Fielding independent pitching strips a pitcher’s performance down to the three things they fully control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs. Everything else — whether a fly ball is caught, whether a ground ball sneaks through — depends on the defense and luck.

FIP is scaled to look like ERA, so you read it the same way: 3.00 is great, 4.00 is average. But FIP often tells a different story than ERA. A pitcher with a 4.50 ERA but a 3.20 FIP is probably getting unlucky with their defense — they’re pitching better than their ERA shows, and regression is likely coming.

This is exactly why NUT Score uses FIP as its pitching foundation. It’s the most stable, predictive measure of what a pitcher actually did on the mound. By using FIP instead of ERA, NUT avoids crediting or blaming pitchers for things outside their control.

What is a good FIP?

FIP is the direct input for NUT Score on the pitching side. NUT converts FIP to runs above average, then translates that into wins — giving each pitcher a value based purely on what they control.

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