Strikeouts per pitch

by by jiminy on Jan 24, 2009 10:56 PM EST Comment 4 comments

An interesting article on baseballanalysts.com

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/01/2008_leaders_an.php

argues pretty convincingly that K/9 is not the best way to measure strikeouts. Strikeouts per inning lets you give up a ton of walks and hits, possibly even giving you more chances to strike someone out. Strikeouts per batter faced improves on this by focusing on exactly how likely you are to strikeout a batter. But even better, he says, is strikeouts per pitch (or per hundred pitches), which punishes you for walks and hits and and for generally running up your pitch counts, basically everything except strikeouts. If you're measuring how likely you are to strike someone out, why not measure how many pitches it takes you to do that?

All of this fuzzy interpretation aside, the more significant thing is that it actually does correlate better to runs allowed than the other strikeout metrics. So it really is a more reliable predictor of success than k/9.

The reason I bring it up here, however, is that he lists the top 30 and bottom 30 performers in the league in this metric. The bottom is Livan Hernandez, no surprise. Ponson was third, and Silva was fourth. It is gaining credibility, right?

So it's slightly troublesome to see Blackburn coming in at 22nd worst. Obviously this metric will undervalue sinkerball pitchers, who can be quite effective when they're on. But on the other hand, that's what they said about Silva, and look how long that lasted. Double plays are great, and Blackburn's better than Silva, but this stat is still a minor red flag.

Now look who's 14th from the bottom: Glen Perkins. Ugh. Based on this stat at least, perhaps one should not expect a sudden drop in ERA from him this year..

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I agree...

…to a certain extent. Blackburn is pretty solid because he is a gamer and does pretty well at the mental side of pitching (the chess match side). Perkins I am less sold on. I think he is a spot 5th starter/long reliever at best, based on his performances so far. It always seemed like he got a lot of good run support last year which covered up for the number of baserunners he consistently allowed.

I’d be interested to see where Liriano, Baker, and Slowey rank on the list. Baker strikes me as a solid, solid #2 pitcher, and Liriano a potential #1 or solid, solid #2. Slowey could be a #1 guy but is limited by his style (which is prone to the every so often awful outing). Unless he learns how to pull a Maddux, #2 or utterly dominant #3 is what’s in line for Slowey.

What I’d be most interested in seeing are the numbers and analysis of some of our minor league pitchers. Does Mulvey really separate himself from Humber here? What about Duensing, Swarzak, or Robertson? I have a feeling that the Twins will release or trade Boof/Humber/different reliever at some point this season or spring training sending Perkins back to the bullpen and trying out either one of our own young guys as a spot starter (or a Dickey type?) or claim somebody on waivers to try out. Perkins’ spot on the roster is easily the most upgradeable among the starting pitchers.

by biggity2bit on Jan 24, 2009 11:49 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

this is the way

I see the rotation filling in this year:

1. Baker
2. Liriano
3. Slowey
4. Blackburn
5. Perkins/Bonser/Humber/Swarzak

Reasons:

1 – Baker has had the most experience and success (aside from Liriano) on the staff.
2 – Liriano is coming into his second season recovering from TJ surgery…they may want to see how he handles himself
3 – Slowey would just be a dominant #3 starter and that is what you want in the middle of your rotation
4 – Blackburn could win another 13-14 games this year because of his “chess match” mind as biggity2bit put it
5 – Perkins/Bonser/Humber/Swarzak is going to be how this final spot in the rotation shapes up if Perkins should struggle…it will become a spot starter/whoever is hot spot.

by 33MorneauMVP on Jan 25, 2009 8:48 AM EST reply actions 0 recs