Petti: How secondary pitch usage impacts attrition
From SABR member Bill Petti at FanGraphs on June 12, 2012:
Last week I wrote about how losing velocity at different ages impacts a pitcher’s chance to throw 40 or fewer innings the next season (what I labeled “attrition”).
The overall finding was that losing velocity at any age increases the likelihood of attrition for pitchers, and that likelihood only increases with age. Overall, pitchers in the data set had a 29% chance of attrition between years one and two. If they lost at least 1 mph on their fastball, however, that rate jumped to 39%. Pitchers that didn’t lose at least 1 mph only had an 18% attrition rate–so half the odds. Starting at age 34, the attrition rate jumped to 50% and climbed for each age cohort until roughly age 39. (Thirty-eight-year-olds who lost velocity magically bucked the trend, attriting at about the same rate as all other pitchers.)
Eno Sarris asked me whether, as some have suggested, pitchers who relied on a change-up as their primary secondary pitch (such as a James Shields or Mark Buehrle) gained some kind of advantage, in terms of attrition. Do these pitchers have a lower chance of injury or ineffectiveness than someone who relies heavily on either a curveball (e.g. A.J. Burnett) or a slider (e.g. Ervin Santana)?
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/how-secondary-pitch-usage-impacts-attrition/
Originally published: June 12, 2012. Last Updated: June 12, 2012.