Stat SPaz Week, Day 3: O-Swing & Miss%
The Starting Line
by Evan "the Censor" Dickens
evan@fantasybaseballsearch.com
After reviewing two very standard fantasy baseball stats, I have to admit that this week's stat is something that I have cobbled together from other stats, but I find fascinating and very useful in identifying the truly dominant pitchers.
The O-Swing% measures the percentage of times that a pitcher induces a batter to swing at a pitch that is outside of the strike zone. Conversely, the O-Contact% is the percentage of those swings outside the strike zone that make contact. What I've done is taken the inverse of O-Contact% and applied it to O-Swing% to invent my own stat--the O-Swing & Miss%! This is the measurement of what percent of an SP's pitches outside of the strike zone induce a swing and miss. This, to me, may be the best measurement of strikeout effectiveness (better than K/9 even) because a pitcher is only getting these swings and misses if their stuff and their location are so good that batters are either a) completely fooled, or b) afraid to take the pitch. I can't give historical data on this, but to compensate I'll give you the top and the bottom ten so far this year.
Ten Best 2009 O-Swing & Miss% through 7/20/09:
1. 14.9% - Chad Billingsley
2. 14.7% - Felix Hernandez
3. 14.5% - Javier Vazquez
4. 14.4% - Dan Haren
5. 14.1% - Tim Lincecum
6. 13.9% - Ryan Dempster
7. 13.6% - Jorge de la Rosa
8. 13.1% - Jon Lester
9. 13.0% - Francisco Liriano
8. 12.8% - Roy Halladay
Now there's a list of ten fantasy pitches I want to own--SPs that I know have the skill-set to consistently dominate their competition. If you're still in a league that de la Rosa is not owned in, make sure you remedy that immediately, and if you need any more proof that Lester's strikeout ability is for real, here it is.
Ten Worst 2009 O-Swing & Miss% through 7/20/09:
1. 4.4% - Mike Pelfrey
2. 4.5% - Brad Penny
3. 4.5% - Livan Hernandez
4. 4.9% - J.A. Happ
5. 5.2% - Vicente Padilla
6. 5.6% - John Lannan
7. 5.7% - Randy Wolf
8. 5.7% - Tim Wakefield
9. 5.9% - Jeremy Guthrie
10. 6.1% - Derek Lowe
Almost zero fantasy interest on that list, other than Lowe potentially, and the reason is clear. When you can't get guys to swing and miss at your pitches out of the strike zone, you're either going to walk everybody or have to send lots of pitches up the middle and pitch to contact. Ground-ball pitchers on this list (like Lowe) can deal with this; guys like Happ and Wolf, though, who still put up decent K numbers are major red flags because those strikeouts are all coming from pitches up the middle. These softies don't belong on my roster.
Hopefully you've found these last three days to be worthwhile. The Censor's taking a break tomorrow and then we'll take a look at the season so far for some of the major "luck stats": BABIP, HR/FB, and LOB%. Hooray for stats! Send me an email if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below.
~Evan the Censor
by Evan "the Censor" Dickens
evan@fantasybaseballsearch.com
After reviewing two very standard fantasy baseball stats, I have to admit that this week's stat is something that I have cobbled together from other stats, but I find fascinating and very useful in identifying the truly dominant pitchers.
The O-Swing% measures the percentage of times that a pitcher induces a batter to swing at a pitch that is outside of the strike zone. Conversely, the O-Contact% is the percentage of those swings outside the strike zone that make contact. What I've done is taken the inverse of O-Contact% and applied it to O-Swing% to invent my own stat--the O-Swing & Miss%! This is the measurement of what percent of an SP's pitches outside of the strike zone induce a swing and miss. This, to me, may be the best measurement of strikeout effectiveness (better than K/9 even) because a pitcher is only getting these swings and misses if their stuff and their location are so good that batters are either a) completely fooled, or b) afraid to take the pitch. I can't give historical data on this, but to compensate I'll give you the top and the bottom ten so far this year.
Ten Best 2009 O-Swing & Miss% through 7/20/09:
1. 14.9% - Chad Billingsley
2. 14.7% - Felix Hernandez
3. 14.5% - Javier Vazquez
4. 14.4% - Dan Haren
5. 14.1% - Tim Lincecum
6. 13.9% - Ryan Dempster
7. 13.6% - Jorge de la Rosa
8. 13.1% - Jon Lester
9. 13.0% - Francisco Liriano
8. 12.8% - Roy Halladay
Now there's a list of ten fantasy pitches I want to own--SPs that I know have the skill-set to consistently dominate their competition. If you're still in a league that de la Rosa is not owned in, make sure you remedy that immediately, and if you need any more proof that Lester's strikeout ability is for real, here it is.
Ten Worst 2009 O-Swing & Miss% through 7/20/09:
1. 4.4% - Mike Pelfrey
2. 4.5% - Brad Penny
3. 4.5% - Livan Hernandez
4. 4.9% - J.A. Happ
5. 5.2% - Vicente Padilla
6. 5.6% - John Lannan
7. 5.7% - Randy Wolf
8. 5.7% - Tim Wakefield
9. 5.9% - Jeremy Guthrie
10. 6.1% - Derek Lowe
Almost zero fantasy interest on that list, other than Lowe potentially, and the reason is clear. When you can't get guys to swing and miss at your pitches out of the strike zone, you're either going to walk everybody or have to send lots of pitches up the middle and pitch to contact. Ground-ball pitchers on this list (like Lowe) can deal with this; guys like Happ and Wolf, though, who still put up decent K numbers are major red flags because those strikeouts are all coming from pitches up the middle. These softies don't belong on my roster.
Hopefully you've found these last three days to be worthwhile. The Censor's taking a break tomorrow and then we'll take a look at the season so far for some of the major "luck stats": BABIP, HR/FB, and LOB%. Hooray for stats! Send me an email if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below.
~Evan the Censor
Labels: Chad Billingsley, Felix Hernandez, Mike Pelfrey, Randy Wolf, swing and miss
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