Article: Geeking Out: Pitch To Contact And Team Pitching

[John Bonnes]

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1712-Geeking-Out-Pitch-To-Contact-And-Team-Pitching

[Thrylos]

Good stuff.

 

The full results are at the bottom, but here is a summary.

where where? Seems that they were censored

 

Wonder how defensive metrics correlate with RA, as well. Especially the "defensive runs saved" type of measures.

 

Did you check composites, like WHIP?

[jorgenswest]

Nice study.

 

There must be teams that have lower than normal strikeouts and lower than normal hits.

 

What is the key?

 

Groundball/Flyball rate?

Low line drive percentage?

Good defense? All around? Up the middle? IF? OF? Pitch framing?

 

I think everyone is concerned with the Twins outfield defense. There is great debate on how to measure defense and how much impact according to runs to attribute to defense. How many extra hits and therefore runs will the OF defense give up this year? No one knows. I do know that the pitchers will get the blame.

[Schafer9728]

Sam Deduno! Does this mean he deserves another shot? Regardless of the walks, I'd think there is more to it, but he seems to hold the key to low H/9.

[troyhobbs]

It's about locating your pitches. No walks and nothing over the heart of the plate. Soft hits...not so bad. Hard drives and crumby hitters getting free passes...not good.

[snepp]

A strikeout is the best way to not allow a hit, yes?

[nicksaviking]

A strikeout is the best way to not allow a hit, yes?

 

And is the strikeout the only way to prevent the defense from factoring into the outcome of any particular at bat? Yes.

 

I don't even liked the term "Earned Run." They're all earned in my book. Strike the batter out and you don't have to worry about your 3B throwing the ball in the stands.

 

Awesome write up and the effort put into the research is great. Though this was writen right in the article:

 

"So the difference is...defense? Luck? Secret sauce?"

 

The strikeout takes away any unknown variables associated with defense or luck. Secret sauce? Well only Clay Buchholz knows, and he's not telling.

[COtwin]

Ok. I say we get 5 pitchers that...

1) throw a lot of no hitters

2) don't walk batters

3) strike lots of guys out

Seems simple enough.

 

Thanks John. Interesting analysis.

[nicksaviking]

 

Thanks John. Interesting analysis.

 

I agree. But without the snark.

[B Richard]

I would be interested in a study that looks at average ball speed off the bat and how it correlates with H/9

[IdahoPilgrim]

What I take away from this analysis is that there is no magic formula here for how to pitch effectively. Some have made the case that the game has changed and that hard-throwing pitchers that cause bats to miss are the gold-standard that all teams should be chasing. While that's not a bad thing, by itself it doesn't guarantee success. Hard-throwers with high K/9 rates can still make mistakes with the rest of their pitches and give up hits (and thus runs and thus losses).

 

While that is one way to pitch effectively, one can also pitch effectively with less electric stuff when it is used smartly and with good location control, with an effective mix of pitches.

 

Bottom line - there is no bottom line. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and whatever works for any individual pitcher to help him be effective is what that pitcher should emphasize and rely upon, and if an organization finds someone who is effective they should stick with him, regardless of how he does it.

[old nurse]

If the numbers are still in your spreadsheet you could run a correlation of k/9 and hits. Might only be the same .54.

The k/9 people are correct in that a strikeout is the best way to prevent a hit.

What is ignored though is the thought of pitcher mistakes and having the batter guess right. The more pitches thrown the greater the chance a mistake pitch gets sent somewhere. Context if you would like would be to think of your favorite Twin's pitchers not with the club who were inconsistent. Sinkers that don't sink are hittable. It is too bad the Pitch F/X people when analyzing pitches don't have a category for the obvious oops pitches.

[jorgenswest]

John,

 

I would be interested in the correlation using percentages instead of per 9. Did you try a correlation with strike out, walk and hit percentage?

[Rick Niedermann]

Johan Santanas-good Nick Blackburns-bad is what this tells me.

[John Bonnes]

A strikeout is the best way to not allow a hit, yes?

 

What this quick-and-dirty study shows is similar to what you're saying: strikeouts are good. But they're far from everything and we probably put too much importance on them.

 

This is what is interesting to me about this study: that it demonstrates a logical paradox. I think the root cause of that paradox is that we take sabrmetric studies and generalize them and expand them beyond their findings.

 

The emphasis on strikeouts comes from several different places, but the most recent study that has raised their profile is Voros McCracken's study. But his study didn't really have anything to do with strikeouts. It was about hits.

 

Specifically, what his study showed was that when you account for team defense, there is very little correlation in how many extra or how many fewer hits a pitcher gives up year-to-year. The correlation was something like .25. That seemed low. And I say "seemed" because that .25 doesn't have any real empirical meaning - its not like it means they control 25% of things. It was just a smaller correlation than was expected. (Like in this study.)

 

This led to a more general interpretation - that pitchers can't influence whether balls put in play are hits or outs. That's funny, because McCracken's study proved exactly the opposite - it's not completely random - it's just that they can less than we probably expected.

 

This led to a more general conclusion - HAIL STRIKEOUTS. Partly that was because the importance of strikeouts was something that sabrmetricians had been touting for years, and this seemed like another very large brick in that wall.

 

Finally, you can add to all of this that strikeouts are easy to sum and evaluate. They're much easier than strike percentage or other metrics. So we like to use them because they're readily available and easy to use.

 

But the sum of each of those is that we are probably overemphasizing the importance of strikeouts. Strikeouts aren't that important. We can dance around it all we want, but the numbers aren't lying.

 

Now, one can say "Well, it's the best thing we have." First I'm not sure that's true. But the more obvious logical reply to that is "Well, then keep looking." Instead, we seem to cling to them, perhaps at the expense of better research.

 

And we certainly proclaim in our criticism and praise that they mean a lot more than they do. And then ignore that a team that is middle of the road in runs per game is dead last (and by quite a bit) in strikeouts. We call it lucky or small sample size or whatever. The truth is, it isn't that unusual.

[John Bonnes]

By the way, I don't know if I have time tonight, but if I do, I'd like to do a similar study on hitting: what stats correlate closely to the number of runs per game a team scores. This is essentially restating Bill James 30+ year-old research, but I think you find the correlations a LOT higher. If I remember right, batting average (not even OBP or OPS) has a correlation around .90 or something. And we SAVAGE batting average for not being particularly valuable.

[TheLeviathan]

By the way, I don't know if I have time tonight, but if I do, I'd like to do a similar study on hitting: what stats correlate closely to the number of runs per game a team scores. This is essentially restating Bill James 30+ year-old research, but I think you find the correlations a LOT higher. If I remember right, batting average (not even OBP or OPS) has a correlation around .90 or something. And we SAVAGE batting average for not being particularly valuable.

 

interesting. I'd love to see that analysis (this entire thread is quite excellent). I wonder if BA correlates more because it is distinguished from walks which have less propensity to cause scoring? (They enable it by not making outs, but no walk ever scored a guy from second). Just a thought as I was reading, not to be taken as gospel.

[Seth Stohs]

Many believe that a strikeout for a hitter is just another out. It then makes sense that, for pitchers, a strikeout is just another out. No more or less valuable than a ground out to short, a line out to left or a pop-up to the catcher.

 

What is clear to me is that WHIP is what matters. Not allowing base runners. Walks are annoying, but figure equally to a single. (all else being equal, as in, didn't drive in a run or anything).

 

I definitely think that strikeouts are a bit overrated. I like them. They're fun to watch for your team. But, things like pitch efficiency and hitting spots and keeping the ball off the barrel of the bat are just as important.

 

Strikeouts just get expensive!

[snepp]

By the way, I don't know if I have time tonight, but if I do, I'd like to do a similar study on hitting: what stats correlate closely to the number of runs per game a team scores. This is essentially restating Bill James 30+ year-old research, but I think you find the correlations a LOT higher. If I remember right, batting average (not even OBP or OPS) has a correlation around .90 or something. And we SAVAGE batting average for not being particularly valuable.

 

 

I've always found this one to be a good read.

 

Run Estimation for the Masses

[John Bonnes]

I've always found this one to be a good read.

 

Run Estimation for the Masses

 

Thanks for that link. If OPS has a .92 correlation, I expect BA is a bit lower, like in the .8 range.

 

But the more general point is that we're pretty good at knowing what additional stats (like OPS) correlate with a team's Runs Scored. The only one that is similar for Runs Against involved "hits," and I think we're poor at predicting hits. (Cracken's research suggests this, though it might be interesting to do some research on that, too.)

 

But we certainly shouldn't treat strikeout rate as anywhere near as important as OPS. They're not in the same solar system.

[Oxtung]

Very interesting. However this does not in itself tell us anything about individual pitchers. This only tells us about team strike out rates. It is entirely possible that higher strike out rate pitchers correlate to less runs scored but once they get mixed in with the inevitable back end starters their numbers are being obscured; or not.

[Linus]

Thank god for this post. The "strikeouts are everything" discussion was going way to far - especially concerning potential free agents. Baseball history is filled with successful pitchers who strike out a lot of batters and the opposite; same thing with walks (although less so I believe) as there have great pitchers who walk very few and some that walk a surprisingly high amount. Clearly there is no magic formula (at least that we have discovered yet). My guess is that if they could ever quantify a stat for keeping the ball off the fat part of the bat, you'd have your answer.

[Oxtung]

I think it is important to note that there is still a correlation between team strikeouts and team runs allowed. It might not be the only important piece of this puzzle but it is still a piece. In general if you strike out more batters you will be more successful.

[Willihammer]

By my math, the correlation between K% and H% going back to 2007 is -.824.

 

Stronger relationship to Runs and ERs using K%, and weaker relationship using BB%, as opposed to /9 stats.

 

K%-R correl is -.69. BB%-R correl is .13

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pIzP28qdp-OURLaHA5OTVkcUk/edit?usp=sharing

[John Bonnes]

By my math, the correlation between K% and H% going back to 2007 is -.824.

 

Stronger relationship to Runs and ERs using K%, and weaker relationship using BB%, as opposed to /9 stats.

 

K%-R correl is -.69. BB%-R correl is .13

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pIzP28qdp-OURLaHA5OTVkcUk/edit?usp=sharing

 

I uploaded my spreadsheet to Google Docs and provided a link in the story. Thank Willihammer for reminding me we could do that.

 

That BB%-R number is a little alarming. When you say "going back to 2004" are you saying you took all 30 teams and combined each team's numbers back to 2004, so you only have 30 items in your correlation? If so, that doesn't seem like enough to trust, though I don't know what that threshold should be. I did team-years, so I grabbed 30 teams for five year for 150 data points, just because I wanted to have at least that many.

 

(Or it could be that I have an error in my spreadsheet, too. It's certainly possible, which is one of the reasons I provided a link to it.)

[Willihammer]

When you say "going back to 2004" are you saying you took all 30 teams and combined each team's numbers back to 2004, so you only have 30 items in your correlation? If so, that doesn't seem like enough to trust, though I don't know what that threshold should be. I did team-years, so I grabbed 30 teams for five year for 150 data points, just because I wanted to have at least that many.

 

(Or it could be that I have an error in my spreadsheet, too. It's certainly possible, which is one of the reasons I provided a link to it.)

Yeah I didn't think that smelled right either and you have pointed out why. I did a simple fangraphs query using combined totals, so my set was just 30. I did it again using season-totals instead and sure enough the BB%-R correlation comes up a more meaningful .43. K%-R is still higher than K/9 correlation though, at -.65. H%-R comes in at .80.

 

I really only bring it up becuase of a pet peave with /9 stats which are going to discount any relationship you try to glean from strikeouts, as opposed to PA-based stats. Issue more walks, give up more hits, face more batters, strikeout more batters per 9! and vice versa.

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pIzP28qdp-WktNVFNtb1V3U1E/edit?usp=sharing

[Brodin4Calder]

Nobody is complaing about pitching to contact, the reason us Twins fans arent a fan of it right now is because the pitchers that we have that do it just plain suck. There are strikeout pitchers that are just as bad. Our problem isnt pitching to contact, our problem is we have horrible pitchers that pitch to contact. Theres alot of really good pitchers that pitch to contact, one of them is Johny Cueto. Is probably the best groundball pitcher, but he throws hard and gets Ks too. Another thing to note is almost every roto has contact pitchers but they also have strikeout pitchers, we only have contact pitchers. Our contact pitchers struggle to hit 90mph so they are throwing meatballs that they want the batters to hit ha. Alot of the best contact pitchers have an avg fastball around 92-93 our guys avg fastball is around 89mph. We have bad contact pitchers, plain and simple.

[Anorthagen]

This is so much to comprehend at one time.

[PopRiveter]

This is a really fascinating angle. Strikeouts are really really fun. Very useful too, but how are they better than an infield fly? Weren't Correia's 4 double-play balls last night more valuable than 4 strikeouts would've been?

I've heard all the complaints about Pitch to Contact as a strategy, but I've watched a lot of Francisco Liriano starts. I don't get how a fanbase who watched him strike out soooooo many while simultaneously giving up sooooooo many runs can have so many members who exaggerate the value of the strikeout and minimize the value of all the other outs.

I think your number tells the truth that a strikeout is a very good out. Not necessarily the best. Sadly, a number can't tell how fun they are.

[Rick Niedermann]

Seth is right. It's WHIP. Examples: Peavey Lifetime WHIP 1.175- worst WHIP of 1.423 resulted in 6W 7L 4.52 ERA, Verlander Lifetime WHIP 1.174-worst WHIP of 1.403 resulted in 11W 17L 4.84, C Lee Lifetime WHIP 1.207-worst WHIP 1.521 resulted in 5W 8L 6.29 ERA.