A Tale of two Pitchers

by grant76 on May 4, 2009 10:22 AM CDT Comment 1 comment

I have a question about two pitchers and which you think is better. I'll get into a bit of analysis, but lets start with each of these guys and their statistics for a half of 2008.

Pitcher A

16G

86.2 innings

8-2

3.95ERA

46BB

68K

9HR

.312 babip

Pitcher B

16G

79.1 Innings

2-6

4.88ERA

29BB

79K

9HR

.356 babip

If you are like me, you look at the first guy and you just hate the BB/9 and the K/9 - though 7k/9 is not terrible - the 5BB per 9 is. The babip is a little high, and you have to figure that he's not going to keep winning 8 out of 10 decisions with those peripherals.

The second guy shows some promise. He is striking out about 1 guy per inning. His walk rate is not terrific but better than the first guy. The HRs are a wash, and both guys have a LD% of 20% which is one reason that both have bad babip numbers.

But lets look at the results. The first guys wins and has a better ERA despite his mediocre stuff. The second guy looks like he should be a very decent pitcher but he is getting killed.

You've probably guessed that the two guys are the same guy. You may also have guessed that the first guy is Manny Parra circa 2008 (April-June) and the second guy is Manny Parra 2008 (July -October)

Counterintuitively, Parra got worse as he got better. Or got better as he got worse. Perhaps he started throwing too many strikes - 63% up from 59%, which sounds preposterous. His LD% and HR levels stayed the same, indicating that he wasn't getting hit any harder, but his babip jumped 45 points and his ERA went up by almost 1 full run.

Was 2nd half Manny just very unlucky? Or did he make a mistake by throwing more strikes?

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I'd love to know

what kind of run support the two Parras got during the early and then the late periods in question. How often was he given leads to work with, for instance?

My theory has always been that when run support trends downward, pitchers get off their natural plan and begin to “be careful” and “to think” and “do it all by themselves.” Obviously, every pitcher wants every pitch to be the best option in the circumstance, but I can’t help but believe that solid hitting produces a more effective, aggressive and confident pitcher always.

Bottom line, I don’t think separating the pitching and the offense can give us the full story on pitching success. Pitchers go a little crazy when the offense is spotty.

by heybatterbatter on May 4, 2009 1:29 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs