| Pitcher | Team | Pitches | GB | FB | LD | PU | Contact | GB% | FB% | LD% | PU% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phil Cole | Vancouver Mounties | 1842 | 185 | 94 | 65 | 23 | 367 | 50.4% | 25.6% | 17.7% | 6.3% |
| Arnold Cantrell | New Orleans Crawdads | 1791 | 172 | 107 | 69 | 13 | 361 | 47.6% | 29.6% | 19.1% | 3.6% |
| Kent Pickford | San Antonio Outlaws | 1645 | 142 | 94 | 50 | 12 | 298 | 47.7% | 31.5% | 16.8% | 4.0% |
| Doug Eckhoff | Seattle Storm | 1603 | 136 | 102 | 67 | 20 | 325 | 41.8% | 31.4% | 20.6% | 6.2% |
| Sakutaro Kawano | San Antonio Outlaws | 1576 | 160 | 107 | 77 | 9 | 353 | 45.3% | 30.3% | 21.8% | 2.5% |
| Takashi Nakamura | Omaha Cyclones | 1551 | 126 | 117 | 41 | 15 | 299 | 42.1% | 39.1% | 13.7% | 5.0% |
| John Lucas | New Orleans Crawdads | 1545 | 126 | 105 | 62 | 13 | 306 | 41.2% | 34.3% | 20.3% | 4.2% |
| Steven Flannery | New Orleans Crawdads | 1536 | 168 | 90 | 74 | 18 | 350 | 48.0% | 25.7% | 21.1% | 5.1% |
| Dave Corfield | Mexico City Aztecs | 1534 | 123 | 70 | 69 | 22 | 284 | 43.3% | 24.6% | 24.3% | 7.7% |
| Shinsui Hasegawa | Calgary Pioneers | 1529 | 132 | 88 | 71 | 17 | 308 | 42.9% | 28.6% | 23.1% | 5.5% |
| Tim Gibbs | Louisville Sluggers | 1509 | 105 | 120 | 68 | 22 | 315 | 33.3% | 38.1% | 21.6% | 7.0% |
| Brody Picot | Yellow Springs Nine | 1509 | 106 | 110 | 70 | 27 | 313 | 33.9% | 35.1% | 22.4% | 8.6% |
| Vassilis Zorba | Mexico City Aztecs | 1507 | 129 | 90 | 63 | 18 | 300 | 43.0% | 30.0% | 21.0% | 6.0% |
| Leon Ludeman | Calgary Pioneers | 1483 | 136 | 72 | 55 | 20 | 283 | 48.1% | 25.4% | 19.4% | 7.1% |
| Bruno Bugbie | Yellow Springs Nine | 1460 | 140 | 106 | 61 | 14 | 321 | 43.6% | 33.0% | 19.0% | 4.4% |
| Takehide Gertrudes | Yellow Springs Nine | 1459 | 137 | 101 | 52 | 17 | 307 | 44.6% | 32.9% | 16.9% | 5.5% |
| Thomas Turner | Sacramento Mad Popes | 1456 | 128 | 108 | 54 | 25 | 315 | 40.6% | 34.3% | 17.1% | 7.9% |
| Billy Kelly | Nashville Bluebirds | 1438 | 97 | 84 | 62 | 23 | 266 | 36.5% | 31.6% | 23.3% | 8.6% |
| George MacFadden | Louisville Sluggers | 1431 | 111 | 76 | 50 | 11 | 248 | 44.8% | 30.6% | 20.2% | 4.4% |
| António Báldez | Louisville Sluggers | 1427 | 112 | 85 | 43 | 13 | 253 | 44.3% | 33.6% | 17.0% | 5.1% |
Phil Cole makes sense, right? Knuckleballer.
You can scan the rest to get a picture for yourself. One of the first things I thought was interesting was a listing of the teams with more than one pitcher on the register. New Orleans and Louisville lead with three. San Antonio, Calgary, and Yellow Springs have a couple apiece.
I also included the contact type and what I’ll call the “true” batted ball percentages. I assume we all know that the GB% we see in places like Stats+ are FB/GB outs. In other words, it doesn’t actually reflect the GB/FB/LD that result in hits at all. So I calculate it such that I can see that. I suppose the GB/FB ratio for outs is useful shorthand for how important an infield/outfield defense a pitcher has behind them. I also think that the per-out basis is probably easier for the game engine (and probably more important for figuring out what happens in the code that generates the results), but my baseball tastes run to raw count rather than predicated by out types. So, anyway, there’s that.
So, when I look at GB%, I can say that across the league our average GB% is a shade north of 42%. So that means Phil Cole’s 50% is very high. Of interest is the randomness of statistical output, too. For example, New Orleans’ John Lucas is listed as being a ground ball pitcher. AT present he’s throwing 41.2% ground balls, which is a touch below league average. It’s only June though. My guess is that this will move as the season progresses. We shall see, right?
A few others of note:
Look at Mexico City’s Dave Corfield. His line drive rate is quite high now (24%), but he’s having another great year because batters have made contact on only 284 of his 1500+ pitches (a piece of data that I didn’t print here is that Corfield leads this group of 20 pitchers in swinging strike percentage (17.1%) and his overall strike percentage (63.8%) is above the league’s 62.2% average. Similarly, Calgary’s Leon Ludeman is limiting contact. He’s also having a great year, but he’s doing it by limiting line drives a bit (the league’s line drive % is 20.2, so Ludeman is below average there). Ludeman’s strike % (again, not shown) is a slightly below average 61.3%).
Anyway, it’s a fun little table to scan.
Here’s the source file. Feel free to fiddle away with it and use it to post any fun things you might find. If nothing else, maybe it’ll be good for a TN or two!
