I’m working on what has turned out to be a very long analysis of Brian Bannister’s comments in an interview over at MLB Trade Rumors. In the process, I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on developing per-pitch linear weights run values. I’m in the process of posting these articles over at MVN.
First is an article listing some statistics for the breakdown of ball-in-play results for 2007 at each ball-strike count.
Next up is a three-part series on Brian Bannister. The first part examines his comments on his BABIP performance. Part 2 examining Bannister’s pitch repertoire is now live. The final part of the series takes an in-depth look into the reasons for Bannister BABIP performance in 2007.
I also intend to add additional posts breaking down other stats by ball-strike count.
February 25, 2008 at 6:39 pm
These are from comments I posted over at BBTF.
I don’t think Bannister was saying that the hitters put the ball in play 155 times with an 0-2 or 1-2 count. He was just showing that he got outs in those counts twice as often (becaues he was including strikeouts). That’s why I think his numbers don’t seem to add up. He showed that hitters were 3-53 off of him in 0-2 counts for his career, and if he was going to be able to beat the .300 BABIP number, he had to get to those counts more often. He didn’t claim to be able to do it, but if someone were able to, that might be one way of doing it.
I just checked to see what Bannister’s career BABIP is in all counts besides 2 strikes (situations where he can’t get a strikeout), and I think it came out to .294. That seems to mean that his “luck” is happening when he is in 2 strike counts. So he is either really “lucky” in 2 strike counts or he is better than average at getting hitters out with 2 strikes. I don’t know. I really think he’s just saying that if somebody can beat the average, it would be by pitching in a higher percentage of 2 strike counts.
February 25, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Steve,
Thanks for your comment. I responded over at BBTF.