Pitching Statistics
Pitching is a ridiculous thing when you stop and think about it. It quite literally taxes your body and arm to its biological limits, yet demands incredible precision and relentless repetition. As a result, pitchers can be quite fickle commodities and prone to injuries and irregular career paths. Some pitchers don’t figure everything out until they’re past 30 (a la Randy Johnson) while others achieve dominance at an early age but are unable to maintain that level (think Scott Kazmir). All these factors makes evaluating pitchers tough, but there is a lot of exciting work being done these days in this area, especially with Pitch f/x data.
When evaluating a pitcher, rely mostly on the golden trifecta of FIP/xFIP/tRA. Batted ball data, BABIP, home run rates, LOB%, and rate statistics are all very important too, though, and can shed lots of light on individual players. Scouting data is invaluable too, although unfortunately we have much less of this publicly available for use.
Links for Further Reading:
Voros McCracken’s Groundbreaking DIPS Theory – Baseball Prospectus
How Can we Tell if a Pitcher is Any Good? – The Book Blog
Sabermetrics 101: Pitching – Lookout Landing
Evaluating Pitcher Talent – U.S.S. Mariner
Why DIPS Does What It Does – Beyond the Boxscore
Confessions of a DIPS Apostate – Hardball Times
