Pitches per Run Vs ERA

Well, you can feel free to ignore me as well, but in the words of Philip K Dick, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

 

I'm not trying to make anyone feel anything, but I'm not going to refrain from arguing that an article that includes this quote,"For those desiring a precise definition of pitch to contact, start with this: a pitcher who is trying to get hitters to put the ball in play, preferably on the ground, within three pitches" is missing the point, whether or not the people (in the article) involved realize it.

 

Pitchers do not, and/or should not, be trying to get hitters to put the ball in play.

 

The Cardinals pitching staff does well because they employ a lot of ground ball pitchers and strike guys out at roughly league average rates (a bit below in 2012, a bit above in 2013). The 2012 correlation between BIP and R/G in the NL was positive with an r2 of .37.  In 2013 the r2 was .54.  The Cards finished 5th in R/G both years, and 15th (of 16) and 8th (14) in BIP.  The teams ahead of them in R/G finished 2,3,4 and 7 in BIP in 2012 and 1, 2, 3 and 7 in 2013.  The Cards were the #1 and #2 outlier in GB/FB in those two years, and the 2013 Pirates (the 7th BIP team in the NL that year) was the biggest GB/FB outlier in 2013.  

 

The 2012 Twins preach the same mantra in the article, but finished dead last in BIP in the AL, and 13th out of 14 in R/G.  The league r2 for this correlation was .47.  The Twins, not coincidentally, finished dead last in K/9 as well, and for completeness' sake, were 5th in GB/FB. So not as big a GB outlier as the Cards, but still solidly above average.

 

Ground balls are good when batters put the ball in play, better than the alternative LD or FB, but GB are not better in place of striking guys out.

I I never said gb were better than strikeouts. I said it was better for young pitchers to throw less pitchers.

The article you posted implies it clearly in the quote.

 

Also, strike out pitchers don't necessarily throw more pitches per inning or, therefore, more pitches overall.

 

P/IP for their careers along with BB/9  and K/9 (because I'm too lazy to figure out /BF) Pitch numbers only start in '88, so years before that excluded.

 

Curt Schilling 14.78, 2.0, 8.6

Kyle Lohse 15.92, 2.5, 5.6

Liam Hendriks 17.51, 2.7, 5.8

Derek Lowe 15.57, 2.7, 5.8

Greg Maddux 13.21, 1.7, 6.1

Randy Johnson, 16.22, 3.3, 10.6

 

Eyeballing that, I suspect pitches per inning has more to do with BB rate than K rate. In fact, in the team data I looked at before (for the Twins, I think I posted here upthread somewhere) there's a small positive correlation in pitch/inning with BB/9, and a small negative correlation between P/IP and K/9.  If you do the correlations between BB/PA and K/PA, the P/IP correlation for BB is still positive but smaller, and the P/IP to K/PA is still negative but stronger.  The 2013 Twins best strikeout pitchers throw fewer pitches per inning than their worst ones. This isn't really surprising, since the pitchers with the worst K rates also have the worst batting lines against (essentially by definition, when you get right down to it), so it takes them more hitters, and more pitches, to get through an inning.

Also, the r2 on the relationship between the GB/FB ratio and P/IP for the Twins was .02, so effectively no relationship. At least for them, GB rate has nothing to do with the number of pitches it takes you to get through an inning.

Originally Posted by J H:

Stats- I think success can certainly be defined differently in the context of a situation. The scenario I mentioned with jacjacatk was the discussion we had about the correlation between K% and team wins. The ultimate measure of success, I think everyone would agree, is team wins. But when analyzing specific individual performances within the context of the variables involved, the definition changes.

 

OK, now I understand. For many years I’ve tried to find things that could be related to wins. Part of that was to see if I could find that certain mystical “thing” that should be concentrated on, but there was also my trying to take something someone else claimed to be that “thing” and see how it stood up to the test. I’ve done it several ways, but the attachment shows the most popular ones with the “common” folks sitting in the bleachers of HS games.

 

http://www.infosports.com/scor...images/freebies8.pdf

 

Of the 5 I still have turned on, OPS with a WPct of .852 seems to be the most consistent significant factor, with free passes at .713, First Pitch Strikes at .651, Strike Percentage at .693, and Ks at .841 coming in at varying distances behind. Granted this is only 212 games, and HS games at that, but it is a sample and the numbers are as valid as I can make them. It should also be mentioned that those percentages do change from season to season. If someone out there has the data to do something similar, I’d sure like to see it.

 

FIP is quite easy to calculate, and the "league average" multiplier technically only serves the purpose of making the number easier to analyze because it's neutralized to mimic ERA. I realize you'd have difficulty finding that variable, but perhaps it could be tinkered with enough that you can find consistency. At the big league level, FIP is a more accurate predictive measure than ERA.

 

I’m sure it is, but that “average” is the number that allows the comparisons to be valid. If it could be calculated at the HS level, al lot of the hollering about disparity of completion would go away, but certainly not all of it. FI, our league is made up of 6 large school teams(DI). But just like not all AL or NL teams are equal, not all DI teams are equal. The difference is, the “outlier” ML player isn’t a whole lot better or worse relative to the rest of the players, than the “outlier” player in our league is. But, with a valid “league average”, it really wouldn’t matter.

 

The problem is, only 15 of 28 games are league games. The other games depend entirely on the HC’s ability to schedule the best competition available. Our HC happens to have the ability to make our non-league schedule much superior to our league schedule. Here’s how our opponents looked last season. The W/L is based on their 2012 records.

 

******************W/L************Games*******WPct

Non-Conference**367-179***********18***********.672

Conference*******66-62************15***********.515

Overall*********473-241***********32***********.662

 

As you can easily see, our guys got to play some pretty dawgone good competition, but I can  guarantee not all of the teams in our league can say the same. Because of that, the non-league games can’t really be used to evaluate much, exactly for the reason many people don’t think HS stats are whether the powder to blow them to Hell in the 1^st place. When one of our guys bats .375 its been against some pretty good pitching, and when our pitchers have an ERA of 1.00, the same thing can be said. So even in our league its generally impossible to use stats in any meaningful way to judge the players for play at the next level. However, using the numbers to compare players on the team is quite a different matter.

 

I'd urge you to re-read my explanation for "pitching to contact." It's quite the contrary to what you're alluding to.

 

Before we get off on all kinds of weird tangents, exactly what do you think I’m alluding to? I’m just trying to address any questions you have directly.

 

I'm also not entirely sure what you mean by assuming I mean winning the game.

 

I made that assumptions because I didn’t see any other measurement of performance relative to success.

 

The study I did involved analyzing how to optimize a major league pitching rotation, and I found that relievers pitched overwhelmingly better than starters, and got hurt less, over the time period of 1992-2012. I wasn't aiming to isolate any subset of pitchers, but highlight the optimization in general. Mitchel Lichtman has since expanded upon my theory, isolating specific pitchers according to what role would fit them using a retrospective analysis on how a pitcher with a similar arsenal (according to PITCH F/x data, I presume, although I don't believe he ever defined that) performs.

 

I’m sure you’ve been asked this question before, but please indulge me. How did you factor in that starters threw so many more pitches than relievers. I’ve never seen or heard of a study on pitching injuries that ignored the gross number of pitches and rest. I’d think the man-in-the-street who knows nothing about the game would say a player who threw 300 pitches in a season would be more at risk for an injury than one who threw less than half that number.

 

But beside that, you snuck in another one of those descriptions of performance without saying what it meant. What does “pitching overwhelmingly better” mean?

 

I'll definitely stick around here and contribute where I can. I obviously will not be able to share any information from within the organization, but being a full-time scout doesn't completely make me a mime when I put the radar gun down. 

 

The reason I asked, is I’ve known several scouts who at one time participated in forums like this one but generally stopped. The reasons weren’t that they didn’t want to participate, but there’s only so many hours in the day to devote to such things, and from what I’m told there are venues that allow exchanging of information and ideas at the professional level that prove to be much more productive for them than dealing with crazy amateurs like myself. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed reading your posts, so I really do hope you can stick around.

Originally Posted by TPM:

..Stats can be annoying, he often throws stats around making others feel inferior,  you have out done him, so IMO, I don't blame him for putting you on ignore. …

 

I know I can be annoying, but I’ve never tried to make anyone feel inferior because I understand how difficult it is to capture enough data to do much in depth analysis. Having said that, if someone feels inferior because they say something is true and I have proof to the contrary, that’s not my fault. I don’t claim my numbers to be representative of anything other than the team I score for, and others shouldn’t claim what they say is universally true. This is supposed to be a forum for exchanging thoughts and looking for answers, not dictating what people should think or say.

 

The main problem I’ve found with throwing numbers out there from my team, is that people don’t know who those players are and it makes it difficult to relate to. Heck, current players and parents often can’t relate to players long since graduated because they don’t know them. If I know that happens in my little corner of the world, you have to know I understand how others who don’t even have a clue about the school or even the region can get lost in the fog of the numbers.

 

In my defense, over the years there’s been just as many people who’ve been helped in some way by the numbers I generate than have been annoyed, so I take the bad with the good and keep on truckin’.

Do you have stats to substantiate this point of view?

Not in my opinion.  The definition of "pitching to contact" implies intent.  As JH stated earlier, the intent is never to induce contact.  The intent is to get a swing and miss.  The weak contact is simply the result of a well placed pitch.

Originally Posted by cabbagedad:

Do you have stats to substantiate this point of view?

 

I could, but many times the contact has been through PMs or E-mails, which I don’t share because very often those folks don’t want anyone to become aware of how they feel because they believe they’ll be personally attacked.

Originally Posted by Bum:

Not in my opinion.  The definition of "pitching to contact" implies intent.  As JH stated earlier, the intent is never to induce contact.  The intent is to get a swing and miss.  The weak contact is simply the result of a well placed pitch.

 

Well, although you’re welcome to your opinion of what pitching to contact means, I can assure you that not everyone shares it, and that’s why there are so many arguments about it.

 

I’d agree that the wish would be that no pitch is ever hit, but as my old man used to say, “Doo doo in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first”. My point is, having lofty goals is great, but realistically every pitcher is going to have contact on his pitches to some degree, and it will vary from pitch to pitch.

 

I disagree too, that weak contact is always the result of a well-placed pitch. I’ve seen great hitters hit swinging bunts, duck farts, and nubbers off of poorly thrown pitches right down the middle and belt high, just as I’ve seen balls sail over the fence that are executed perfectly and easily a foot outside the strike zone.

Although there are times when a ground ball double play relies on inducing contact.

I was kidding.

 

Originally Posted by Bum:

Although there are times when a ground ball double play relies on inducing contact.

 

Can you tell us a condition when a ground ball double play doesn’t rely on a ball being put into play?