Interesting article regarding pitch counts, strikeouts, pitching efficiency and going deep into games.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/halladay-and-verlander/

 

After making his start today against the Rays, Justin Verlander has now taken the hill 24 times this year, throwing 2,674 pitches on the season. Roy Halladay has also taken the hill 24 times, and has thrown 2,623 pitches, 51 fewer than the Tigers ace, and yet he's thrown 28 more innings than Verlander - 185 to 157.

 

Now, this isn't meant to be a knock on Verlander - few pitchers can rack up the innings like Halladay. It does, however, illustrate one of the big advantages that that groundball strike-throwers have over dominating power pitchers who get a lot of outs in the air. Because Halladay keeps the ball on the ground, he's gotten opposing hitters to ground into 19 double plays, while Verlander has induced just seven twin killings.

 

In addition, since Halladay throws so many strikes, each batter is dispatched more quickly. He has more three pitch strikeouts than Verlander, even though his overall strikeout rate is lower, and he rarely works into hitters counts. And, of course, since he walks fewer batters, he faces a lower number of batters per inning, allowing him to work deeper into games.

 

I bring this up because, when talking about the quality of a young pitcher (especially one in the minors), the first thing that is usually referenced is strikeout rate. As Bill James noted back in the 80s, a young pitcher's K/9 tells us more of what we want to know about how well he'll do in the majors than any other single statistic, mainly because it is the best proxy for quality of stuff.

 

However, while strikeouts are certainly a positive event for a pitcher, the Verlander approach to pitching is not the ideal, because it leads to extremely high pitch counts and shorter outings overall. Halladay's economic approach to getting outs has given him the equivalent of four extra starts compared to Verlander, a huge difference in value for their respective teams.

 

The strike-everyone-out approach comes with an inability to work deep into ballgames. Even though Verlander is once again among the league leaders in pitches thrown, he's only tossed one complete game and gotten through eight innings on three other occasions. For comparison, Halladay has eight complete games and has gotten through eight innings in five other starts.

 

It might not be as sexy, but getting groundball outs and limiting walks is a far more efficient way of pitching than trying to blow every hitter away. Strikeout rate is nice, but don't let it be the only tool you use to evaluate a young pitcher - not only are Ks not the only way to succeed, they aren't even the best way.

Interesting stuff.

 

I also was thinking of something about BB% and WHIP. When looking at Anibal, he has a league average WHIP but a very strong ERA. He's probably been lucky, yes. But maybe there is something to be said for being "effectively wild".

 

For any given WHIP, all other things being equal, you'd definitely rather more the WHIP to be derived from walks, since they are guaranteed to only be 1 base and to advance the other runners no more than one base.

 

Obviously, walk add to pitch counts a lot. But I think the paragraph above explains at least some of why a guy like Pinto or Anibal can outperform relative to his WHIP. It's pretty much the reverse of why, all other things equal, you'd prefer a .250/.300/.400 hitter to a .200/.300/.400 hitter.

1. There are plenty of strikeout pitchers in the big leagues who go deep into games. I don't really buy this argument. Getting a limited amount of strikeouts, and still getting deep into games means that you're relying heavily on your defense, and not every pitcher is fortunate enough to have a good defense playing behind him.

 

2. The Anibal thing...his ERA is low because he doesn't give up the long ball. He's only allowed 5 HR's this year. The complete opposite of Nolasco (who actually has a nice WHIP, but a real problem allowing HR's).

It's not saying the K pitchers don't go deep; it's saying that there is a way to be even BETTER.

 

And the HR numbers are definitely a big part of Anibal's success, but he was just an example, and that doesn't invalidate what I said at all.

One important thing about efficiency is the pitches per PA. These are the top 10 NL ERA+ guys so far this season. This is one area where JJ needs to improve on. He uses more pitches per PA than the league average.

 

Pitches per PA

================

JJ - 3.98

Wainwright - 3.70

Hudson - 3.65

Halladay - 3.57

Jimenez - 4.01

Latos - 3.99

Garcia - 3.85

Carpenter - 3.67

Cain - 3.89

Gallardo - 4.06

I could of predicted that Gallardo would be least efficient out of that group above.