly affects how runs are scored.

Other stats, like FIP (fielder independent pitching) are becoming more prominent, but the earned run average is still the go-to stat for traditional pitching numbers.

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Last season's ERA leaders

For starters, there were several pitchers who had strong earned run averages. For context, a 3.0 or anywhere thereabout is considered good.

Here's the leaderboard:

1. Justin Verlander, 1.75
2. Julio Urias, 2.16
3. Dylan Cease, 2.20
4. Alek Manoah, 2.24
5. Sandy Alcantara, 2.28
6. Shohei Ohtani, 2.33
7. Max Fried, 2.48
8. Shane McClanahan, 2.54
9. Zac Gallen, 2.54
10. Tyler Anderson, 2.58

For relievers, this is how the leaderboard looked:

1. Evan Phillips, 1.14
2. Ryne Stanek, 1.15
3. Ryan Helsley, 1.25
4. Edwin Diaz, 1.31
5. Emmanuel Clase, 1.36
6. Cionel Perez, 1.40
7. Anthony Bass, 1.54
8. Jason Adam, 1.56
9. Erik Swanson, 1.74
10. Daniel Bard, 1.79

Division Series - Cleveland Guardians v New York Yankees - Game Two

As analytics and sabermetrics get more prominent, these statistics become more obsolete. However, it is still good to see pitchers with this kind of dominance at year's end.