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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 17, 2022 13:04:59 GMT -5
That is an absurd assertion that I could not disagree more with. Obviously, the fielder still needs to make the play, but if you induce a pop-up, it's a lot easier for the fielder to get an out than if you give up a booming double off the wall or even just any kind of line drive. Now, I understand that this effectively is the position that FanGraphs takes. But as I've already said, this is also why I view fWAR for pitchers as less than worthless. Edit: Actually, if you're saying they have no control after the ball has already been contacted, that's probably true unless they're fielding their own position. But if the argument is that they have no control over the type of contact they give up (i.e. what fWAR thinks), I think that's ridiculous. So you are saying--once the ball has been struck, the pitcher has control?? Is that via telepathy or predictive power? No. Once the ball has contacted bat, the pitcher has near-zero ability to affect the play unless it is a ball hit in the vicinity of the mound. All of time did not start when the bat contacted the ball. The argument is, of course, that the pitcher placed the ball in a location and at a speed that the batter misjudged, and to therefore was not able to get perfect contact on it. If 99% of the times batters made contact on a pitcher they ended up with a weak grounder to second base, you would have to assume that pitcher had something to do with it, right? Not that it was just somehow pure luck that it happened? But the "a pitcher has no influence on the outcome of a batted ball" crowd would have to say that was pure luck. Well no pitcher is able to achieve that. But some pitchers definitely seem to induce a lot more ground balls compared to other pitchers who induce a lot more fly balls. Is that really all just random? Or are there really "ground ball pitchers" and "fly ball pitchers"?
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 17, 2022 14:06:19 GMT -5
So you are saying--once the ball has been struck, the pitcher has control?? Is that via telepathy or predictive power? No. Once the ball has contacted bat, the pitcher has near-zero ability to affect the play unless it is a ball hit in the vicinity of the mound. All of time did not start when the bat contacted the ball. The argument is, of course, that the pitcher placed the ball in a location and at a speed that the batter misjudged, and to therefore was not able to get perfect contact on it. If 99% of the times batters made contact on a pitcher they ended up with a weak grounder to second base, you would have to assume that pitcher had something to do with it, right? Not that it was just somehow pure luck that it happened? But the "a pitcher has no influence on the outcome of a batted ball" crowd would have to say that was pure luck. Well no pitcher is able to achieve that. But some pitchers definitely seem to induce a lot more ground balls compared to other pitchers who induce a lot more fly balls. Is that really all just random? Or are there really "ground ball pitchers" and "fly ball pitchers"? Yeah, I agree with this. Certainly, pitchers can't control the outcome all the time. They don't always execute their pitches, and sometimes, a good hitter will just beat a good pitcher. But it's undeniable that some pitchers have been effective doing essentially the same thing (inducing weak contact) for a long time. At a certain point, that looks less like a coincidence and more like the pitcher knowing exactly what he's doing. Mariano Rivera's cutter is a great example of this.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2022 15:14:53 GMT -5
So you are saying--once the ball has been struck, the pitcher has control?? Is that via telepathy or predictive power? No. Once the ball has contacted bat, the pitcher has near-zero ability to affect the play unless it is a ball hit in the vicinity of the mound. All of time did not start when the bat contacted the ball. The argument is, of course, that the pitcher placed the ball in a location and at a speed that the batter misjudged, and to therefore was not able to get perfect contact on it. If 99% of the times batters made contact on a pitcher they ended up with a weak grounder to second base, you would have to assume that pitcher had something to do with it, right? Not that it was just somehow pure luck that it happened? But the "a pitcher has no influence on the outcome of a batted ball" crowd would have to say that was pure luck. Well no pitcher is able to achieve that. But some pitchers definitely seem to induce a lot more ground balls compared to other pitchers who induce a lot more fly balls. Is that really all just random? Or are there really "ground ball pitchers" and "fly ball pitchers"? It's not about all of time. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 17, 2022 15:33:58 GMT -5
All of time did not start when the bat contacted the ball. The argument is, of course, that the pitcher placed the ball in a location and at a speed that the batter misjudged, and to therefore was not able to get perfect contact on it. If 99% of the times batters made contact on a pitcher they ended up with a weak grounder to second base, you would have to assume that pitcher had something to do with it, right? Not that it was just somehow pure luck that it happened? But the "a pitcher has no influence on the outcome of a batted ball" crowd would have to say that was pure luck. Well no pitcher is able to achieve that. But some pitchers definitely seem to induce a lot more ground balls compared to other pitchers who induce a lot more fly balls. Is that really all just random? Or are there really "ground ball pitchers" and "fly ball pitchers"? It's not about all of time. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse Look, if I point a gun at a target and pull the trigger, do I then say that the bullet hitting or missing the target has nothing to do with me, because I can't mentally control it in flight? I set up the situation. I aimed the gun. I pulled the trigger. It doesn't matter that I can't control the bullet after that -- it's still my doing. It doesn't matter that pitchers can't control the flight of the ball after contact, because the argument is that they have a lot of control of how that contact is made in the first place. If you think they don't have that control, that's fine, make the argument. But don't spout about how it's impossible for them to control (or at least influence) the outcome of the at-bat because "after the contact they have no control". After I jump off a bridge I have no control of my falling, but that doesn't mean its out of my control whether I end up splatted at the bottom of a bridge or not. It just means that my influence on the events happened earlier. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. This is nonsense, for the reason I just discussed. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse This sounds very questionable to me. You are saying that the only aspect of contact pitchers have control over is whether it happens at all, and that they have no influence on what kind of contact is made. That flies in the face of not just 100+ years of baseball observation and conventional wisdom but also is not terribly convincing from a physics standpoint. I strongly suspect it is the result of bad analysis. People measuring the wrong things or looking at the wrong data. If you do statistical analysis on garbage data, you get garbage results. And please explain to me how, if the pitcher has no influence on the outcome of the play except for a binary contact/no-contact, that Home Runs can somehow be their fault? Are you saying that goal of pitching should be 100% to never let the batter make any contact? That every pitcher should strive to be a swing-and-miss strikeout pitcher? That the idea of pitchers "pitching to contact" is completely counter-productive? Are you sure you have the data to back that up?
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 17, 2022 15:50:18 GMT -5
It's not about all of time. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse Look, if I point a gun at a target and pull the trigger, do I then say that the bullet hitting or missing the target has nothing to do with me, because I can't mentally control it in flight? I set up the situation. I aimed the gun. I pulled the trigger. It doesn't matter that I can't control the bullet after that -- it's still my doing. It doesn't matter that pitchers can't control the flight of the ball after contact, because the argument is that they have a lot of control of how that contact is made in the first place. If you think they don't have that control, that's fine, make the argument. But don't spout about how it's impossible for them to control (or at least influence) the outcome of the at-bat because "after the contact they have no control". After I jump off a bridge I have no control of my falling, but that doesn't mean its out of my control whether I end up splatted at the bottom of a bridge or not. It just means that my influence on the events happened earlier. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. This is nonsense, for the reason I just discussed. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse This sounds very questionable to me. You are saying that the only aspect of contact pitchers have control over is whether it happens at all, and that they have no influence on what kind of contact is made. That flies in the face of not just 100+ years of baseball observation and conventional wisdom but also is not terribly convincing from a physics standpoint. I strongly suspect it is the result of bad analysis. People measuring the wrong things or looking at the wrong data. If you do statistical analysis on garbage data, you get garbage results. And please explain to me how, if the pitcher has no influence on the outcome of the play except for a binary contact/no-contact, that Home Runs can somehow be their fault? Are you saying that goal of pitching should be 100% to never let the batter make any contact? That every pitcher should strive to be a swing-and-miss strikeout pitcher? That the idea of pitchers "pitching to contact" is completely counter-productive? Are you sure you have the data to back that up? Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So a home run over the Green Monster is the pitcher's fault, but a double off the top of that same wall isn't? No fielder in the world can reach a ball that's hit 35 feet high off a wall, and that's just one of the more extreme examples I can think of.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 17, 2022 17:17:42 GMT -5
Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse This sounds very questionable to me. You are saying that the only aspect of contact pitchers have control over is whether it happens at all, and that they have no influence on what kind of contact is made. That flies in the face of not just 100+ years of baseball observation and conventional wisdom but also is not terribly convincing from a physics standpoint. I strongly suspect it is the result of bad analysis. People measuring the wrong things or looking at the wrong data. If you do statistical analysis on garbage data, you get garbage results. And please explain to me how, if the pitcher has no influence on the outcome of the play except for a binary contact/no-contact, that Home Runs can somehow be their fault? Are you saying that goal of pitching should be 100% to never let the batter make any contact? That every pitcher should strive to be a swing-and-miss strikeout pitcher? That the idea of pitchers "pitching to contact" is completely counter-productive? Are you sure you have the data to back that up? What the research has found - a historically great pitcher like Pedro Martinez will have similar results on batted balls as a run of the mill type pitcher like Al Nipper. There are exceptions at the margins. Parks can impact results - fly balls are going to carry farther in Denver than Tampa Bay. When this original study came out in the 1990's - no one believed this could be possible. EVERY person that has since researched this has come to the same basic conclusion.
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 17, 2022 17:52:11 GMT -5
This sounds very questionable to me. You are saying that the only aspect of contact pitchers have control over is whether it happens at all, and that they have no influence on what kind of contact is made. That flies in the face of not just 100+ years of baseball observation and conventional wisdom but also is not terribly convincing from a physics standpoint. I strongly suspect it is the result of bad analysis. People measuring the wrong things or looking at the wrong data. If you do statistical analysis on garbage data, you get garbage results. And please explain to me how, if the pitcher has no influence on the outcome of the play except for a binary contact/no-contact, that Home Runs can somehow be their fault? Are you saying that goal of pitching should be 100% to never let the batter make any contact? That every pitcher should strive to be a swing-and-miss strikeout pitcher? That the idea of pitchers "pitching to contact" is completely counter-productive? Are you sure you have the data to back that up? What the research has found - a historically great pitcher like Pedro Martinez will have similar results on batted balls as a run of the mill type pitcher like Al Nipper. There are exceptions at the margins. Parks can impact results - fly balls are going to carry farther in Denver than Tampa Bay. When this original study came out in the 1990's - no one believed this could be possible. EVERY person that has since researched this has come to the same basic conclusion. So you are saying there is no such thing as a "ground ball pitcher" and that the ground ball to fly ball ratio of a pitcher is pure chance. I would be interested if you could give me the names of these studies you claim universally come to this conclusion.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 18, 2022 7:29:19 GMT -5
What the research has found - a historically great pitcher like Pedro Martinez will have similar results on batted balls as a run of the mill type pitcher like Al Nipper. There are exceptions at the margins. Parks can impact results - fly balls are going to carry farther in Denver than Tampa Bay. When this original study came out in the 1990's - no one believed this could be possible. EVERY person that has since researched this has come to the same basic conclusion. So you are saying there is no such thing as a "ground ball pitcher" and that the ground ball to fly ball ratio of a pitcher is pure chance. I would be interested if you could give me the names of these studies you claim universally come to this conclusion. No - I never said there was no such thing as a ground ball or fly ball pitcher. At least I never intended to imply this as it is not true. Zach Britton is an extreme ground ball pitcher - there are many pitchers that are better than others at inducing more ground balls. www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/6835/voros-mccracken-changed-the-gameHere is article by Rob Neyer on how Voros McCraken changed how the game is viewed. How Everyone didn't believe his findings could be possible and how Everyone that has looked at the data has been unable to refute the main point. In summary - A pitcher has very little control over preventing base hits other than through walks, strikeouts, and home runs (batted balls in play). A pitchers ability to prevent runs is predictable from year to year. There is no predictability in a pitchers ability to prevent base hits on ball in play from year to year. This is why this aspect of a pitcher is considered random or luck. This is why Pedro Martinez could go from being one of the worst pitchers in BABIP in 1999 to the absolute best pitcher in 2000 - and why many/most believe that this difference was mostly luck. Here are Pedro Martinez BABIP for his best 10 year stretch from 1996-2005: .290, .258, .270, .323, .236, .307, .273, .292, .291, .248 There is nothing predictable about this - other than over the course of his career he would end up near the league average - he was .279 for his career. 1999 was .323, 2000 was .236, 2001 .307. There is no statistical basis for saying that Martinez went from being very bad at preventing hits on balls in play in 1999, to becoming one of the greatest of all time in 2000, to being again one of the worst in 2001. Skills don't ebb and flow like this. Ozzie Smith didn't hit 0 HR's one year and 65 HR's the next and then 5 the following and average ~ 20 HRs a year. The best pitchers at preventing hits from balls in play for a season are no more likely to be among the best the following year as the worst pitchers for year 1.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 18, 2022 7:42:18 GMT -5
And to bring this back to fWAR and bWAR for pitchers. FIP has more predictability than ERA. FIP looks at what a pitcher can control and takes much of luck out. In addition - ERA is flawed because:
1) It doesn't account for all of run prevention. It doesn't take into account unearned runs. Where there isn't universal consistency on what is an error and what isn't - and a pitcher will have no impact on their ERA for what they do after their is 2 outs and most errors have occurred. Pitcher gets 2 outs to start the inning, and there is an error on the secondbaseman (which could have been called a hit on a judgement call). Then the pitcher proceeds to be unable to get the next 5 batters out, and 4-5 unearned runs cross the plate. Does run prevention just stop once the batters become future unearned runs?
2) It doesn't work for relief pitchers. Relief pitchers will almost always have a better ERA than their actual comparative value. This is because they will often times enter the game with more than 0 outs. Which means, they have less than 3 outs needed. It would be like the starting pitcher only needing 1 or 2 outs before the 1st inning is over. This is an advantage with relief pitchers.
bWAR (or ERA+) relies on ERA vs. league average. It has already tried to assign responsibility of the pitcher by using ERA and not actual Run Average - by saying pitchers do not have control over the other player's errors. Well, if 'responsibility' is the goal or has entered into the metric - why not strip out all the things that pitchers have no control over such as base hits on balls in play? This is why FIP is way better at assigning run prevention based on what a pitcher can control than ERA. And it is why fWAR is a better tool than bWAR.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2022 7:46:26 GMT -5
So basically--because you don't believe the research, it doesn't exist?? Go find Voros McCracken--his work is widely available. You will find NOBODY who disagrees with the assessment that pitchers really only control K, BB, and HR. Indeed, you will find many actual experts who say "Why didn't we realize this 50 years sooner?" Otherwise--what you are doing is no different than Holiday with politics. Don't like the actual numbers/research, so continue to attack the truth regardless. The difference is this is baseball not politics. It's not about all of time. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse Look, if I point a gun at a target and pull the trigger, do I then say that the bullet hitting or missing the target has nothing to do with me, because I can't mentally control it in flight? I set up the situation. I aimed the gun. I pulled the trigger. It doesn't matter that I can't control the bullet after that -- it's still my doing. It doesn't matter that pitchers can't control the flight of the ball after contact, because the argument is that they have a lot of control of how that contact is made in the first place. If you think they don't have that control, that's fine, make the argument. But don't spout about how it's impossible for them to control (or at least influence) the outcome of the at-bat because "after the contact they have no control". After I jump off a bridge I have no control of my falling, but that doesn't mean its out of my control whether I end up splatted at the bottom of a bridge or not. It just means that my influence on the events happened earlier. It's about the pitcher gets to do nothing from the moment of contact on. That's what the research is about. This is nonsense, for the reason I just discussed. Pitchers control contact--yes/no and with that, they can affect home run rate. There are ZERO signs with collected data that pitchers affect muchelse This sounds very questionable to me. You are saying that the only aspect of contact pitchers have control over is whether it happens at all, and that they have no influence on what kind of contact is made. That flies in the face of not just 100+ years of baseball observation and conventional wisdom but also is not terribly convincing from a physics standpoint. I strongly suspect it is the result of bad analysis. People measuring the wrong things or looking at the wrong data. If you do statistical analysis on garbage data, you get garbage results. And please explain to me how, if the pitcher has no influence on the outcome of the play except for a binary contact/no-contact, that Home Runs can somehow be their fault? Are you saying that goal of pitching should be 100% to never let the batter make any contact? That every pitcher should strive to be a swing-and-miss strikeout pitcher? That the idea of pitchers "pitching to contact" is completely counter-productive? Are you sure you have the data to back that up?
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 18, 2022 9:41:54 GMT -5
So basically--because you don't believe the research, it doesn't exist?? Go find Voros McCracken--his work is widely available. You will find NOBODY who disagrees with the assessment that pitchers really only control K, BB, and HR. Indeed, you will find many actual experts who say "Why didn't we realize this 50 years sooner?" Otherwise--what you are doing is no different than Holiday with politics. Don't like the actual numbers/research, so continue to attack the truth regardless. The difference is this is baseball not politics. Look, if I point a gun at a target and pull the trigger, do I then say that the bullet hitting or missing the target has nothing to do with me, because I can't mentally control it in flight? I set up the situation. I aimed the gun. I pulled the trigger. It doesn't matter that I can't control the bullet after that -- it's still my doing. It doesn't matter that pitchers can't control the flight of the ball after contact, because the argument is that they have a lot of control of how that contact is made in the first place. If you think they don't have that control, that's fine, make the argument. But don't spout about how it's impossible for them to control (or at least influence) the outcome of the at-bat because "after the contact they have no control". After I jump off a bridge I have no control of my falling, but that doesn't mean its out of my control whether I end up splatted at the bottom of a bridge or not. It just means that my influence on the events happened earlier. This is nonsense, for the reason I just discussed. This sounds very questionable to me. You are saying that the only aspect of contact pitchers have control over is whether it happens at all, and that they have no influence on what kind of contact is made. That flies in the face of not just 100+ years of baseball observation and conventional wisdom but also is not terribly convincing from a physics standpoint. I strongly suspect it is the result of bad analysis. People measuring the wrong things or looking at the wrong data. If you do statistical analysis on garbage data, you get garbage results. And please explain to me how, if the pitcher has no influence on the outcome of the play except for a binary contact/no-contact, that Home Runs can somehow be their fault? Are you saying that goal of pitching should be 100% to never let the batter make any contact? That every pitcher should strive to be a swing-and-miss strikeout pitcher? That the idea of pitchers "pitching to contact" is completely counter-productive? Are you sure you have the data to back that up? His point is that just because someone did research on something, that doesn't mean they're right if they didn't analyze the right data in the right way. How exactly is a pitcher responsible for a home run over the Green Monster but not responsible for a double hit 35 feet high off that same wall?
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 18, 2022 9:44:50 GMT -5
So you are saying there is no such thing as a "ground ball pitcher" and that the ground ball to fly ball ratio of a pitcher is pure chance. I would be interested if you could give me the names of these studies you claim universally come to this conclusion. No - I never said there was no such thing as a ground ball or fly ball pitcher. Well, you said that all pitchers "have similar results" on balls put into play. That certainly seems to imply that they have no control over anything that happens when the ball is put into play. I'm pointing out that if they have control of the ground/fly ratio, then have control over something that happens once the ball is put into play.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 18, 2022 9:49:43 GMT -5
And to bring this back to fWAR and bWAR for pitchers. FIP has more predictability than ERA. FIP looks at what a pitcher can control and takes much of luck out. In addition - ERA is flawed because: 1) It doesn't account for all of run prevention. It doesn't take into account unearned runs. Where there isn't universal consistency on what is an error and what isn't - and a pitcher will have no impact on their ERA for what they do after their is 2 outs and most errors have occurred. Pitcher gets 2 outs to start the inning, and there is an error on the secondbaseman (which could have been called a hit on a judgement call). Then the pitcher proceeds to be unable to get the next 5 batters out, and 4-5 unearned runs cross the plate. Does run prevention just stop once the batters become future unearned runs? bWAR (or ERA+) relies on ERA vs. league average. It has already tried to assign responsibility of the pitcher by using ERA and not actual Run Average - by saying pitchers do not have control over the other player's errors. Well, if 'responsibility' is the goal or has entered into the metric - why not strip out all the things that pitchers have no control over such as base hits on balls in play? This is why FIP is way better at assigning run prevention based on what a pitcher can control than ERA. And it is why fWAR is a better tool than bWAR. So the gap for Pedro in runs (56 to 44) is greater than it is in earned runs (49 to 42) from 1999 to 2000. So that argument doesn't work in this case. It's possible that a RA+ would be a better metric to use than ERA+ (not sure, but I'd listen to the argument), but the issue is that fWAR doesn't consider runs at all. I categorically reject the idea that fWAR is a better metric for pitchers in any way than bWAR. fWAR is actually less than worthless in my view.
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 18, 2022 9:56:08 GMT -5
So basically--because you don't believe the research, it doesn't exist?? Go find Voros McCracken--his work is widely available. You will find NOBODY who disagrees with the assessment that pitchers really only control K, BB, and HR. Indeed, you will find many actual experts who say "Why didn't we realize this 50 years sooner?" Otherwise--what you are doing is no different than Holiday with politics. Don't like the actual numbers/research, so continue to attack the truth regardless. The difference is this is baseball not politics. I will point out the unsubtle difference between you just asserting something and you actually providing a study (which you still haven't) or even a name (which you didn't provide until Blue had already provided it). I still find it very unlikely that somehow HRs are in the control of the pitcher but no other outcomes are. It's one thing to show that no outcomes are in the pitcher's control, but it's another thing entirely to claim that one kind of outcome (the HR) is in their control, but no other kind is. That makes no sense, from a physics standpoint. Correlation and causation are not the same thing. A good analysis needs to show correlation with the data, but it also needs to present at least a hypothesis about the causation. Otherwise you can be chasing statistical flukes, or maybe just throwing too many variables into the mix so that you hide what is significant. So please explain to me how HRs can be in the control of the pitcher but no other batted ball outcomes can be?
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Aug 18, 2022 10:01:10 GMT -5
No - I never said there was no such thing as a ground ball or fly ball pitcher. Well, you said that all pitchers "have similar results" on balls put into play. That certainly seems to imply that they have no control over anything that happens when the ball is put into play. I'm pointing out that if they have control of the ground/fly ratio, then have control over something that happens once the ball is put into play. I am not sure what's your point? Pitchers have no or very little control on whether there is a a base hit or an out on any balls hit in play. By 'similar results', I was referring to similar # of hits on balls in play. Zach Britton is an extreme ground ball pitcher. He has a career .281 BABIP - which is right around the historical average. He has had some seasons where his BABIP was .338 (2013) and some where it was .215 (2015). There is no evidence that he can control the number of base hits on balls in play. If your point is that some pitchers have a higher % of ground ball outs on balls in play and other's have a higher % of fly outs on balls in play - well, yes that is true. However the % of FB + GB outs combined - there is no difference.
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