Top Ten List(s) of the Day
Again courtesy of Baseball Reference, here are the top ten active WHIP leaders:1. Pedro Martinez, 1.0258
2. Johan Santana, 1.0985
3. Curt Schilling, 1.1322
4. Greg Maddux, 1.1362
5. Randy Johnson, 1.1641
6. John Smoltz, 1.1688
7. Roger Clemens, 1.1697
8. Mike Mussina, 1.1765
9. Roy Oswalt, 1.1787
10. Ben Sheets, 1.2055
Fully SIX members of this list of active leaders in a rate stat are over 35 years old (actually, places three through eight), and Martinez is 34. A testament to the brilliance of each of those pitchers.
Now, courtesy of Prospectus, let's look at the luckiest and unluckiest pitchers of 2006 as measured by BABIP (batting average on balls in play *[explanation below]):
Unluckiest:
1. Ryan Madson, .364
2. Victor Santos, .362
3. Byung-hyun Kim, .350
4. Sheets, .342
5. Joe Blanton, .341
6. Brian Moehler, .340
7. Zach Duke, .336
8. James Shields, .334
Paul Maholm, .334
10. Andy Pettitte, .333
A couple things about this list:
1. Smart fantasy owners, meet Ben Sheets. Ben Sheets, smart fantasy owners.
2. The Yankees made a good move.
3. THREE of the top ten are Pirates pitchers. Nothing is going Pittsburgh's way lately.
4. Blanton has been the biggest disappointment of the Moneyball draft so far, and here's part of the reason.
Overall, fantasy owners, this list is a good one to look at for bargains that will slip under the rug. As Voros McCracken theorized and later proved, pitchers have little to no control over where the ball is going once it's hit. Pitchers with a high BABIP have been, therefore, unlucky, and will likely regress to the mean the following year.
And now the top ten LUCKIEST pitchers of 2006:
1. Chris Young, .232
2. Jered Weaver, .239
3. Anibal Snachez, .243
4. Chuck James, .250
Scott Elarton, .250
6. Michael O'Connor, .254
7. Taylor Bucholz, .258
8. Carlos Zambrano, .259
9. Josh Beckett, .265
Kenny Rogers, .265
Now, don't get me wrong, these are all very good pitchers. Just don't expect quite the production out of them this year. They had a lot of help from a combination of good defense and luck that kept their WHIPs ridiculously low.
Six days until the first spring training game!
Labels: BABIP, fantasy, pitching, WHIP
posted by Carnival @ 2/21/2007
1 Comments:
"Nothing is going Pittsburgh's way lately."
It's not a luck issue. The Pirates had the worst defensive efficiency in baseball last year. They shouldn't be good this year, either, but not paying Sean Casey, Joe Randa and Jeromy Burnitz $15 million to field (and hit) badly should help.
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