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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Non-randomness in pitching approach
I was just thinking about this topic driving in. And here’s RJ doing some good stuff. He looks at the rate of a pitcher’s first pitch being offspeed or not. And then he looks at the rate of offspeed on all of a pitcher’s pitches.
He then compares the ratio of those two rates to a pitcher’s component runs allowed (SIERA in this case). And, basically, the conclusion is simply:
it seems that different strokes work for different folks
That is, guys who pitch in a random way aren’t necessarily better off. Cliff Lee is the one that has the most visible pattern based on this metric, and, well, it’s not hurting him. It may be simply like it is with Vlad et al on the hitting side, that the optimal approach is one borne of experience: if you are not successful, you try something different on occasion, and if it feels good, you adapt that to your repertoire. It seems almost tautological. If a guy is performing well, you shut up, because even if it shouldn’t work, it is working (or at least seems to be working). If a guy is not performing well, then you can try different things, though chances are, nothing is really going to change (though occasionally, you get a real change).
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