Baseball Toaster: The Griddle : The Revolution starts in Kansas City again

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Chicago Cubs	76	48	.613	C1
2	New York Mets	68	57	.544	E1
3T	Arizona	64	60	.516	W1
3T	Los Angeles Dodgers	64	60	.516	W1
5	Milwaukee	72	54	.571	C2
6	St. Louis	70	57	.551	C3
7	Philadelphia	66	58	.532	E2
8	Florida	64	61	.512	E3
9	Houston	63	62	.504	C4
10	Colorado	57	69	.452	W3
11T	Pittsburgh	56	69	.448	C5
11T	Atlanta	56	69	.448	E4
13	Cincinnati	55	70	.44	C6
14	San Francisco	53	71	.427	W4
15	San Diego	48	76	.387	W5
16	Washington	44	81	.352	E5

American League

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Los Angeles Angels	76	47	.618	W1
2	Tampa Bay	76	48	.613	E1
3	Chicago White Sox	71	53	.573	C1
4	Boston	72	53	.576	E2
5	Minnesota	70	54	.565	C2
6	New York Yankees	66	58	.532	E3
7	Toronto	64	60	.516	E4
8	Texas	62	64	.492	W2
9	Detroit	61	64	.488	C3
10	Baltimore	60	64	.484	E5
11	Oakland	57	67	.46	W3
12	Cleveland	56	67	.455	C4
13	Kansas City	55	69	.444	C5
14	Seattle	46	78	.371	W4

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The Revolution starts in Kansas City again

2008-03-08 18:45

by Bob Timmermann

Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports interviews Brian Bannister of the Kansas City Royals. Bannister is likely the first major league player to implement knowledge of sabermetrics in a way that can improve his own pitching.

Bannister finished 12-9 with a 3.87 earned-run average, and that was after his two final starts kicked up the ERA nearly a half-point. Otherwise, in his rookie season, Bannister would have finished among the top five in the American League with a record well above .500 in spite of playing for the moribund Royals.

To explain Bannister’s success in spite of his inability to overpower hitters is the crux of the scouts vs. stats debate that has raged for years but took root with the arrival of “Moneyball” five years ago. Scouts attribute Bannister’s success to intangibles – wiliness, toughness and other -nesses – as well as the ability to keep hitters off-balance with his slow curveball.

Statistical analysts? Well, they just think Bannister was lucky.

-------------------

Then again, his good fortune may continue. In a late January interview with Tim Dierkes that outlined much of his sabermetric leanings, Bannister theorized that he could keep his BABIP down if he got to two-strike counts more often. It was a brilliant hypothesis that melded the practical – hitters are taught to, and thus tend to, take more defensive swings with two strikes – with numerical data.

Analysts tested Bannister’s idea, and he was right: there is a difference, though not terribly significant. Still, Bannister’s interest prompted Mike Fast to run a detailed series of analyses on Bannister with Pitch f/x, the two-camera system that tracks a ball from the pitcher’s hand to the catcher’s glove and details its speed to the tenth of a mile per hour and movement to the inch.

If anything convinces pitchers to become converts, as on-base percentage has done with a generation of hitters, it will be Pitch f/x. Its uses are manifold, and when Bannister learned about it in the middle of last season and figured out how to download and sort the data, it was as though he’d found religion.

“I find Pitch f/x to be more useful than video,” Bannister said, “because you’re actually seeing what the pitches are doing late in the zone, and that’s what it’s all about. Everybody can throw a fastball, but if one guy’s explodes in the last 10 feet and the other’s goes dead straight, there’s a huge difference, even if they’re both throwing 95 mph. That’s where the magic lies: in tweaking your pitches in order to get the most out of your ability.”

Comments

2008-03-08 19:29:45

1. Gen3Blue

At least you have a good image if Bannister ever becomes a candidate for the weekly puzzle, which I think is great although I usually miss it due to EC.

2008-03-09 08:43:14

2. MyTummyHurts

wow, great stuff Bob...

2008-03-09 09:08:09

3. MyTummyHurts

some of that stuff is common knowledge but sprinkle in some data based facts & you get a thought provocking (sp) read.

2008-03-09 17:15:53

4. grandcosmo

Bannister's knowledge of sabermetrics should tell him that his 77/44 K to BB ratio in 165 innings last season does not bode well for his future.

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