from Amazon
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Groundball pitchers without a big fastball: yuck
Bill James:
I’ve said it a thousand times, but. . .I don’t believe in ground ball pitchers. I don’t trust them, I don’t want them, and I don’t believe one should ever invest money in them. In theory, a ground ball pitcher with a good strikeout rate is the best of both worlds. But the problem is, there just aren’t any pitchers like that who are consistently good; they all either get hurt or they lose home plate. The only pitcher like that who has had a great career in the last 30 years was Kevin Brown. The overwhelming majority of the consistently good pitchers are the guys who live off of the high fastball--Clemens, Schilling, the Unit, Pedro, Santana, King Felix, Verlander, Sabathia, etc.
My response:
Derek Lowe is the obvious one who has had a good (not great) career being exactly that. Andy Pettitte would be in the running too. To say nothing of Roy Halladay. And does this mean that you would expect Adam Wainwright to not age as gracefully as other great pitchers? It’s a very strong position that you are taking. Are you that strongly against non-fastballing groundball pitchers?