So I was listening to a baseball podcast recently, and they got to talking about pitchers and their ability to miss bats, rattling off swinging strike data and all that good stuff, and I thought: “Hmmm….I wonder if I can get that for OOTP?” And then I thought, heck, yeah…remember your silly little script!
So I went to the results file that I posted for everyone back a week of three ago, and I did some comparison between overall pitch count and what OOTP says they are—finding a couple small errors in my script in the process, and another thing that I think OOTP just flat-out gets wrong. This means that, overall, I’m pretty much sure the data I have for every pitcher is now “right” (whatever that means in our most definitely not-fake world).
Off Topic
For those new to the BBA, I use a script that parses every game log from the season before to capture the results of every at bat into a csv table that can then be used for lots of fun studies. Mostly I do this to pester the development team (generally about defense), but the side benefit is that I can use it to look at a whole bunch of stuff. If you want to play with the data yourself, just follow that link and look for the "results2.csv" file.
Who, for example, is the league’s best swing and miss guy? And does that make sense? (Yes, I’m insane that way. Sue me).
Here is the answer: Taking only guys who threw at least 1,000 pitches, the top ten swing and miss percentages are as follows.
ID | Pitcher | Team | Pitches | %ST-Swinging |
---|---|---|---|---|
30105 | Yann Legrand | Twin Cities River Monsters | 1134 | 13.9% |
17300 | José Torres | Edmonton Jackrabbits | 1018 | 13.0% |
37530 | Roberto Lizardo | San Antonio Outlaws | 1210 | 12.7% |
36522 | Curt Phillips | Yellow Springs Nine | 1219 | 12.7% |
17843 | Momcilo Djuretic | Yellow Springs Nine | 1190 | 12.6% |
35805 | Manny Gabriel | Long Beach Surfers | 2271 | 12.5% |
24628 | Abel van Gastel | Des Moines Kernels | 1386 | 12.1% |
20963 | Dillon Young | Phoenix Talons | 1233 | 12.1% |
35685 | Aki Kondo | San Antonio Outlaws | 3111 | 12.1% |
36974 | Simón Bautista | Valencia Stars | 1383 | 12.0% |
Let’s do a quick run through and see if that makes sense, starting, of course, with #1, TWC’s Yann Legrand. Legrand is guy with 11 stuff, that comes from a 99 MPH fastball the game says is a 9 and one of the best curveballs in the game. He struck out 99 guys in 67.2 innings. Yeah, I can see the swing and miss thing going pretty good for him.
How about Edmonton’s Jose Torres, who sits at #2? Well…the cat throws a 101 MPH slider that’s top-notch and a forkball that drops off the table well enough to register 113 Ks in 97.2 innings. Yep. I can see that. At a “2” stamina, I see him throwing gas for 15 -20 pitches, then setting down.
We get a pair of closers next in San Antonio’s Roberto Lizardo and Yellow Springs’s Curt Phillips. Lizardo throws a hard sinker (101 MPH) and a better curveball well enough to strike out 86 in 73 innings. Phillips struck out 95 in 73 innings, and carries nasty “11” stuff that’s built on a 10/10 Cutter/Curve combination he throws at 100 MPH. I call that a check/check for #3 and #4.
Next comes another Yellow Springs reliever—this time Momcilo Djuretic, who I’ve made no secrets of loving. Here maybe I see why. I’m not sure he really fits the mold perfectly, but he does throw a well-rounded Curve/Change/Cutter combo with a side-car slider, and he’s pitching in relief most of the time rather than as a starter. All total he K’ed 86 in 74 innings. As far as whether he belongs in the top bat misses in the league, well, maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see how usual it is.
Long Beach’s Manny Gabriel registers in at #6. Gabriel has a cutter/slider combo that he throws at 98 (the slider is among the league’s finest), and a changeup that twists guys up into knots. Struck out 184 in his 147 innings on the way to a 2.69 ERA and a few mid-season accolades about being a Nebraska candidate. I can see him on this kind of list. Gabriel is one of only two pitchers in the top ten to throw more than 2,000 pitches.
Abel “Whale” Van Gastel may not be a name you think about much when you think of great relief pitchers, but maybe that should change. The Des Moines hurler tops out at 100, and has a solid fastball/slider/change combo that probably has the Kernel’s management thinking about the 26 year old as a starter. Alas, when guys make contact, he tends to give up homers. Still, one uptick on the Movement meter, and you’d see him at a different level.
This is a moment where I need to stop and discuss that whole “movement” thing. I think the bottom line here is that in OOTP, the stuff reins when it comes to Ks (no surprise, of course), and as such it seems to be something that differentiates swinging strikes, too…which I like. I will always, however, and I do mean always, scratch my head at the use of the term “movement” in OOTP to be, essentially, the realm of the homer. I don’t know specifically what the right answer is, but the idea that a guy like Van Gastel who has very little “movement” ... well ... it just doesn’t seem like he should miss many bats. Grumble.
Still, that aesthetic aside, I can see it in context.
Regardless, at #8 we find 37-year-old Phoenix closer Dillon Young. I admit, I love this. 37 and still throwing some 96 MPH gas that comes behind a still-elite bender. That said, the number here is a little surprise. It makes me wonder if it’s a remnant of sample size and randomness as much as it is power.
Then we come to our first starting pitcher in the list, Aki Kondo. As we saw in another recent feature, Kondo throws the gas. His 10 fastball comes at 100 MPH, and if you’re sitting on that pitch he’s got an elite changeup and curveball combo to make you look like a fool, boy. At age 24, the San Antonio pitcher is arguably nearing his peak years—so that 231 Ks he threw in 198 innings as a starter are pretty daunting. Bottom line: Kondo clearly belongs on the list.
Finally comes Valencia reliever Simon Bautista, who throws what is possibly the league’s best curveball backed with a 96 MPH fastball. Bautista is another guy with limited movement, but he’s a lefty whose 101K sin 87.1 innings can throw it past hitters from either side.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT:
I can’t really argue the list too much—especially since we’re talking only one season’s worth of data. I also can’t say for sure what it means, if anything at all. OOTP is notorious for backing into its results, and I admit I have no idea how it comes up with this stuff. That said, however, I have to say that a spin through FanGraphs data says that 12%-14% swinging strikes at the top of the list are really quite reasonable (2018’s top swing and miss guy was around 16%, 2017’s just barely 15%). So I have to say that makes me happy in the way watching the moon rise up over the mountains makes me happy.
Yes, again, me = crazy silly.
But, if nothing else, it was fun to look it.