Accuracy of Pitchers

quote:

The strike zone by definition is roughly 7 balls abutted across the plate that are strikes by 11 balls high. I built that strike zone with 77 baseballs and it looks pretty large.

And I thought I was obssessed !!!! You Da' Man Papa !!!!

My answer is a college/professional pitcher would hit the target at least 75 out of 100 times without throwing off-speed pitches. Better anyway or may need to find day-job Shep

Are you asking how many times a good college/pro pitcher could hit (or nick) a target the size of a strike zone from a mound 60 feet away?

He would, of course, aim at the center of that target to do best.

I've seen pitchers who could probably do it almost 100 times out of 100 tries.

Yes, where are you going with this?

baseballpapa ...

Don't know where you are going with this but don't you also have to figure into the answer the fact that the strike zone is 3 dimensional and not merely 2 dimensional? How many baseballs deep is the strike zone from the front corner to the back corner? Is that a factor ... for wherever you are going with this?

I was talking to a former major league pitcher who mentioned that a good pitcher could hit the strike zone I described at least 90 out of 100 tries.

At 87% accuracy there would be only 3 walks randomly generated from 1000 plate appearances. This goes from first pitch 87% strikes and 13% balls. Second pitch same %s... and run the numbers. You will get to strike 3 before ball 4. Also, this assumes the batter doesn't swing. They do of course.

What all this means is virtually every walk is preventable by a good pitcher and virtually every walk is situationally and not randomly generated.

I tell my son to never walk the guys without pop. You have to respect power. If the player has significant pop you would try to avoid the middle of the strike zone and throw off-speed. This results in more walks. The biggest mistake I see is having the same approach (corners, off-speed, etc.) to all hitters. That is not playing the odds. Why try to nibble every player and thus create base runners? Challenge the weaker hitter, respect the power guys.

The major league average is 33% extra base hits. Any player that hits 15% extra base hits or lower should not be walked. The low power guy should be challenged early in the count and when behind challenged the next pitch. Save the situational walks for the 33% to 48% guys. Hitters that are 15-33% should be somewhat respected but challanged every time when down in the count.

I would not go one through nine and reverse pitch or start all hitters off with curve balls. It is not playing the odds.

quote:

What all this means is virtually every walk is preventable by a good pitcher and virtually every walk is situationally and not randomly generated.

Another statement by PaPa says pitchers should "challenge the weaker hitter, respect the power guy". Ever wonder how many homers some of the greatest power hitters would have if not pitched around??? Bet number would dwarf 755.

BTW PaPa, this was interesting and I believe I got the point sir and thank you for the "eye opener punchline"that pitchers dictate situations with batter and walks are not really random. I totally agree.

PaPa, are you a big league player in disguise here???

Your comments/statements/conclusions are just too advanced for a PaPa only....CUDOS bro !!!

Shep

I agree with Shep's assessment of the number of strikes. 75-80 would be realistic for a typical pitcher although some could do better.

Typically, pitchers are the most effective throwing a ratio of about 2 strikes to 1 ball. A ratio much less than that usually results in control problems and a ratio much greater than that usually lets the hitter go up there and hack.

Major league hitters on average hit .300 or better on balls they put in play. That's against pitchers trying for the corners, throwing breaking pitches, changing speeds, etc. Put the ball down the middle to major league hitters and most of them will hit .500.

Haven't looked at the pro numbers. But based on an empirical analysis of data for youth ball (up to HS), I can say that the optimum for a starter is about 65-70% strikes. If a starter throws upwards of 75% strikes he usually gives up too many hits.

Probably even more important is throwing 70% first pitch strikes.

Now a closer is a different story, of course.

Completely agree with not using the same approach (e.g., everything low & away for every batter & every count, as some coaches are prone to call) for every batter. Always taught my players to analyze each batter. Individual weaknesses are often revealed in their stance & swing.

We just have to remember that while pitchers may be able to throw 70% strikes, they cannot hit their spots at that rate. You just hope the misses are "good misses" and not "mistakes", but the mistakes are going to happen. Every now & then a pitcher will try to put a ball just outside the zone on an 0-2 and miss over the middle. It happens.

Challenge all the batters. If nothing else, it may surprise the slugger.

ANyone have any idea what the probablity is for a pitcher to walk a batter after getting a first pitch strike? It has to be somewhere in the SABR books.

Did some research on this and found that it appears about 3.5 to 4 times more likely to walk a batter after 1-0 rather than 0-1. It seems it is the case regardless of the sequence of the next several pitches. On the one hand, It is a little surprising but on the other hand it seems to suggest that the whole mode of hitting changes after 0-1. What I menat by that is the data i got this from says that maybe all batting everages and slugging % are less for a given count if the ab starts with 0-1. Nothing solid on that idea but it is very compelling.

Razor