Heavy-ball Throwers

[Matthias]

One thing that I'm looking at this year before my draft is pitchers who throw a relatively high amount of Ground Balls.

So here's a list of starting pitchers that I generated, sorted by ground out/fly out ratio, for pitchers who pitched at least 85 innings last year, and K'd at least 5 per 9. Take it for whatever it's worth.

Player Kd9 BBd9 GdAO
Webb, Brandon 7.27 2.58 2.9
Lowe, Derek 6.27 1.92 2.3
Hudson, Tim 5.39 2.54 2.1
Lannan, John 5.79 3.56 1.9
Jimenez, Ubaldo 7.79 4.67 1.8
Masterson, Justin 6.93 4.08 1.8
Halladay, Roy 7.54 1.43 1.7
Park, Chan Ho 7.46 3.4 1.7
Maholm, Paul 6.06 2.75 1.6
Wang, Chien-Ming 5.12 3.32 1.6
Oswalt, Roy 7.12 2.03 1.5
Buehrle, Mark 5.76 2.14 1.5
Kuroda, Hiroki 5.69 2.06 1.5
Hernandez, Felix 7.85 3.59 1.5
Jurrjens, Jair 6.64 3.35 1.5
Parra, Manny 7.97 4.07 1.5
Kershaw, Clayton 8.36 4.35 1.5
Billingsley, Chad 9.01 3.59 1.4
Burnett, A.J. 9.39 3.5 1.4
Chamberlain, Joba 10.58 3.5 1.4
Johnson, Josh 7.94 2.78 1.4
Contreras, Jose A. 5.21 2.6 1.4
Hochevar, Luke 5.02 3.28 1.4
Reyes, Jo-Jo 6.21 4.14 1.4
Lester, Jon 6.5 2.82 1.3
Eveland, Dana 6.32 4.12 1.3
Davis, Doug 6.9 3.95 1.3
Sabathia, CC 8.93 2.1 1.2
Dempster, Ryan 8.14 3.31 1.2
Shields, James 6.7 1.67 1.2
Litsch, Jesse 5.06 1.99 1.2
Zambrano, Carlos 6.2 3.43 1.2
Myers, Brett 7.72 3.08 1.2
De La Rosa, Jorge 8.86 4.29 1.2
Perez, Odalis 6.71 3.1 1.2
Miller, Andrew 7.46 4.7 1.2
Robertson, Nate 5.76 3.31 1.2
Volquez, Edinson 9.46 4.27 1.1
Lackey, John 7.16 2.2 1.1
Lohse, Kyle 5.36 2.21 1.1
Wainwright, Adam 6.2 2.32 1.1
Villanueva, Carlos 7.73 2.49 1.1
Blanton, Joe 5.05 3.01 1.1
McClung, Seth 7.43 4.7 1.1
Francis, Jeff 5.89 3.07 1.1
Martinez, Pedro 7.18 3.63 1.1
Batista, Miguel 5.71 6.18 1.1
Lincecum, Tim 10.51 3.33 1
Lee, Cliff 6.85 1.37 1
Haren, Dan 8.58 1.67 1
Sheets, Ben 7.17 2.13 1
Danks, John 7.34 2.63 1
Greinke, Zack 8.14 2.49 1
Galarraga, Armando 6.35 3.07 1
Marcum, Shaun 7.31 2.97 1
Guthrie, Jeremy 5.66 2.74 1
Moyer, Jamie 5.64 2.84 1
Arroyo, Bronson 7.33 3.06 1
Padilla, Vicente 6.68 3.42 1
Sanchez, Jonathan O. 8.94 4.27 1
McGowan, Dustin 6.87 3.07 1
Hendrickson, Mark 5.45 3.23 1

[Field]

There was a thread a while back which discussed sleepers based on a similar formula. Check out this link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... piRQ&gid=1

[Matthias]

Ah, nice. Thanks!

[GotowarMissAgnes]

Like everything, this type of info has to be balanced with the rest. GB pitchers tend to have lower ERAs, because they don't give up as many dingers. They tend to have higher WHIPs because more singles squeek through. And this doesn't say anything about their K ability.

Baseball Analysts did an excellent series this year where they looked at K/9, BB/9, and GB% and produced a great table showing how pitchers stacked up on this.

[Havok1517]

Something else that would be helpful if they could make this relative to age and IP so someone could have a better chance on predicting a breakout.

[Ender]

Daniel Cabrera, can't think of a pitcher who has a heavier percentage of balls thrown.


I think I misunderstood the question though!

[Matthias]

Baseball Analysts did an excellent series this year where they looked at K/9, BB/9, and GB% and produced a great table showing how pitchers stacked up on this.

Is this it?

[Y`s Guy]

Baseball Analysts did an excellent series this year where they looked at K/9, BB/9, and GB% and produced a great table showing how pitchers stacked up on this.

Is this it?

Mattias, thanks for this link. Simply amazing graph there. Love that southwest quadrant of pitchers to avoid. Andy Sonnenstine? Matt garza? And my perennial sleeper, Scott Olsen?

I used to like them.

[Matthias]

Baseball Analysts did an excellent series this year where they looked at K/9, BB/9, and GB% and produced a great table showing how pitchers stacked up on this.

Is this it?

Mattias, thanks for this link. Simply amazing graph there. Love that southwest quadrant of pitchers to avoid. Andy Sonnenstine? Matt garza? And my perennial sleeper, Scott Olsen?

I used to like them.

Thank GTWMA; I just went looking for what he suggested.

[Ender]

You probably want to check out this one http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/20 ... g_pi_4.php which adds BB into the mix and this one http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/20 ... ores_t.php which weighted all 3 things into one z-score. There is also a link in that one that shows a spreadsheet of all pitchers for 2008.

Since Garza as an example replies on a low BB rate for his success you probably get a bit of a warped view of him from that first one.