How is pitcher "effectiveness" best measured?

[RubberBiscuit]

Yes ................

And for the record my favorite stat IS the K/BB

 

[SoAZDad]

And for the record my favorite stat IS the K/BB

Hey RB,

It may be your favorite stat, and I like it and value it too.

But if used primarily to assess a pitcher's effectiveness, then my DD is a total stud in the circle. (Hint: she's not a total stud but she has some really good games and occasionally she gets rocked hard). She's a finesse pitcher, gets a lot of infield outs on grounders from her breaking pitches. Her K/BB is typically ranges from 3.5 to 4.2. BUT her K/IP is 0.6 to 0.8, her WHIP is 1.2 to 1.5.

So she doesn't walk many batters and that kind of artificially inflates her K/BB when she doesn't get many Ks compared to the power pitchers (who have proportionately more walks).

 

[Scorekeeper]

My answer was not perfect. However I thought the OP was asking for the quickest and easiest way to measure how effective a pitcher is in the simplest form.
If Sally pitches to 20 batters and only 2 of them reach base safely. The OBP for her outing would be .100....
Suzie pitches to 20 batters and 10 of them reach safely. Suzie's OBP is a lousy .500
Easy way to get "effectiveness" in its simplest form.

No problem. God knows I don’t get my point across far too often to be critical.

But seeing the explanation above, what you’re really saying is you think the easiest way to judge effectiveness, is by seeing the rate base runners reach base. Dividing the number of pitches by the number of runners to get pitches per runner is really the same thing, but is expressed in a way I think more people would find meaningful.

But once again, the currency of a baseball game is runs, so to me the most effective pitcher is the one whose rate of allowing runs is the lowest. It really doesn’t mean anything to me if Sally only allows 2 runners in 20 batters but both score, or if Suzie allows 10 runners out of 20 to reach but none score.

It’s all in the perspective, so I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong, but until the game is decided by the number of batters reaching safely, I’ve got to go with using runs to judge effectiveness.

 

[cuzmail]

Of coursed one can make a judgment based on only 1 pitch in 1 game, but one needs access to all the numbers available to make an “informed” judgment.

Who said anything about only 1 pitch? 1 pitch - really? Another generalization with much liberty taken.

Concession is probably a great idea on both parts.

 

[JAD]

JAD,

Are those numbers you “believe” are true, or have you actually checked them?

I’m not saying they aren’t good numbers, just wondering where you got them.

It was a wild rear guess (WAG) after mentally preparing myself with a 6-pack of my favorite adult beverage....

 

[Rocketech1]

Remember I’m a baseball guy and don’t see much SB.

There aren’t any BB pitchers who can hit what I consider a “spot” with all their pitches more than 70% at best during a game. Being the SB pitchers are a lot closer and don’t have things affecting a BB pitcher like having to pitch from the stretch, perhaps they’re a lot more accurate.

While strike percentage only indicates how accurate a pitcher is, a good HS BB starting pitcher over a season will be lucky to get over 65%. What do SB pitcher get to?

65% (+ or - 5%) seems to be the sweet spot for an effective softball pitcher. Much less than this and it will indicate a pitcher who doesn't have command of the strike zone and much more than this and she is probably getting hit too much. Of course there are outliers that can be very effective outside this range but on average 65% (including called strikes, swing and misses, fouls and hits), all things being equal, is a good measure of effectiveness. Note: my reference is analyzing GameChanger stats from 8U - 12U and is by no means scientific. It also includes pitchers in rec, rec all-stars, tournament teams, and travel ball teams.

 

[CoachKevin]

Effective? this is a great subject. I still use overall ERA, however I really look at IP and Hits given up. This Fall new pitcher for us; 20 IP, 48 Hits... that isn't an effective pitcher in my mind.

 

[Scorekeeper]

65% (+ or - 5%) seems to be the sweet spot for an effective softball pitcher. Much less than this and it will indicate a pitcher who doesn't have command of the strike zone and much more than this and she is probably getting hit too much. Of course there are outliers that can be very effective outside this range but on average 65% (including called strikes, swing and misses, fouls and hits), all things being equal, is a good measure of effectiveness. Note: my reference is analyzing GameChanger stats from 8U - 12U and is by no means scientific. It also includes pitchers in rec, rec all-stars, tournament teams, and travel ball teams.

Interesting. Ya know, a lot of folks believe that a very high strike percentage means the pitcher is getting hit too much, but I haven’t seen that at all in BB. In fact, in my experience its quite the opposite.

The attachment shows the results of our team’s 239 games. As the report says, it only includes games where the strike percentage was 70 or more, the pitcher was the starter, and got the decision. If you look closely, for the vast majority the WHIPS are pretty darn low, and the vast majority of decisions are wins.

View attachment stkpct3.pdf

Of course that leaves out a whole lot of games, but I think in general seems to prove my point.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Effective? this is a great subject. I still use overall ERA, however I really look at IP and Hits given up. This Fall new pitcher for us; 20 IP, 48 Hits... that isn't an effective pitcher in my mind.

The great thing about the game played with bat, ball, and glove whether its BB or SB is, its such a numbers driven game and there’s such a wealth of numbers, different people find different value in them, depending on their perspective, and it doesn’t mean they’re right or wrong.

When I see numbers like that, the 1st thing I think about, is how does that pitcher compare to all the other pitchers on the team? Expressing those numbers as a rate, its 1.25 outs for every hit(60 outs/48 hits). Can you express all the other pitchers the same way? I realize it’s a PITA, but I’m curious.

 

[Rocketech1]

Interesting. Ya know, a lot of folks believe that a very high strike percentage means the pitcher is getting hit too much, but I haven’t seen that at all in BB. In fact, in my experience its quite the opposite.

The attachment shows the results of our team’s 239 games. As the report says, it only includes games where the strike percentage was 70 or more, the pitcher was the starter, and got the decision. If you look closely, for the vast majority the WHIPS are pretty darn low, and the vast majority of decisions are wins.

View attachment 6653

Of course that leaves out a whole lot of games, but I think in general seems to prove my point.

Fastpitch is a different game with 60foot base paths and fielders only have less than 3 secs to make outs. Baseball has 90 foot base paths and in general have 4 secs to make outs. So all the balls put in play in BB will likey be outs. In fastpitch that might not be the case. Plus I would guess there are more swing and misses in BB due to the greater movement / break of the pitch and smaller ball size than in fastptich, that 12inch softball is easier to hit and many base hits can be achieved with less than perfect mechanics.

So to summarize, in fastpitch a pitcher throwing 80% strikes is likely a slower pitcher who is getting hit pretty hard.