K/ip
JCEarls41
Subject: k/ip request, and a hypothesis about a possible change in
strategy
From: JCEarls41
To: rec.sport.baseball
Date: 1/12/94
After the year and career Billy Wagner has had, but also after watching Rocker
and flipping through my entire Strat-O-Matic set from last year, I cannot get
over how many relievers have a greater than 1:1 strikeout ratio, or how high
some of the ratios are. We know that Martinez set the record for starters this
year, that Ryan set it before him, breaking Gooden's record--I used to have
that list memorized, but I've never seen a good list for relievers.
I don't have a database for it, and couldn't suggest an innings cutoff, but I
would very much enjoy seeing a list of the top 10 or 20 seasons of k/ip if
someone could generate one.
Second:. After watching powerful but free-swinging Butch Huskey swing and miss
at strike three in a crucial situation the other night (he was probably a good
candidate for a sac fly, too, and the Sox had no one else) ), and watch closers
blow away free swinging batters in all these playoffs, I started to wonder if
there will ever be a return to a "put the ball in play" philosophy on offense
generally in the next several years, at least against certain pitchers, for the
entire nine innings?
Or, to put it another way, if the ability to make contact might not become a
skill of some heightened value in the future, especially if strikeouts continue
to climb? ( For example, Martinez gave up only 9 HR's all year: might a lineup
of contact hitters have given him fewer than the 313 outs he got by K's, and
maybe hit enough singles to create more runs against him? I know strikeouts
aren't any more valuable than popouts to a pitcher (and more work), but in this
case, if a contact lineup fans only 8 times in 9 innings against Pedro, not 13,
might one of those four "contacts" fall in for a hit, and maybe at the right
time?
I think the case might be made for trying to hit that way against some
overpowering closers, too. How would Rocker do in the 9th against two pinch
hitters who are very, very tough to strikeout?
Heck, this is another statistical study, I imagine, if someone would want to
something Jamesian. If we divide batters into 2 groups -- free swingers (high
K ratios) and contact hitters ( low K ratios, even those with power, like
Nomar), and do the same with pitchers, then look at performance, does any
evidence emerge? Do contact hitters give strikeout pitchers any more trouble
than free swingers? Do free swingers lose more offense against high K men than
we might expect? Obviously, high k pitchers versus high k batters, k's go way
up -- but suppose other offense comes down as well more than we might have
expected?
Given the four variables, a testable hypothesis is: Might it be true that
there's a greater gap in offense for the free swingers facing one pitchers'
group than another, and less for the contact hitters?
If that were so, would it be fitting to bench a few high strikeout batters
against a high K pitcher, and take away some of the pitcher's strikeout ratio.
Or, it might be good strategy to have on the roster a few players who were hard
to strike out, and that if baseball continues to move into higher and higher
strikeout ratios, it might be wise to resurrect or re-cultivate the ability to
"put the ball in play"?
Right now, many educated fans believe that given identical stats for a batter,
the fact that one has 120 K's and the other 60 k's makes little or no
difference. ( This is true for sluggers as well as average hitters -- except
for the occasional grounder that move the runner over, " an out is an out", and
strikeouts are not an especially important stat.)
However, suppose someone proved that against higher strikeout pitchers, the low
strikeout men ARE actually more valuable?
That would be the kind of strategy-changing evidence this group loves to hear
and read about.
Joe Earls
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James Fraser
If anyone (probably the only people who could complete your study are
STATS, Elias and maybe someone who is really good at Parsing Retrosheet
Data) did the study Power vs. Free Swingers, Contact, etc., I wouldn't
be surprised to learn that Free Swingers do worse against "power
pitchers." However, every batter does worse against power pitchers,
it is one of the great myths that a finesse pitcher has an easier time.
The more K's the better for pitchers, for batters K rate is less
diverse and less important(No pitcher gives up HR like McGwire hits
them, and no batter strikes out as much as Rocker strikes batters out).
As an indicator for growth I would speculate that K rate is extremely
important for Pitchers while only retaining that same level of
importance only in the Rob Deer, Russ Branyan territory.
I hope somebody with the capability to do so, will do the study. Could
we see an era of Mike Scioscia types dominating the later innings
against Rocker, Wagner et al. I doubt it, but the results would be
fascinating.
James Fraser
jfr...@planeteer.com
http://www.angelfire.com/ri/sabermetrics
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Dave
The Reliever K / IP study would be a complicated yet interesting one.
However....Relievers are known for their power pitching, but is the K
the reason that they are out there with the game on the line? Don't get
me wrong, I believe a lot of your power pitching relievers (Lee Smith,
Eck, MIke Jackson, Jose Mesa et. al.) have high strikeout ratios. A
more interesting study would expand on that and compare it to your non
power pitchers. It's not how many K's you get, It's how many outs you
get.