What if Pitching Were a Carnival Game? | FanGraphs Baseball

I’m not sure how much value this statistic has. If a pitcher is up 0-2 and has good command, he’s generally going to try to get the hitter to chase something out of the zone. Doing so would lower his edge percentage but would be a plus to his command.

With that out of the way, any guesses for the best pitcher at dotting the edges? I came into this assuming it was Jacob deGrom’s contest to lose. If you’re going to be the best pitcher in the game while mainly throwing two pitches to one side of the plate, you better hit the best part of the plate fairly often. Indeed, deGrom is great at it: he threw 940 pitches in 2022 between the regular season and the playoffs, and 31.7% of them touched the edge of the strike zone when they crossed home plate. The league average is right around 27%.

Of the 636 pitchers who threw at least 100 pitches this year, deGrom was indeed one of the best at painting the corners. He ranked third – in the 99.5th percentile. That’s excellent, and downright unfair when you combine it with his velocity (ungodly) and movement (top-notch). He’s Jacob deGrom, after all. One thing he’s not, though, is the best pitcher at hitting the edges of the zone.

The king of edge percentage? That’d be Phillips Valdez, who threw 287 pitches and hit the edge on 31.7% of them. The astute among you will note that 31.7% is deGrom’s rate, too. In fact, this is an exceptionally close race. Valdez had an edge percentage of 31.707%, as compared to 31.702% for deGrom. That’s about as close as it gets; a single mis-measured pitch would be greater than the difference between the two. If you’re looking for premium control, look no further than deGrom… and Valdez.