THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Johnson’s BB/9 rate has gone from 1.61 in 2004 to 1.87 in 2005 to 2.63 in 2006.  At the same time, his K/9 rate declined from 10.62 to 8.42 to 7.55.  As a result, his K/BB ratio has fallen from 6.59 to 4.49 to 2.87.

I’ve often wondered if ball/strike data could tell us anything.  If so, I think you would need to look at the ratio rather than percentage, as each 1% decline in strike% represents both the reduced chance of a K and increased chance of BB.  Also, the relationship is probably exponential, in that a pitcher has to record 3 strikes within a single PA to record a K (and 4 balls for a BB). 

If you look at the strike/ball ratios for Johnson, it’s: 2.23/2.07/1.90, decline of 15%.

If we take (strike/ball)^2, we get: 4.97/4.27/3.63, decline of 27%. 

It would be interesting to see if there’s a fairly consistent relationship between pitch ratio and (K-BB)/BF.

Another option:  Strike%^2 - Ball%^2.  This would yield .38/.35/.31 for Johnson.

And what if we took hits out of these calculations, looking only at balls and true strikes (and fouls)?

Is this strike% and ball% data available anywhere?  Or do you have to buy it from BIS/Stats/etc.?

You must be new around here.  I should provide links more often:

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=60&position=P

Randy wrapped up a great second-half of the seaason by throwing a 2-hitter, recording his 100th career complete game, and 295th career Win. He probably will be the last pitcher ever to record 100 complete games. Sabathia and Halladay maybe.