| 05 April 2011
Nice article by JD Sussman over at Beyond the Boxscore today. He looks at batted ball percentages and why they don't tell the whole story for pitchers.
We have heard a lot about high ground ball rates and how desirable they are compared to fly balls, but we shouldn't forget that there's a balance between that and the ability to prevent balls in play in the first place. So you have to consider strikeout rate as well as batted ball distribution, because strikeouts directly affect the total number of balls in play, and therefore the number of each batted ball type (home run rate would also play into this equation, though to a much lesser degree). Perhaps what we really should be looking at is the number of ground balls induced per plate appearance or per at-bat.
Among 91 qualified starters last season, Carl Pavano was tied for 15th with 51.2% GB, yet his low 4.8 K/9 meant more balls in the air as well as on the ground (746 total in 221 innings). The other guy who induced 51.2% grounders? His name is Roy Halladay, and he struck out about 7.8 K/9, which resulted in 738 BIP in 250.2 IP. The difference between the two is almost 30 innings where Halladay struck out everyone and no one put the ball in play.
Other guys that fell into this category last year included Rick Porcello, Paul Maholm and Brad Bergeson. So you need to know more than just GB% to talk about the quality of a pitcher.
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