THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I know MLBAM uses two-letter abbreviations, but I use three-letter abbreviations for pitch types and that clears up a lot of confusion.

FB4 - four-seam fastball
FB2 - two-seam fastball and sinker
Cut - cut fastball
Spl - split-finger fastball
Chg - changeup
Sld - slider
Crv - curveball
Knu - knuckleball
Scr - screwball
Eep - eephus

Mike: agreed that 3-letters is much better than 2.

Hmm. I’ve used 3 before, but my 3rd should be the 4th. I’ve used “o” and “s” to indicated varying arm slots (see Contreras, Jose) in some cases.

Three letters also allows for

slv slurve
slt slutter
frk forkball

Wouldn’t it be better to call a “slutter” be a “cutider” or something?  Just saying…

Hey, I didn’t coin the term. Besides, it is easier to say that cutider. In a certain sense.

Papelbon coined it I believe. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.  I also have a 3-letter identifier.  I do the same thing for the actions of the pitch, too, like In Play, No Out to INP_SAFE, In Play, Out(s) to INP_OUT, INP_RUNS, etc.

Dave Allen:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/bannister-love-pitchfx/

Here’s a question here.

Bannister describes his change up as a power change...but his comparison is to Brandon Webb’s FASTBALL (err sinker).

And the comparison checks out in pretty much all areas...INCLUDING SPEED (mph).

So why bother with the cutter as a primary pitch....why not switch the regular full time pitch to the change up?

It acts like a sinker (fastball), why not throw it as one? 

Wouldn’t that result in a HIGHER ground ball rate and thus a more successful Bannister?

garik16

The pitchf/x numbers being similar doesn’t mean the pitches are the same.  There are aspects of the pitches that pitchf/x does not pick up.  So I don’t think we can say that his changeup could be used as a sinker just because the numbers are similar.

The run values, and probably even gb%, for the pitches are most likely very context and sequence dependent.  Just because a pitcher has a successful changeup doesn’t mean he should throw it all the time.

With Banny I bet hitters are expecting the cutter or fastball and the changeup is just different enough in speed or movement to get the high GB rate.  If he started to throw it too much, I assume it would not be as successful.

I’d agree with you....but Webb (to use the example) throws that similar fastball most of the time and still gets good GB #s with it.

He doesn’t throw anything that rises more really than that pitch and still succeeds with it. 

So do you really need to throw the a pitch with less sink than that?

One reason is that Bannister, and most pitches I assume, cannot control their changeup as well as they can their fastball (four-seam, two-seam or cut).  Webb can throw a sinking fast ball that gets that much ‘sink’ AND he can control, getting the zone over 50% of the time. 

But Bannister’s change is only in the zone 40% of the time, compared to his cutter which is in the zone over 55% of the time.  His main pitch needs to be one he can regularly get in the zone.

Using two versions of the zone (one based on the actual plate width, the other 2 feet wide, both using each batter’s aggregate top/bot zones from all of their ABs)

Change
35%/41%
Cutter
46/60
Fastball
39/52

I think the cutter is reasonable as a primary pitch for Bannister, in this particular dimension.