Neyer: What we talk about when we talk about ground-ball pitchers
From SABR member Rob Neyer at Baseball Nation on March 27, 2012:
As I’ve mentioned at least three or a hundred times already, recently I was lucky enough to engage Brandon McCarthy in a public discussion, under the auspices of the first SABR Analytics Conference (excerpts and audio here). And the next day, I was part of a panel that included FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron. At one point, I asked Cameron a fundamental question that, oddly (or inexcusably), had never occurred to me before: What is a ground-ball pitcher?
Dave answered and he answered well. But I wasn’t really paying attention. I rarely am. So let’s work through it together, just me and you …
We know, roughly speaking, what a power hitter is. You hit 30 homers and you’re a power hitter.
We know, roughly speaking, what a power pitcher is. You strike out eight or nine batters per nine innings and you’re a power pitcher.
We know what a lead-off man looks like, and a good-field/no-hit shortstop. We know a crafty left-hander when we see one (raise your hand, Jamie Moyer). We know a junk-baller, and a pure hitter. We see those types of players in our minds.
Or, let me rephrase … we see the statistics of those players in our mind’s eye. Sure, we have images, too. But we can attach numbers to those images. It occurred to me that I didn’t know which numbers go with ground-ball pitchers.
Read the full article here: http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/3/27/2905378/ground-ball-pitchers-definition-brandon-mccarthy
Originally published: March 27, 2012. Last Updated: March 27, 2012.