Sunday, June 06, 2004 |
Reds Alert: Pitching To Contact
Reds pitchers would pitch to create contact in 2004, rather than trying to miss the bats of opposing hitters. "We decided we would try to get to contact as early as we could in the (ball-strike) count," O'Brien recalled Monday.Which, translated, means you don't have guys who can actually get strikeouts. Most strikingly, the team now has the lowest walk rate in the league (2.88 BB/9) while placing 13th in K/9 (5.98). At the same time, they're first in P/IP (15.48), but twelfth in ERA (4.37). In non-conventional stats, Hardball Times keeps track of line drive percentage (LDP), a metric that measures hard-hit balls. Cincinnati is 12th in the league at .188. Despite the fact that ESPN now carries DIPS ERAs for some qualified pitchers, only two on the Reds staff qualify (based on IP, if I'm not mistaken): Paul Wilson and Juan Acevedo. While sample sizes necessarily limit my ability to look into these guys' success thus far, Wilson's 4.54 DERA is well over a full run higher than his 3.18 ERA. Wilson's record this year represents his best effort in his career. Between these two guys, the current Win Shares indicate their combined numbers are good for ten wins.Focus on throwing strikes. Focus on prompting opposing hitters to put the ball in play, and trusting the Reds' defense to make plays. Focus on decreasing pitch counts from inning to inning, enabling the starters to work deeper into games. The best pitchers on the staff, then, would throw more innings, while the middle relievers -- usually the soft underbelly of most pitching staffs -- would have a lightened workload.
This was a new theory for the Reds, and a matter of practicality, because of the makeup of Cincinnati's staff. Paul Wilson is not a dominant flamethrower, but he can be efficient; the same is true for Cory Lidle, a free agent targeted by O'Brien during the offseason because, in part, he threw strikes. "I felt like we had to be realistic in assessing the talents of our pitching staff," said O'Brien.
I don't feel obliged to go back into Voros McCracken's work; the short version is contact pitchers can't generally maintain their ability to prevent hits on balls in play, although Michael Lichtman at Baseball Think Factory recently revisited this. He concludes that the prevention of hits on some balls in play -- groundballs and flyballs, in particular -- can in fact be a skill. Still, a pitcher who elects to put himself at the mercy of the fielders behind him is a guy betting on a good outcome. A strikeout doesn't make it (usually) to first base; trouble begins with hits and walks. The Reds are 11th in defensive efficiency (the conversion of batted balls in play to outs): not horrible, and not great (great being defined as -- sit down -- Tampa Bay). What I'm getting at is that ultimately, this pitching philosophy will bite them. If pitcher only cares about how many pitches he throws and not how many guys he gets on base or gives up hits to, he's going to run into trouble just as soon as he encounters a lineup of patient hitters who can also slug.
Update: alert reader-and-wife Helen noticed that the Reds' bullpen is 9th in innings pitched in the league (172.2), just behind the Dodgers. If they're trying to reduce the load on their relievers, it ain't working.
It could work for them this season, but I agree that they are playing with fire in the long term.
Newer› ‹Older
 |
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.