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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, February 25, 2008
The latest work from Mike Fast…
Bannister claimed he’d been able to get batters to put the ball in play 155 times with a 0-2 or 1-2 count versus 78 times at 2-0 or 2-1. In 2007, batters put the ball in play against Bannister 78 times at 0-2 and 1-2 versus 61 times at 2-0 or 2-1. The numbers he quoted were for his career, so to check them, we need to add in his 2006 numbers, 19 and 17 respectively, to get a total of 97 career balls in play at 0-2 or 1-2 and 78 career balls in play at 2-0 or 2-1. The second number matches what Bannister said, but the first number isn’t even close. Did Bannister leave out a count? I can’t find any other combination of counts that adds up to the numbers Bannister said. You can look for yourself.
Inconsistencies in Bannister’s arithmetic aside, the main thing to note is that he did not induce balls in play in advantageous counts more often than average. He comes out at slightly less than a one-run disadvantage overall, including, notably, a 1.6-run disadvantage at 0-2. When looking at his run values for balls in play, we need to remember that small sample size affects the reliability of these numbers. You might be able to chalk most of this effect up to chance. In any case, Bannister is certainly not gaining any advantage here.
Where does that leave us? Are we left knowing nothing more than when we started other than that the reasons Bannister offered for his BABIP performance don’t hold water? In Part 2, we’ll move on to the PITCHf/x data set and see if learning more about his arsenal can help us answer the BABIP question.
Repoz
Posted: February 25, 2008 at 07:01 AM | 9 comment(s)
Related News: General, Sabermetrics, Kansas City
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Bannister has a career .236 BABIP with two strikes and .262 with 0 or 1 strike, according to my calculations (H-HR)/(AB-SO-HR). Both are much better than the league, although the rest of the league does better with two strikes, too, of course. The problem is that Bannister pitches in two-strike counts less often than other major-league pitchers, which is completely the opposite of Bannister's claim in the interview, so it doesn't help him as much as you might think.
When you grade Bannister on how he does on two-strike counts overall, he comes out behind because he's not very good at getting strikeouts, and that's by far the best thing a pitcher can do when he has two strikes.
In Part 3 of the series (Part 2 should be published tomorrow, Part 3 on the weekend or early next week), I'll take a look at what I think are some reasons for Bannister's BABIP performance. I don't think it's all luck, but Bannister's explanation just doesn't match the facts.
I was going to say something similar--I haven't heard any other ballplayer go into this kind of detail.
I wonder if this wouldn't be a common theme among "crafty" pitchers -- they beat the league in counts where they can throw appetizing balls, but lag the league when the count dictates throwing a strike.
I am not one that thinks individual pitchers will shared the same BABIP, while I think the league BABIP is almost unchanged, individual pitchers can make a difference, and not just a small difference.
I think the "magic" of the discovery of pitcher BABIP is that anyone that "suffered" bad luck or had exceptional good luck, will see a regression to their individual mean, not league mean. The trick is understanding a pitchers individual mean.
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