Scott’s Miscellany – Quality of Pitchers Faced

The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Quality of Pitchers Faced–

Hunter Pence will start the 2015 season on the DL because of a fractured forearm, but there is a silver lining. Each week he misses is a week he doesn’t have to face Clayton Kershaw. Pence faced Kershaw 15 times in 2014, more than any other batter, and managed just one hit.

Pence’s misfortune from last season made me curious how much imbalance there is for hitters in a season in terms of the quality of the pitchers they face, and whether that imbalance might be consistent from season to season.

To start that inquiry, I first needed to classify pitchers. I did that by calculating their WAR per 1,000 pitches, which I also regressed by 1,000 pitches of neutral WAR to try to account for sample size outliers. I then grouped pitchers into three tiers based on arbitrary cutoffs that felt right to me; I used 0.80 and 0.33 regressed WAR per 1,000 pitches as the cutoffs. It may not be 100 percent rigorous, but the resulting groupings seem reasonable.

Pitcher Tier Members, 2014
	Tier 1	WAR/1000 Pit	Tier 2	WAR/1000 Pit	Tier 3	WAR/1000 Pit
First Five	Clayton Kershaw	2.05	Tanner Roark	0.79	David Buchanan	0.32
	Corey Kluber	1.61	Ian Kennedy	0.79	Fernando Abad	0.32
	Jake Arrieta	1.50	Mike Fiers	0.78	Justin De Fratus	0.32
	Aroldis Chapman	1.41	Tyson Ross	0.77	Travis Wood	0.31
	Phil Hughes	1.41	Ervin Santana	0.77	Alfredo Simon	0.31
Last Five	Hector Rondon	0.81	LaTroy Hawkins	0.34	B.J. Rosenberg	-0.52
	Andrew Cashner	0.80	Gavin Floyd	0.34	Wandy Rodriguez	-0.53
	Chris Archer	0.80	Zeke Spruill	0.34	David Holmberg	-0.55
	Alex Cobb	0.80	Yohan Pino	0.33	Aaron Crow	-0.55
	Scott Kazmir	0.80	Chad Qualls	0.33	Anthony Bass	-0.68

Kershaw is way out by his lonesome but is eventually followed by Corey Kluber, Jake Arrieta, Aroldis Chapman, and Phil Hughes. Tier 1 ends with the likes of Hector Rondon, Alex Cobb, and Scott Kazmir. Tier 2 begins with Tanner Roark, Ian Kennedy, and Mike Fiers and ends with LaTroy Hawkins, Gavin Floyd, and Chad Qualls. Tier 3 begins with David Buchanan and Fernando Abad and continues to the worst pitcher of 2014, Anthony Bass.

It follows expectations that the collective batter performance against Tier 1 pitchers was much worse than against Tier 2 and Tier 3 pitchers. From 2010 to 2014, batters hit 14 points higher when facing Tier 2 pitchers than when facing Tier 1 pitchers. They also hit more home runs and enjoyed more opportunities for runs batted in.

Batter Performance vs. Pitcher Tiers, 2010-2014
Pitcher Tier	PA	BAVG	HR/600 PA	RISP/600 PA
1	696140	.239	13.1	158.6
2	1381003	.253	14.6	173.9
3	1673384	.258	15.4	192.5

That’s pretty obvious. The important question is whether there is consistency from year to year for batter ratios of Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 pitchers faced. There is some consistency, but it’s weak.

The positive slope of the linear regression line shows that players who face a higher proportion of Tier 1 pitchers in one year are more likely to face a higher proportion the next year. However, the correlation coefficient of 0.04 also indicates that the relationship is weak, and the results do not follow a clear trend.

Looking back to 2014, there was a pretty large difference between the batters who faced the highest ratio of Tier 1 pitchers and the batters who faced the lowest ratio of the same.

Highest Ratio of Tier 1 Pitchers Faced, 2014
Batter	Team	PA	Tier1	Tier2	Tier3
Colby Rasmus	Blue Jays	376	25.8%	35.1%	39.1%
Danny Santana	Twins	430	24.9%	36.3%	38.8%
Adam Eaton	White Sox	538	24.3%	37.7%	37.9%
Adam Lind	Blue Jays	318	24.2%	28.9%	46.9%
Brock Holt	Red Sox	492	23.4%	36.6%	40.0%
Melky Cabrera	Blue Jays	621	23.2%	34.6%	42.2%
John Jaso	Athletics	344	23.0%	36.6%	40.4%
Lorenzo Cain	Royals	502	22.9%	34.3%	42.8%
Steve Pearce	Orioles	383	22.7%	33.4%	43.9%
Edwin Encarnacion	Blue Jays	542	22.7%	32.7%	44.6%
Oswaldo Arcia	Twins	410	22.7%	30.7%	46.6%
Jose Abreu	White Sox	622	22.5%	37.9%	39.5%
Jose Bautista	Blue Jays	673	22.4%	34.2%	43.4%
George Springer	Astros	345	22.3%	31.9%	45.8%
Dexter Fowler	Astros	505	21.8%	33.5%	44.8%

Colby Rasmus heads the list of batters who faced the most difficult quality of pitcher. He is one of five Blue Jays in the top 15 of the list, so I am tempted to say that his moving to the Astros will be a positive one for his fantasy potential in this respect. However, when you really look at the specifics, I think it becomes clear why there is not much year-to-year consistency.

In 2014, Rasmus faced David Price, Hiroki Kuroda, and Jake Peavy six times. He faced David Robertson and Andrew Miller five times. All of those pitchers changed teams. Johnny Cueto (4 times) and Mike Fiers (3 times) were both interleague matchups that won’t repeat in 2015. Even if Rasmus had remained with the Blue Jays, his opponent pitchers would have been dramatically different.

There is more than one way to be an outlier, but it is somewhat nice to know that Danny Santana, Steve Pearce, Oswaldo Arcia, Jose Abreu, and George Springer had the success that they did despite facing a more difficult set of pitchers than most last season.

Lowest Ratio of Tier 1 Pitchers Faced, 2014
Batter	Team	PA	Tier1	Tier2	Tier3
Kolten Wong	Cardinals	433	10.2%	52.4%	37.4%
A.J. Ellis	Dodgers	347	11.0%	45.0%	44.1%
Jon Jay	Cardinals	468	11.5%	42.1%	46.4%
Bryce Harper	Nationals	395	11.6%	44.8%	43.5%
Dee Gordon	Dodgers	650	12.3%	40.9%	46.8%
Seth Smith	Padres	521	12.5%	39.3%	48.2%
Gregory Polanco	Pirates	312	12.5%	38.5%	49.0%
Yasiel Puig	Dodgers	640	12.7%	40.2%	47.2%
Yasmani Grandal	Padres	443	12.9%	37.7%	49.4%
Arismendy Alcantara	Cubs	300	13.0%	40.7%	46.3%
Wilson Ramos	Nationals	361	13.0%	41.3%	45.7%
Juan Uribe	Dodgers	404	13.1%	43.1%	43.8%
Luis Valbuena	Cubs	547	13.2%	40.8%	46.1%
Neil Walker	Pirates	571	13.3%	42.9%	43.8%
Matt Adams	Cardinals	563	13.3%	43.7%	43.0%

The opposite cases are Kolten Wong, Dee Gordon, and Arismendy Alcantara who did their damage against a relatively weak group of pitchers.

Taking a step back, it’s undoubtedly not a coincidence that all 15 leaders in ratio of Tier 1 pitchers faced were from the American League and all 15 trailers were from the National League. But that is a topic for another week.