FG+ O/U Game: Madison Bumgarner

This week, we’ll be giving away one FG+ membership per day by playing the FG+ Over/Under Game. The wrinkle on this game is that it’s subjective: we’ll provide a player and a number, and you use the comments section to make your best argument for the over or the under. The RotoGraphs staff will pick a winner every day, and that person will get a free subscription to FG+, which includes 11 full-length fantasy strategy articles, 1100 player caps on the player pages, and ongoing access to the FG+ blog, which features the writing the FanGraphs team provides to ESPN Insider on a weekly basis all year.

For our first over/under game, let’s take a look at Madison Bumgarner.

The over/under number for Bumgarner is 20%. As in, will he strike out more or less than 20% of the batters he faces in 2012?

The 6′ 5″ lanky lefty suddenly upped his swinging strike rate in 2012 despite using the same slate of offerings at about the same velocities. If you had access to FG+ this year, you would be able to read about how best to use his Pitch F/x information to answer this question — thanks to Josh Weinstock. And — thanks to Michael Barr — you’d also have an equation for expected K% that would be derived from his 2011 peripherals.

But since you don’t — and yes, I’m suggesting that current subscribers take a back seat and allow those without your knowledge to compete for this — you’ll have to do the best you can. Please use anything other than the xK% equation for your argument, and make it as long or as short as you like otherwise.

Have at it!





With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.

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Madison (Hickory, NC)
12 years ago

What in tarnation kind of question is this? It’ll be over, and fuck your cityboy math. I’ll strike these fellers out because I wrangle steers in the off-season to compensate for having a girl’s first name. I throw sows across my tobacco field into my bass pond to make my arm strong, so how hard could throwing a baseball be?