Quote:
Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave
From pretty much the beginning of the game, pitchers have been instructed to change speeds, use both sides of the plate, and throw strikes. If we turn back the clock 100 years to a game in 1912, if a pitcher started to get in trouble by falling behind hitters, the coach would come out and tell him, "Hey, just throw strikes. You have seven guys behind you. Calm down and let 'em hit it." That advice is still given 100 years later. Why? Because it works. No one in their right mind tells a struggling pitcher, "Throw even harder and try to strike everyone out." Sabermatricians have not come up with better advice to give to a struggling pitcher. Believe it or not, those old coaches know what they are talking about.
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Yes, throw strikes which means eliminate free baserunners(which is exactly what saberheads agree with). And yes change speeds and keep the hitters off balance so you can stay in the big leagues. No one is saying that I could come in and give up the same BABIP as Roy Halladay but I also would never be a big league pitcher. The players at the highest level of talent can naturally keep a hitter off balance otherwise he wont be in the league very long. You are thinking about this way too much. You still need to do the things you were taught to be a big league pitcher however to be successful at the big league level you need to depend on more than having hitters get themselves out.
If a pitcher is giving up a .350+ BABIP over a larger sample size he will be back in triple A ball. As you mentioned in a earlier post in order to be a big league pitcher we need to assume they know how to pitch. Once we assume they already know how to keep hitters off balance and mix up speeds now the part that separates the great from the average is the ability to keep walks down, strikeout more hitters, and keep the ball in the park.
Out of qualified pitchers right 3 out of the 5 highest BABIP averages right now would be pitchers most of us would consider to have above average stuff. Currently they are Porcello, Shields, Josh Johnson, Randy Wolf and Max Sherzer. The current 5 lowest in BABIP right now are Weaver, Hellickson, Verlander, Dempster and Justin Vargas.
Shields had a BABIP last year of .258 while Johnson was at .239. Dempster had a BABIP of .324 last year. Verlander gave up a .319 BABIP 4 years ago. Its just really hard to find any consistency in BABIP numbers over an extended period of time. Verlander has been solid these past 2 years but prior to that he was giving up hits on balls in play at the same rate as everyone else. Shields has went back and forth from good to bad at it for years.