Looking at the pitching stats.

by DriverZn on Jul 21, 2007 2:57 AM EDT Comment 19 comments

Which pitching stats really reflect how well a pitcher does?

In the game thread yesterday we had a good debate about what pitching to contact and strikeouts really do for pitchers. So I took all the 2006 data for pitchers that threw more than 150 IP and plotted it.

First up, does getting ground balls allow a pitcher to keep their pitch count down. What about the runs they give up.

Now there is a real trend where getting an increasing percentage of ground balls does indeed reduces the number of pitches a pitcher needs to throw. However, while the pitch count goes down, the pitchers that get lots of ground balls appear to give up just as many runs as the ones that don't. Interestingly the two extremes outperformed the generic pitchers. If a pitcher could magically increase their GB ratio I see no reason not to do it all else being equal.

What about strikeouts?

Looking at this data there does appear to be a weak relation to strikeouts requiring extra pitches. The difference is probably around 4-5 pitches per game. There is also a strong relation between getting strikeouts and keeping runs off the board. More strikeouts means fewer runs given up. Would you rather have 6 good innings or 7 average ones?

What about walks?

Now here we see a strong relationship between giving up walks and having to throw extra pitches. I doubt that will surprise anyone. The relationship between walks and runs is much weaker than I would have expected.

Now the stats guys have always claimed that K/BB is the best indicator of future success. Why?

Wow, Basically almost no pitchers with poor so/bb ratios are getting buy without throwing quite a few pitches. For the most part as the strikeout to walk ratio goes up, the pitchers needed and runs give up drop rapidly. The other telling part is very few pitchers with good K/bb rates are giving up lots of runs.

What does this tell us about the pitch to contact theory? The theory as I understand it is this. Getting more ground balls allows a pitcher to throw fewer pitches, walk fewer people and strikeout fewer people. Lets looks at that.

Getting more ground balls. By itself this would appear to be good. Nothing in the data shows a downside to this.

Walk fewer people. Very good. This is just as effective as increasing the GB% at reducing pitch counts.

Strikeout fewer people. Bad. Yes it might save a couple pitches per game but this is also expected to increase runs allowed.

Now the real question is, Does increasing GB% actually impact the other stats?

I really don't see much relationship here. With the exception of the 4 outliers walk rate appears to be unrelated to GB%. There does appear to be a slight downward trend in strikeout rate. So if increasing the GB% doesn't decrease the walk rate but does decrease the K rate slightly it doesn't appear to have a net positive effect on keeping runs off the board.

What I do take from all this. The best think a pitcher can do to go longer in a game and at the same time give up fewer runs is to simply walk fewer people. Perhaps that should be the message for the pitchers that do have strikeout stuff but not groundball stuff. Keep the walks down and they can do just fine.

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We're going to need a bigger

monitor.

Boooo-urns.

by Alxfritz on Jul 21, 2007 2:54 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Sorry, used to my 30" dell where it takes up

less than half the screen. I might be able to shrink them if its a problem

by DriverZn on Jul 21, 2007 2:55 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

if you can shrink it

it'd make for easier reading.

by lboros on Jul 21, 2007 8:03 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

by the way, i appreciate

all the effort. you've done a really nice job here. but i'm afraid you're not going to convince any of the people who were disagreeing with you on last night's thread. i don't think those people are persuaded by data --- judging from their comments on last night's thread, they're more persuaded by anecdotal impressions and whatever dave duncan says.

for those who are interested in data, studies have been out there for years correlating strikeout rates to pitching effectiveness. bill james did the first one more than 20 years ago in the original edition of the Historical Baseball Abstract. there have been literally dozens of studies since then refining james' original insight. there's no longer a debate about whether strikeout rates are a key indicator of long-term effectiveness; that issue is settled. there is still a debate about the degree of the correlation, and there is an interest in gaining a better understanding of outliers --- pitchers like wang and carlos silva, who seem to pitch better and last longer than their k rates would suggest.

this diary is a good introduction to the subject. if anybody is interested in educating him/herself further, post a comment or send me an e-mail and i'll be happy to share some links to further reading about this subject.

by lboros on Jul 21, 2007 8:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks!

I would really love to see the cardinals become less of a "feeling" organization and more of a stats oriented one. We do too many things that make no sense and waste a lot of money in the process. As to Duncan. He seems to be able to get the most out of low K/9 and high GB% guys. Thats great, but there are other successful ways to pitch also.

by DriverZn on Jul 21, 2007 6:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Shrunk

This moringing I looked at it on the laptop, yuck. Better now.

by DriverZn on Jul 21, 2007 5:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You're making my eyes glaze over......

Something I'm sure there is no data for.....what about the hitters state of mind when he steps up to the plate against a pitcher that can consistently blow them away....Johann Santana would not be a good pitcher in LaDunc world, becaues he is a flyball/stikeout pitcher. When he has a bad game, it means he's given up 3 runs in 8 innings. Chris Young can't be on our staff either. I don't do statistics very well, but the pitchers that do the best keep runners off of base-doh-but I for the life of me don't understand why LaDunc insists you have to do that with a ground ball.

by jillsinmo on Jul 21, 2007 9:03 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Dave Duncan

never seemed to mind Carp striking guys out.

Boooo-urns.

by Alxfritz on Jul 21, 2007 10:07 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good one

by cardsgirl95 on Jul 21, 2007 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Because Carpenter is a

veteran....(snark)

by jillsinmo on Jul 21, 2007 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Snark indeed

by cardsgirl95 on Jul 21, 2007 3:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'd read "Baseball Between the Numbers"

a great book put out by the writers of Baseball Prospectus. They've indicated 4 things that are indicative of future pitching success -- K/9, BB/9, GB %, and HR/9 -- not necessarily in that order. I think it's K/9, HR/9, BB/9, and GB% -- not positive.

In any case, performing better in those categories is indicative of future success -- much more than ERA is, for example. It makes sense, of course -- particularly w/ K/9 and BB/9. More ground balls generally leads to fewer homers, which makes it more difficult to put together big innings, thus reducing the number of runs pitchers give up.

We also know that, generally speaking, pitchers tend to become less effective when they approach and exceed the 100 pitch count. Additionally, a pitcher's likelihood of injuring his arm goes up, dramatically, when he throws when he's tired. In other words -- throwing 130-140 pitches consistently, rather than throwing often (throwing in between starts, for example) makes pitchers more likely to get hurt. So there is a good rationale for minimizing pitch count. A team's best pitchers stay in the game longer w/o substantially increasing the chance of getting hurt.

That said, it's clear that more K's doesn't necessarily increase pitch count and more K/9 is predictive of future success. In fact, it's (I believe) the most predictive indicator. So, when looking for effective pitchers, teams should look for pitchers w/ high K rates and low BB rates.

by chuckb on Jul 21, 2007 1:51 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good Data...

Little hard to follow because of the size, but it does bring up some interesting points.

A couple years ago I actually came up with a formula which I used to try and find "sleepers" in the free agent market.

It is a pretty drawn out theory, but to make a long story short...it rewarded pitchers for strikeouts, GB%, K/BB, and LD%. All good indicators of success, but when you put all four into the formula...you actually can begin to see some value in the not so big name pitchers.

Maybe, I'll post a diary with the formula and we can run some tests as a community. I'd be interested to see what others think.

Anyway, good post and good data, but many people will never be swayed by data because baseball's cliches have been around for more years than any of us.

Pitch to swing and misses...not contact. I've never heard of a "seeing eye K"

by bobbyballgame1 on Jul 21, 2007 2:59 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I like your signature.......

personally I like what we refer to in my house as "eff-u" pitching. Yeah, go ahead and hit it, I dare you.....Santana, Johnson, Jenks, Penny, Zambrano..it's just more fun. Oh, Bob Gibson used to pitch that way too. If he saw Albert clowning with the opposition while he was on the mound, he'd go over and deck him.

by jillsinmo on Jul 21, 2007 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Great Job

Maybe you could cut the pictures in half, then stack the charts so that they don't run off the page.

Had you seen this article by Rich Lederer?

He charted MLB starters by GB% and K/9 to develop a pretty interesting picture that generally supports your conclusion above:

All great pitchers strike a lot of batters out, but you're usually better off with the ones that induce mostly groundballs on BIP.

A follow-up for relievers is here

by liam on Jul 21, 2007 4:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I read those a while back.

Thats when I first became disturbed at the whole Cards picthing approach. They basically want to write off all the pitchers in the lower right of that graph. This is despite the fact they are producing the 2nd best results of the 4 options.

As a club we are attracted to the #3 group in the top left. But they are getting worse results in terms of runs allowed than the one the club avoids.

I also like to use runs allowed and not earned runs. The reason being some pitchers cause more errors than others. Its about keeping runs off the board, not just the once that count as earned.

Wainwrights last start not excepted, its very rare people reach 1st on a K.

by DriverZn on Jul 21, 2007 5:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sure

Groundballs are less conducive to damage than flyballs. I've read a few studies that back that up.

However, the best result of an AB for the pitcher is always a K. If you can find a guy who can do both...then you have someone special. That is the #1 reason I'm excited about Jaime Garcia.

Pitch to swing and misses...not contact. I've never heard of a "seeing eye K"

by bobbyballgame1 on Jul 21, 2007 9:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

no argument re groundballs

but where i differ with the organization is its attempt to turn all pitchers into GBers. a guy like brad thompson, who has natural sink on his pitches --- i'm all for it. even with his low K/9, he might be a useful pitcher because of his high GB rate.

but it is possible to succeed as an FB pitcher, too --- as long as your K/9 is high enough. and if a guy is a natural FB pitcher, the organization should be flexible enough to work with him on those terms, instead of forcing him to become a GB pitcher against his natural tendencies.

i'm speaking of reyes, obviously. there's nothing to say that a pitcher of his profile --- high K/9, high FB rate --- can't succeed. indeed, statistically speaking he's got a better chance to succeed than the high GB / low K9 pitchers like brad thompson and braden looper.

by lboros on Jul 23, 2007 1:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

lboros--there was an article about that in

yesterday's Chicago Tribune. ( I couldn't find it on their website today or I'd try to link) Basically, Hendry and pitching coach Rothschild had in the past looked for sinkerball pitchers, couldn't always find guys to fit the profile, so instead they looked for pitchers that hitters didn't get good swings against, that could throw strikes, and upgraded the defense. They also took Wood and Prior out of the picture when they were looking to build their staff because of their injury history. They try to get the starters out before they absorb too much punishment, because they don't want it to hurt them mentally for the next start. It's worked for them so far-they have the second best pitching staff in the league. Jason Marquis is still the roller coaster he was here, but Pinella knows exactly when to get him out of the game, so even he has done better this year. I think LaDunc could learn a lesson from that--the pool of good pitchers available is small. If you completely rule out certain types of pitchers, you surely are going to let some useful, talented pitchers slip away.

by jillsinmo on Jul 25, 2007 9:56 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs