Pitcher F-Strike% Leaders
As intuition would suggest, F-Strike% has a high correlation with a pitcher’s walk rate (though I can’t seem to find the article that studied the relationship). One of the obvious reasons is because a first pitch strike is a strike, so you already know the pitcher is starting with an 0-1 count. Whenever I analyze a pitcher, I like to compare his F-Strike% with his BB/9 or BB% to see if those last two numbers are sustainable. Today I look at the leaders in F-Strike%. These are the guys who should also be atop the leader boards in walk rate. This is where we search for those who may see an improved walk rate in the future.
| Name | F-Strike% | BB/9 | BB% | ERA | SIERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cliff Lee | 71.6% | 1.6 | 4.7% | 3.00 | 2.64 |
| Kyle Lohse | 70.5% | 1.3 | 3.6% | 3.36 | 4.09 |
| Jordan Zimmermann | 70.3% | 1.5 | 4.2% | 2.80 | 3.58 |
| Colby Lewis | 68.4% | 1.3 | 3.4% | 3.50 | 3.36 |
| Bronson Arroyo | 68.2% | 1.3 | 3.4% | 3.59 | 3.83 |
| Tommy Milone | 68.1% | 2.2 | 6.2% | 3.64 | 4.36 |
| Philip Humber | 67.4% | 4.0 | 10.1% | 5.37 | 4.13 |
| Chris Capuano | 67.3% | 3.3 | 9.1% | 2.50 | 3.80 |
| Wandy Rodriguez | 67.2% | 1.9 | 5.0% | 2.49 | 3.69 |
| League Average | 60.3% | 3.0 | 7.8% | 4.13 | 3.95 |
Always a strike throwing machine, Cliff Lee has taken it to an even higher level. And he has 0 wins! Seriously, 0 wins through 8 starts with a 3.00 ERA. Why oh why does anybody ever quote a pitcher’s win total like it actually has any meaning?
To offset his underwhelming stuff and generating only about a league average percentage of ground balls, Kyle Lohse has decided to just throw a ton of strikes to keep his walk rate down. Unfortunately, it still hasn’t been enough to push his SIERA below 4.00. For someone who has never posted a walk rate below 2.0, it is hard to believe he can sustain one below 1.5, but so far he hasn’t fluked his way into such elite control. I don’t see much regression there, but his ERA is still due to rise anyway.
Jordan Zimmermann always displayed good control in the minors, but never this good. That said, he posted a BB/9 last season close to what he has so far this year, but with a F-Strike% much lower. So similar to Lohse, it is always a better bet to expect some regression without many years of established sub-1.5 control levels, but so far it has not been a fluke. I do wonder why he isn’t striking out more batters though and generating more swinging strikes. His stuff certainly looks better than his strikeout rate suggests.
Colby Lewis is doing his best to ensure the home runs he allows are mostly solo shots. He showed pinpoint control in Japan before he came back over to the States and posted a high SwStk% last year as well. Expect his walk rate to increase some since it’s currently ranked second in baseball, but he could very well sustain a sub-2.00 BB/9.
Philip Humber is our first major improvement candidate. Sometimes I notice that when a pitcher’s F-Strike% does not match his BB/9, his Zone% is low and may be the explanation. Not here though, as Humber’s is well above average as well. The sudden fly ball tendency is a clear negative, but he looks like an excellent buy low guy in AL-Only leagues right now. It shouldn’t cost much to acquire him.
And we have our second potential improver in Chris Capuano who also posted a strong F-Strike% last year. His career BB/9 is about 3.00 and he posted a 2.6 mark last year, all positive signs that his walk rate should indeed improve. That should bring his SIERA down closer to his ERA, but there’s no denying that he has been quite fortunate so far with a .236 BABIP.
For whatever reason, Wandy Rodriguez has replaced some strikeouts with better control. He has thrown his change-up more often in place of his curve, but aside from that, there doesn’t appear to be any obvious explanation for his decline in strikeout rate and SwStk%. Though his overall skill profile has changed a bit, his SIERA remains right where it has always sat, but he has enjoyed some good luck this year. I have to think the strikeout rate and walk rates are both going to rise a bit over the course of the season.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
PSSSST! Mike. Remember this:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/the-sum-of-their-parts-a-deeper-look-at-peripheral-data/
And look at that, I was even first to comment on that article! I do remember an FG article on it as well.
Mike, how do we know that F-strike percentage is a causation of walk-rate and not the other way around? I ask because when looking at hitters, we look for first strike percentage to be around 60% for everyone, with any deviation pointing towards regression. Thanks
Well of course, because the pitcher has much greater control over whether the pitch is a strike because he’s the one throwing the ball. Throwing strikes is part of the process, whereas a walk is just a result of throwing too many balls.
I’m still a little confused. Do good pitchers consistently post higher F-strike percentages?
Ah looking at a few pitchers it seems they do. I get it now. We’re looking at the process to predict the results. Not the other way around. Thanks Mike
Hey Mike – where does RA Dickey fall on this list? Seems like he is really controlling the knuckle this season and all the NYM games I’ve watched he’s throwing first pitch strikes.
Coming into today’s game, he’s at 61.6%, so a bit better than league average, but worse than last season. Great Zone% though, so he’s always around the plate. I think his walk rate is mostly for real, but maybe a slightly higher walk rate should be expected. Still, below 3.00 is nearly a lock.
Um… it’s optional of course, but if you’d like to save your readers about ten minutes of scratching their heads before getting to the meat of your article, you might correct the first sentence to say:
“As intuition would suggest, F-Strike% has a highly negative correlation with a pitcher’s walk rate…” (or “inverse” if you like)
I spent ten minutes trying to conjure up a counterintuitive reason why my intuition should suggest that getting ahead in the count would result in a higher walk rate. Finally I went to the HT article your first commenter cited, and saw the inverse scatterplot that I actually intuitively suspected. Think of all the hundreds of readers who tripped over that and struggled to get up. Multiply that by the ten minutes they spent trying to reconciling it with their picture of the world, and you probably have at least a person-day of life lost to a black hole.
Think what that person-day could have produced for humankind. Okay, we probably would have wasted it looking for pictures of Salma Hayek, but I think the principle still stands?