In addition to the basic pitching stats (ERA, KO, BOB%, etc.) I occasionally run across things like weak ground balls, fly outs and more qualitative measures (although I'm guessing Trackman is making this much more objective). Can someone list some of these secondary statistics and provide some explanation of what they are attempting to illustrate?
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This is crazy but if you scroll down on this website you can see the pitching statistics that can be maintained using one of the electronic scoring programs. Quick glance says there might be 200+...LOL I am not going to begin to try to provide an illustration for each but suffice to say that this is the sabremetric data that teams use...way over my head!!!
Thanks MDBallDad - Very educational. Any one wish to comment on three in particular - FPS,GB% and FB% and how one should really scrutinize these? I could see a high first pitch strike being both good and bad - so is there some other stats you would look at in conjunction with FPS for example?
Not to be argumentative but I think it's pretty universal that FPS is one of the most important stats to any pitcher at any level. Certainly in a micro environment where the three hole hitter took the first pitch thrown over the OF fence a first pitch strike might be bad, but over the course of a pitcher's game, season, or career those that throw a lot of FPS will see much more success than those that don't.
So as to what you were asking LHP I think FPS for me stands alone. My son is a sinker slider guy so I look at his GB% from time to time. Others like say a Chris Young for the Royals likes to pitch high in the zone and is effective there. If he is where he wants to be he should be throwing fly balls.
Just opinion FPS is an indication of control as long as you view it with a broad range of stats it can be valuable. For example if your FPS is 80% but your BA against is .400 on those pitches = not good. If your FPS is 80% and the BA against is .032 it normally means you are able to spot the ball and the batter either does not swing or makes poor contact = good. If your FPS is 20% it is always bad...To me GB% and FB% is mostly indicative of the movement on a pitchers pitches. High velocity 4 seamers tend to go up (FB) tailing 2 seamers tend to go down (GB). All of the stats require other supporting or clarifying information to effectively understand what it says about an individual pitcher but they are certainly fun to consider.
To add. Lots of these metrics are pitcher dependent. My son is RHP. Had top 15 spin rate breaking ball in Jupiter this year. Only a few innings there but say over a complete game I can get a pretty good idea of how good his slider was that day by swing and miss or SM% metric. 1-2% variance over the course of a game can be telling if you have good baseline data.
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Originally Posted by 2017LHPscrewball:
…Any one wish to comment on three in particular - FPS,GB% and FB% and how one should really scrutinize these? I could see a high first pitch strike being both good and bad - so is there some other stats you would look at in conjunction with FPS for example?
1st pitch strikes are deemed to be of value because it’s generally accepted that when the pitcher gets ahead of the batter, he’s in a much superior position. There is a problem though. Since a 1st pitch BIP is also a 1st pitch strike, if a pitcher allows a lot of 1st pitch hits his FPS% could be high but he may be getting his brains beat out. 
In order to make the best evaluation about it’s worth as a stat, I feel it’s best to not only look at overall FPS%, but to also look at it with 1st pitch BIPs removed.
GB% and FB% are stats which are far very dependent on defense. FI, a pitcher who has a high GB% but a poor defense may well be a detriment to the team. In MLB a pitcher who has a high GB% has a great deal of value because defenses are generally very good and much more likely to take advantage of ground balls.
FB% is something you have to be careful about as well. The reason is, generally a fly ball, pop up, and line drive is counted as a FB. Personally, I look at trajectories when I want to evaluate in more detail. See attached.
In the end, there's no individual stat I know of that should be looked at without considering many other stats if you're trying to evaluate a player. Now if you want something very basic like which pitcher has the highest GB/FB percentage that's one thing. But trying to use that stat alone to determine much more than how pitcher rank is pretty useless.
GB% and FB% are stats which are far very dependent on defense. FI, a pitcher who has a high GB% but a poor defense may well be a detriment to the team.
IMO, any team that's at a high enough level to track these metrics is at a high enough level to turn enough groundball outs into outs.
For instance, if my HS infielders were so bad that I didn't want to have a groundball pitcher on the mound, then that means my team is so bad that advanced metrics are the farthest thing from my mind. In fact, we'd throw away our scorebook and keep score using tally marks on one of the posts that holds up the dugout
Originally Posted by freddy77:
IMO, any team that's at a high enough level to track these metrics is at a high enough level to turn enough groundball outs into outs.
For instance, if my HS infielders were so bad that I didn't want to have a groundball pitcher on the mound, then that means my team is so bad that advanced metrics are the farthest thing from my mind. In fact, we'd throw away our scorebook and keep score using tally marks on one of the posts that holds up the dugout
Well freddy, I wouldn’t call them “advanced” metrics, especially with all the stat packages running around today. But evidently you haven’t been around many HS teams, because a great many of them make fielding anything look like a 3rd rate circus act, especially on something on the ground.
Also, many HS teams have fields so big, with BBCOR being used, it’s a much surer out to have a ball hit in the air because so few players can hit the ball out.
