Not in an era when the strikeout record gets broken every year. (Batting strikeout record)

The league-wide strikeout rate has increased since then, so if those pitchers were pitching now, they'd get more strikeouts.

So how did they get outs? Were they all extreme groundballers?

The league-wide strikeout rate has increased since then, so if those pitchers were pitching now, they'd get more strikeouts.

Uh, yeah. Just a bit of data normalization is in order, here.

The league-wide strikeout rate has increased since then, so if those pitchers were pitching now, they'd get more strikeouts.

I know what you're saying, but do we know this? How do we know that those pitchers wouldn't be replaced by guys a bit more capable of missing bats?

I know what you're saying, but do we know this? How do we know that those pitchers wouldn't be replaced by guys a bit more capable of missing bats?

While it's impossible to know with certainty that the significant league-wide increase in K rates over the past few decades hasn't been entirely driven by either different modes of hitting or different modes of pitching, it's enormously implausible that it hasn't been some manner of combination of the two. My unprovable hypothesis is that, between hitters and pitchers, the increased strikeout rate has been more a function of hitters, who are bigger, stronger, and more focused on power and less on contact than they were decades ago.

The problem is, if the hitters are indeed "bigger, stronger, and more focused on power and less on contact" as you say, that means an extreme contact pitcher is less likely to succeed, correct? Thus they would be less likely to pitch significant innings or even get a chance to pitch at all.

Quelle surprise Kirk Reuter was one of the dudes.

He seems like a prototype for the only type of extreme contact starter that could be even remotely successful (and even then, his one qualifying year was not a very good year). Lefty, changes speeds, keeps the ball down, holds runners on.

The problem is, if the hitters are indeed "bigger, stronger, and more focused on power and less on contact" as you say, that means an extreme contact pitcher is less likely to succeed, correct?

Perhaps, but that gets to the question of, how do we define "extreme contact pitcher"? Are we speaking in absolute K/9 terms, or in relative-to-the-league-norm K/9 terms?

Of course there are risks of pitching to contact, but of course there are potential rewards as well: fewer walks, fewer pitches, generally more DP grounders. While obviously nobody could be expected to succeed in the modern game with Jim Barr's absolute K rates, there may well be pitchers succeeding today with his relative K rates -- but until we normalize the data, we can't tell.

My unprovable hypothesis is that, between hitters and pitchers, the increased strikeout rate has been more a function of hitters, who are bigger, stronger, and more focused on power and less on contact than they were decades ago.

Oh, it's provable: Jamie Moyer. If even he can't not strike people out, even in his mid-40s, then it can't be done.

Oh, it's provable: Jamie Moyer. If even he can't not strike people out, even in his mid-40s, then it can't be done.

Well, yeah, and the fact that Moyer is putting up essentially the same absolute K rates now as he was when he broke in 20 years ago, despite the fact that he's throwing with far less velocity, is a strong indication that he's just facing a far more K-prone league full of hitters.

He seems like a prototype for the only type of extreme contact starter that could be even remotely successful (and even then, his one qualifying year was not a very good year). Lefty, changes speeds, keeps the ball down, holds runners on.

I think they key would be walking nobody. He's have to have Tewksbury-esque control.

Steve, I think you kinda missed the point. The question isn't "what sort of pitcher would Randy Jones be today?" The question is "can an extreme contact pitcher survive today?"

The theoretical answer is "you betcha!" If memory serves (from somebody's post long ago), a mythical all-BIP pitcher would generally be about the 10th best starter in baseball in any given season. Of course that's not realistic and an extreme contact pitcher isn't the same as an all-BIP pitcher anyway.

So ... Randy Jones 1978 pops up on that list. Randy Jones K'd only 71 guys in 253 IP. He also gave up only 6 HR or 1 HR per 6 starts. Presumably there's no way that Randy Jones gives up only 6 HR in a season today. But how many more does he have to give up for this not to work? He could have added a full run per 9 innings (28 more runs) and still posted an ERA just below 4 -- awful in his day but more than acceptable now (except maybe in Petco). He'd have to give up about 33% more total bases for that to happen. That seems like a lot.

If you want a more stats-y way to think about it ... as far as I know, the weights in component ERA (or DIPS/FIP/whatever) haven't really changed. Now Jones may have been lucky in his best seasons and not so much in his worst, but presumably a pitcher who could put up Jones' line today would get similar results. That is 3.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, .6 HR/9 and a WHIP around 1.3 (his career stats) should still add up to about a 3.42 ERA almost no matter what era you're in. Today that sort of ERA would make you many millions.

So presumably it doesn't work because if it did, we'd see more guys like that. Presumably a guy who only has the talent to K 2.5-3 per 9 (in today's game) gets absolutely hammered on-contact which is why we don't see these sorts of pitchers -- they never make it. Barring some radical changes (restricted flight balls, nerf-covered bats), it's hard to see it working in the future if it doesn't work now.

The question is "can an extreme contact pitcher survive today?"

Well, doesn't that beg the question: what do we mean by "an extreme contact pitcher"?

I think they key would be walking nobody. He's have to have Tewksbury-esque control.

That would be Carlos Silva, and we can see how far that's gotten him.

The question isn't "what sort of pitcher would Randy Jones be today?"

I haven't pitched since Little League, so I would go with a pretty shitty one.


You were talking about me, right?

That would be Carlos Silva, and we can see how far that's gotten him.

Well, he did have a 4-year period where he put up 773.2 IP and 101 ERA+ with a 3.6 K/9 and a 1.3 BB/9. I'm saying an extreme contact guy can suceed, not go to the HoF.

Wong would appear to be the prototype, at least before his injury...

[9]

Perhaps, but that gets to the question of, how do we define "extreme contact pitcher"? Are we speaking in absolute K/9 terms, or in relative-to-the-league-norm K/9 terms?

Using BB-REF, I looked at pitchers with enough IP to qualify for the ERA leaderboard every 10 years from 1958 to 2008. This is column 2, labeled "N" in the table below.

In ABSOLUTE terms, the major league average SO/9 in 1978 is the lowest of each of the 6 years studied, by a significant amount.

In RELATIVE terms, while 1978 stands out in terms of the absolute number of pitchers with SO/9 less than 3, if you adjust for the average SO/9 and the standard deviation, the population each year seems distributed similarly with respect to that given year's average.

In fact, 1978 had the smallest percentage of qualifying pitchers whose SO/9 was more than one standard deviation below that year's average among qualifying pitchers, at 11%. 1988 and 2008 had the largest share of pitchers who were 1 standard deviation below the mean, at 20% and 19%, respectively.



<u>Year N  med SO/9  avg std min  ...max...2stds #  1std #  %        < 3 SO/9</u>
1958 54 4.89     5.01 1.16 2.49  8.10   2.68  2 3.85  7 13%            2
1968 76 6.05     6.04 1.19 3.30  9.47   3.65  1 4.85 12 16%            -
1978 91 4.51     4.69 1.43 2.24  9.97   1.83  - 3.26 10 11%           10
1988 91 5.55     5.59 1.49 2.42  9.92   2.61  1 4.10 18 20%            1
1998 96 6.47     6.65 1.56 3.70 12.6    3.54  - 5.10 13 14%            -
2008 88 6.69     6.67 1.50 3.35 10.5    3.68  1 5.17 17 19%            -


EDITed for format

Steve Treder asks, "The question is "can an extreme contact pitcher survive today?"

Well, doesn't that beg the question: what do we mean by "an extreme contact pitcher"?"

Actually, no. It "leaves the question open" as to what we mean by an extreme contact pitcher.

First, this misuse of terminology is pretty common on these threads, or I wouldn't bother to post up all this. Second, I'm picking on Steve because I respect his work in general quite a bit, so I know I'm not guilty of kicking someone I don't like or something. That is, I'll make it up to him in well-deserved praise for his thoughts on baseball in general.

Begging the question would go like this:

1. Make up a definition of "extreme contact pitcher (ECP)" that amounts to "whatever kind of pitcher we don't see in the future."

2. Argue from there that we won't see any ECPs in the future. This argument is trivial, of course, since you're starting by assuming what you intend to conclude. That - assuming what you intend to conclude - is the definition of "begging the question."

An easy example from the political right (there are certainly some just as bad from the left) is the term "unborn child", which used to be called "a fetus." Abortion opponents insist on unborn child because it allows them to argue, "Abortion is murder, since it kills a child. The child is just unborn." That's begging the question. Anyone will agree with the logic if they accept the definition "unborn child." Choice supporters, as well as anyone who wants to actually enforce abortion on someone, implicitly take the position that a fetus is not necessarily a child, which means that they are disagreeing with the argument at its hypothesis, not within its logic.

Begging the question has, in general, a very bad reputation, because you haven't actually accomplished anything with your logic, while claiming that you have. Also, it's a favorite trick of politicians and bad debaters.

"Leaving the question open" means that you construct a chain of logic that depends on a term's definition, and then you don't define the term. Technically, the original post is not guilty of this, since it defines ECP as someone who qualifies for the ERA title and has a strikeout rate of less than 1/3 of his innings pitched. However, the posters here have not been happy with this definition, and so the thread has ended up leaving the question open as to what an ECP is. I, personally, think that a low walk rate should be involved as well as a low strikeout rate, so I'm part of leaving the question open.

"Leaving the question open" has nothing like the bad reputation of "begging the question", but both disable whatever logic is going on until the "question" has been answered to everyone's satisfaction.

Anyway, that was probably more than enough of that, leaving open the question of what "more than enough" means.

- Brock Hanke (helplessly propagandized son of an English teacher)

Quelle surprise Kirk Reuter was one of the dudes.

He seems like a prototype for the only type of extreme contact starter that could be even remotely successful (and even then, his one qualifying year was not a very good year). Lefty, changes speeds, keeps the ball down, holds runners on.

His UP fell off massively towards the end of his career. In 2002-2005 he managed a 94 ERA+ in 648 with only 2.7 K/9, but, except 2004, he kept missing the cutoffs for this exercise. He also walked more guys then he struck out. If he could be relatively successful as an extreme high contact pitcher at the peak of the offensive explosion, then others should be able too.

But then Rueter might also illustrate another problem with the slop-throwing contact approach: endurance. He was pretty famous among Giants fans because of his fairly consistent collapse after 90 pitches. It was so obvious that even Dusty Baker noticed. The less slimmer your margin for error, the the quicker fatigue effects your performance.

Aaron Cook of the Rockies just missed making this list with his 2007 season, when he put up 3.3 K/9 in 166 innings. His strikeouts have been inching up the past couple of years, but for his career he's still at just 3.7 K/9. He's also been consistently successful with that style of pitching.

Begging a thousand pardons, Brock.

If we may concern ourselves with the content of the issue: the unavoidable question is, what do we mean by "an extreme contact pitcher"?

How about looking at (K+BB)/(Batter Faced) instead of just K/9?

For 2009, 78 pitchers pitched a minimum of 162 IP.

The average (K+BB)/BF was 26%, with a range from 15-39%.

The most contact-y:

Joel Pineiro   15%
Nick Blackburn 16%
Mark Buehrle   17%
Zach Duke      17%
John Lannan    18%


I am not surprised to see Pineiro head the 2009 list after his much publicized work with Dave Duncan.
I do not know how persistent this statistic would be for a given player.

The least contact-y:

Clayton Kershaw  39%
Yovani Gallardo  38%
Jonathan Sanchez 37%
Tim Lincecum     36%
Jorge de la Rosa 35%


In both cases a mix of 3 pitchers sightly above 100 ERA+ and 2 pitchers well above 100 ERA+.

Looking at the data set, higher (K+BB)/BF seems to be weakly correlated with higher ERA+ and lower OPS+ against.

EDITed for format

Interesting. Of course the five least contact-y are all in the NL, home of pitchers flailing hopelessly at sliders.

Interesting. Of course the five least contact-y are all in the NL, home of pitchers flailing hopelessly.

True, but then 2 of the 5 don't get to face the Giants' lineup.

First, thanks to Steve for understanding what I was up to and not taking it personally. And also for directing the thread back to the subject.

Bob's definition above is, I think, very good in that it gets the ratio right - (K+BB)/BF. I might suggest that "extreme", taken mathematically, generally leads to "2 standard deviations." So I propose "(K+BB)/BF two standard deviations below the average" (mean, I believe, is the right definition of "average").

[24]

I used BB-REF Play Index to generated league ERA qualifiers with BB/9 <= 1.5 and K/9 <=3.

That also returned 78 pitcher-seasons. The implied range of (K+BB)/BF was 5%-12%. Only five (5) were post WWII:


<u>Player            Year BB/9 K/9 (BB+K)/BF </u>
Fred Hutchinson   1951 1.29 2.53    10%
Lew Burdette      1960 1.14 2.71    11%
Rick Honeycutt    1981 1.2  2.82    11%
Randy Jones       1976 1.43 2.65    11%
Ken Raffensberger 1951 1.38 2.93    12%


[28]

For 2009, 2 standard deviations was:
15.3% or less
36.5% or more

The most contact-y:

Joel Pineiro 15%

...

The least contact-y:

Clayton Kershaw 39%
Yovani Gallardo 38%
Jonathan Sanchez 37%

Based on [29], I think Steve Treder would consider the 10-12% (K+BB)/BF the "extreme contact pitcher" season we are unlikely to see again. The 5-9% level will never be seen again.

[28]

So I propose "(K+BB)/BF two standard deviations below the average" (mean, I believe, is the right definition of "average").

"-2 sigma" (2 standard deviations below the average) climbed from 9% in 1920 to 16% in 1969. It dropped to a low of 11-12% during the period 1973-1985 and then climbed back to the 14-16% level from 1995 on.

The historical value of "-2 sigma" since 1920 is about 9.5%.

a mythical all-BIP pitcher would generally be about the 10th best starter in baseball in any given season.

Walt, how do you figure that? An average pitcher gives us about 6 Ks and 3 BBs per 9, and that's definitely a net plus for the pitcher. Basically, you would be replacing 3 BBs with 2.7 hits, including some doubles and HRs. Such a pitcher couldn't survive.

On your Randy Jones comparison, you have to remember that BABIP was about 20 points lower before 1993 (about .280, vs. today's .300). So pitching to contact is a MUCH less viable strategy today, even before we consider the increased HR rate. You simply have to strike out hitters to survive.

Basically, you would be replacing 3 BBs with 2.7 hits, including some doubles and HRs.

Definitionally, if they were all balls in play, there would be no HRs.

Depends how you define "ball in play." In this context, we're clearly talking about outcomes that are not BBs or Ks. "Pitching to contact" certainly means giving up HRs, among other things.

I'm not sure how you can call home runs hit "in play" without changing the meaning of the words "in play" at least for 99% of the Home Runs hit.

I'm not sure how you can call home runs hit "in play" without changing the meaning of the words "in play" at least for 99% of the Home Runs hit.

Well, I think in this context, we have defined balls in play differently; we're more interested in contact-y pitchers, which means they aren't missing bats. Since home runs don't miss bats, they count as balls in play (or, more accurately, contacted pitches) in this exercise.

I understand the point, but I think for that point "in play" is simply inaccurate. What you're talking about is something like "on contact" or "batted ball" or something. I just as soon not have competing definitions of "in play" and instead just use a different term. And Walt of course differentiated between the two when he brought it up.

It's a nitpick I suppose but I'd just as soon not start any distance down the road of having "in play" sometimes mean "including home runs."

The "mythical all-BIP pitcher" was brought up earlier and used the standard no-HR definition. The rest of the thread, though, we have been talking about less-mythical, low-BB/K pitchers.

The phrase can clearly be used both ways. (though I understand why Voros would have a preference). Wikipedia on "in play":

"Any batted ball is "in play" until either the play ends, the umpire calls the ball foul, or there is fan interference or some other event that leads to a dead ball.....
In sabermetrics, a special definition of "ball in play" is used to calculate a "batting average on balls in play" (BABIP), which excludes home runs even though they are fair balls." [emphasis added]


Maybe Walt meant a zero-HR pitcher, though that's an add concept. In any case, a zero-K and zero-BB pitcher would get his butt kicked.

The phrase can clearly be used both ways.

Also Walt's quote is "a mythical all-BIP pitcher would generally be about the 10th best starter in baseball in any given season. Of course that's not realistic and an extreme contact pitcher isn't the same as an all-BIP pitcher anyway." Which I think pretty much differentiates between the two and even states that such a zero-HR pitcher is mythical. What Walt said I think clearly implies a zero HR guy.

And I think it would be silly to even bother starting down the road of calling home runs in play when we're perfectly capable of using a different and more accurate term like "on contact" or something.

Fair enough, Voros, and I understand your objection completely. I suppose a better term would be "contacted pitches" or, as you say, "batted balls".