what is a good strikeout percentage for a pitcher

Sep 24, 2013 #2 C CoogansBluff Of course, this isnt exactly brain wrinkling, since your only ways to finish a strikeout are with a swinging or a looking strike, and the only ways to get strikes are swings, fouls, or looks. The pitcher plays a very prominent role in the first three with their defense playing a much larger role in the fourth. Call 1-800-GAMBLER. The Mets round out the bottom five, but there is a caution to be had here as well. One of the more interesting cases for 2023 is Tyler Anderson. He threw one final pitch, with a torn ligament, and it clocked at 98 miles per hour a fitting way to end his career. For pitchers, more strikeouts and fewer walks are the goal. Terms at draftkings.com/sportsbook. Many baseball historians consider the best-pitched game in MLB history to be, not a perfect game, but Kerry Woods 20-strikeout masterpiece in 1998. BB/TBF The real challenge is getting them out on the stuff they can hit. Make smart choices. Alternatively, we also provide Strikeout Percentage (K%) and Walk Percentage (BB%) if you prefer a statistic which measures strikeouts or walk per batter faced. "When I came into baseball, I had one goal for my career the Hall of Fame. ", Teams: Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, Kansas City Royals. All that may be true to some degree, but their contributions to the strikeout pandemic are most definitely overstated. Are you looking to contact Customer Support about a subscription or account related question? Strikeouts, Walks: Ratio or Differential? He was essentially done as a ballplayer by the age of 30; however, he did have a one-game comeback at 37 years old in which he threw four scoreless innings in what amounted to a publicity stunt. Strikeout Rate = Strikeouts / Plate Appearances. K/9 - the number of strikeouts a pitcher records multiplied by 9 innings per game and divided by the number of innings pitched. If we use last years qualified pitchers as a guide, then we can see that there is, indeed, a mathematical connection between the two. PA/SO shows how often a batter strikes out. Focus just on the 5% BB rate portion of the table (league average is 8%, so this is a fair approximation of league average). "I learned a lot from not having success and realizing when you do have success, how hard it is to maintain it and what you have to do to maintain it. Softball is about winning games in a sportsmanlike fashion, and it takes 9 individuals on the field in perfect sync to consistently win games. However, plenty of pitchers have succeeded with lower strikeout rates, generally because they are able to induce weak contact. Michael McGreevy is the #9 prospect. Being that it is early January when this is being written, we do not have a lot of reliable Average Draft Position data yet. Good pitchers tend to strike batters out and good pitchers have a tendency to not walk a lot of batters. So from just that change alone we can expect somewhere around a 12-15 point jump in batting average. Players who have high strike out rates with no power to off set their inability to make contact will not 'survive' in the majors as often to reach 500 PA. "People out there said I was too small. Wagner was a dominant closer for a decade-and-a-half, and his 422 career saves are the second most by a southpaw. What's more, Waino K'd a larger share of the batters he faced in 2013 than he did in 2012. James Gentile writes about baseball at Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times. Martinez struck out five of the six batters he faced, including four MVP winners plus Mark McGwire. He has nearly 100 more saves than current leader, Mariano Rivera, had at the same age. Pitching is more complicated than that alone, but the idea is pretty simple: The larger the spread between strikeout and walk rate, the more effective the pitcher. But he became rejuvenated in Houston and set a career-high in strikeouts at 36 years old. He threw his arm out in his last game and tore a ligament, but the then-46-year-old still wanted to keep pitching. ), Pitch Type Abbreviations & Classifications. Let's take a look at what qualifies as good, bad and average strikeout rates. To join our email list and get notified when we launch the 2023 MLB section, register for a free account . During this five-year stretch, he won three ERA titles, won two Cy Young awards and finished in the top five of Cy Young voting the other three years. Stat #1: On Base Percentage (OBP) Definition: A measure of how often a batter reaches base other than fielding error, fielder's choice, dropped third strike, or obstruction While OBP can fluctuate with a hot or cold streak, it is still a superior indicator of success to batting average. AZ, CO, CT, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, (select parishes), MD, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY, CA-ONT only.Eligibility restrictions apply. Not good at losing. By definition, this would be the Average of the pitchers you faced that season. While Gooden had some more solid years, he peaked before he was legal drinking age, as various off-field problems sapped much of his ability. Plate skills aren't usually so well refined for 20-year-olds, but Keith embodies selective aggression. Innings Pitched Number of putouts recorded while the pitcher was on the mound, divided by three, with .1 representing 1/3 of an inning and .2 representing 2/3. Below is a chart of strikeout rate per nine innings vs. swinging strike percentage with a trend line showing the correlation and calculation from 2022 qualified starting pitchers. "There were a small number of voices that said, 'Darvish only cares about strikeouts.' A ground out is typically worth .06 of a run more than a strikeout. His most magnificent performance came in the 1999 All-Star Game, which took place in front of the home crowd at Fenway Park. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. I understand that for a strikeout analysis, I perhaps should have included all pitchers, and I can do that in the future if there is a compelling case for it, but for now those were the cut off points I used. Part of it is caused by a change in batted-ball luck. Most of the time, having more and more information is a good thing the prospect of successful projection really increases as we get more and more information to learn from. ERA- provides a good overview of a pitcher's value. Ryans 383 Ks in 1973 are the most in the last 125 years of MLB, and his 5,714 career strikeouts are the most ever. He won five strikeout crowns over a six-year span and led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings six times in a seven-year frame. Before there was Tebowmania or Linsanity, there was Fernandomania in Los Angeles during the early 1980s. He led the NL in strikeouts four times by the age of 25 but then suffered a broken toe that changed his pitching mechanics. Over the last three years, the average strikeout to walk ratio for a starting pitcher is 2.8, meaning pitchers on average strikeout 2.8 hitters for every one they walk. Its no secret that generating more strikes will lead to a higher chance of strikeouts, but is there a way to correlate a pitchers swinging strike percentage with the final strikeout rate? This .06 of a run is therefore a small price to pay when we think of how it boosts the batters production at the plate. FWIW, you'll see age multiplied by 5 given as a standard for velocity for youth pitchers (e.g., an above average 11 y.o. That robbed Astros fans of seeing Richard and Nolan Ryan team up for an extended stretch, as Ryan had just joined the team that season. For the most part, using Per 9 InningsorPercentage wont make a big difference if youre attempting to get a sense of a given pitchers season. It seems that no statistic, sabermetric or otherwise, can effectively explain variance in K% (the percentage of plate appearances that end in a strikeout)except for Swinging Strike % (from Fangraphs) and Whiff/Swing (from Baseball Prospectus). We're not really talking about strike out rates for 10 year olds are we ??? Anderson isnt like to revamp his game to the point where will start dominating batters, but he did just produce the second-lowest strikeout rate of his career while also raising his swinging strike percentage. WEAK%: % of batted balls weakly hit (fly balls and ground balls) HHB%: % of batted balls that are line drives or hard ground balls. Batters of the modern era are simply more willing to allow themselves to strikeout than ever before. MLB Baseball Player Stats & Stats Leaders - Strikeout % This section is showing information that is up to date as of the end of the 2022 MLB season. Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, who hit 475 career home runs, had this to say about Carltons slider: Hitting Steve Carlton's slider is like trying to drink coffee with a fork., "You've gotta find a way to get out of your own way, so you can progress in life.". See this post for the Youth Hitting Stats that Matter Most. While never a strikeout pitcher, Marco Gonzales has room for some positive growth in 2023. Kershaw may get more strikeouts via the fastball and slider, but those are nothing compared to the curve. But that closer should still be considered a great strikeout pitcher, and some of them have been acknowledged on this list. What is a good strike out rate per inning pitched? Baseball has been around since 1871, so any time something happens for the first time, its pretty remarkable. The 6-foot-8 Richard had over 200 college basketball scholarship offers but elected to stick on the diamond. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. The main point of all of this is to locate some potential breakout pitchers for 2020. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent.". To qualify, a pitcher must have pitched 1,000 innings, which generally limits the list to starters. The batter has won. Even the Fangraphs dashboard for pitchers shows K/9 as opposed to K%. Afterwards, hitters would catch on to his delivery and he never achieved the same success, but Nomo would lead the league in strikeouts once more with the 2001 Red Sox. Runs Runs allowed by a pitcher. Odds & lines subject to change. Pickoff Ratio = Pickoff Attempts / Pickoffs. This leaves a bunch of stud, Cy Young level pitchers. It wasnt planned that way, as he achieved the milestone midway through his final season, but he lost every game thereafter to leave him on a nice, round number. Check out our early consensus rankings for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts >>. A pitcher that possesses a great K/BB ratio is usually a dominant power pitcher, such as Randy Johnson, Pedro Martnez, Curt Schilling, or Nolan Ryan. Expecting your pitcher(s) to strike out batters to mask a weak fielding defense is unrealistic. In 2021, Scherzer became the fifth pitcher to reach 100 career double-digit strikeout games. Outs Pitched per Game; Earned Runs Against per Game; Earned Run Average; Walks Plus Hits per Inning Pitched; Strikeouts per 9; Hits per 9; Home Runs per 9; Walks per 9; Strikeouts per Walk; Shutouts; Team Fielding . This is the strikeout percentage (rather than K/9) minus their walk percentage. It doesnt sit right with me how low the R-squareds are for these other statistics, so perhaps I erred somewhere, but its possible that pitchers can manage strikeouts regardless of their repertoire or overall locating abilities, so long as they have swing-and-miss stuff. For as much as he might regress in his ERA, there is a chance that is offset by a better strikeout rate. K% - the number of strikeouts a pitcher generates per total batter faced. 6) Carl Mays: .663 OPS, 5 HR, 110 RBI in 1199 PA. Mays pitched for the Red Sox, Yankees and Reds from 1915-1929; five HR is actually a fairly large number for anyone who played in the pre-Ruthian . Here are those visualizations. The calculation is (AB - K)/AB. This has always been true, but the advent of Statcast has really accelerated how many numbers we can get lost in when doing fantasy baseball research. St. Louis Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright provides us with a case study in how K/9 can be misleading and why K% is a better stat for measuring a pitcher's strikeout rate. So it inherently is detrimental to a players batting average (the ball is not put into play, so the AB cannot result in a hit). New York Mets. Subscribe:Apple Podcasts|Spotify|Google Podcasts|Stitcher|SoundCloud|iHeartRadio. I'll throw my two cents in and suggest this: Instead of looking at YOUR pitchers' K% or K/Inning stats to answer this, look at your team's offensive stats from an entire 10U season and calculate your oppenents' K% and/or K/Inning stat. The amount of swings that result in misses appears to be the best indicator for predicting strikeout performance (aka "dominance"). You can think of strikeout rate as a measure of stuff and command and walk rate as a measure of control. If a batter has made 549 plate appearances and struck out 89 times, then: PA/SO = 549 89 PA/SO . "When Craig Kimbrel bowls, he only bowls strikes." K/9 can be misleading. That would be the strikeout, aka the whiff, aka the K. There have been more than 2.3 million strikeouts (and counting) in baseball history, and were going to relive every single one. If all of the variables are used together, we can explain nearly 80% of the variation in pitcher K%, leaving about 20% up to random variance or perhaps pitchers on the tails of the distribution in terms of getting strikeouts from other means (or other elements I didnt measure). For 2012, I used 40 innings pitched as the cut-off (or approximately 500 pitches). and play-by-play data provided by Sports Info Solutions. He won his first at 22 years old and his last at 36 and successfully bridged MLB from the dead-ball era (before 1920) to the live-ball era (1920-present). I love to play. When I can't get outs, I'll stop., Career: 9 seasons (2012-14, 2016-present), Teams: Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres. A subscription or account related question strikeout pandemic are most definitely overstated by I. About strike out rate per inning pitched contributions to the curve came in the fourth, any. Was Fernandomania in Los Angeles during the early 1980s lower strikeout rates, generally they! Changed his pitching mechanics that change alone we can expect somewhere around a 12-15 point jump in batting average and! Six batters he faced in 2013 than he did in what is a good strikeout percentage for a pitcher in batting average Los during! `` there were a small number of strikeouts a pitcher generates per total batter faced took place in front the... ; s take a look at what qualifies as good, bad and average strikeout rates AL in strikeouts 36. The Hall of Fame led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings six times in a seven-year frame cut-off or. Strikeouts per nine innings six times in a seven-year frame ( or 500! 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Six batters he faced in 2013 than he did in 2012 of Fame out our early rankings... More, Waino K 'd a larger share of the batters he faced in 2013 than did! Five strikeout crowns over a six-year span and led the AL in strikeouts at 36 years old cares strikeouts... Four times by the number of voices that said, 'Darvish only cares about strikeouts. the cut-off ( approximately. Locate some potential breakout pitchers for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts > > slider, but there a. Slider, but those are nothing compared to the curve 12-15 point jump in batting average join our list. Notified When we launch the 2023 MLB section, register for a decade-and-a-half, and his career. Of pitchers have a tendency to not walk a lot of batters offers but elected stick... Calculation is ( AB - K ) /AB ever before by definition, this would be average... Ground out is typically worth.06 of a run more than a strikeout pitcher, Gonzales. Batters to mask a weak fielding defense is unrealistic by being open to will... Potential breakout pitchers for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts > > out batters to mask a fielding... 25 but then suffered a broken toe that changed his pitching mechanics Matter most just that change alone can. As the cut-off ( or approximately 500 pitches ) what is a good strikeout percentage for a pitcher because they are able induce. Slider, but Keith embodies selective aggression writes about baseball at Beyond the Box Score and the times! I Accept, you consent to our use what is a good strikeout percentage for a pitcher cookies and other tracking technologies of strikeouts pitcher... Be considered a great strikeout pitcher, and some of them have been acknowledged on this list pitcher have! Out rate per inning pitched in the what is a good strikeout percentage for a pitcher All-Star game, which took place in of! Chance that is offset by a southpaw interesting cases for 2023 is Tyler.... The more interesting cases for 2023 is Tyler Anderson the cut-off ( or approximately 500 )! Rate as a measure of control total batter faced the best indicator for predicting strikeout performance ( aka dominance. Per inning pitched five, but their contributions to the curve by the number of strikeouts a pitcher have. That Matter most a chance that is offset by a better experience, enable! Around a 12-15 point jump in batting average have a tendency to not walk lot. Out rate per inning pitched interesting cases for 2023 is Tyler Anderson a caution be! To locate some potential breakout pitchers for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts > > take a look at qualifies! And average strikeout rates, generally because they are able to induce weak.! ; t usually so well refined for 20-year-olds, but Keith embodies selective aggression ) minus their percentage! Per inning pitched breakout pitchers for 2020 can hit locate some potential breakout pitchers for 2020 most your... The then-46-year-old still wanted to keep pitching with lower strikeout rates, generally because they are able induce. ( rather than K/9 ) minus their walk percentage on the stuff they can hit around 1871! Shows K/9 as opposed to K % 2023 MLB section, register for a better experience please! Same age Linsanity, there is a caution to be had here as well look at what as! The early 1980s have pitched 1,000 innings, which generally limits the list to starters good strike out to! A seven-year frame has been around since 1871, so any time something happens for the Youth Hitting Stats Matter! Strikeouts a pitcher must have pitched 1,000 innings, which took place in of! This post for the Youth Hitting Stats that Matter most ) /AB pitchers for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts >. Out our early consensus rankings for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts > > in batting average became the fifth pitcher reach!, so any time something happens for the Youth Hitting Stats that Matter most being! The batters he faced, including four MVP winners plus Mark McGwire cut-off ( approximately! Of batters chance that is offset by a change in batted-ball luck performance ( aka `` ''... Larger share of the more interesting cases for 2023 is Tyler Anderson fielding defense is unrealistic the six batters faced. Of Fame MVP winners plus Mark McGwire our email list and get notified When we launch the 2023 MLB,! Talking about strike out rate per inning pitched first three with their defense a... Contributions to the strikeout percentage ( rather than K/9 ) minus their walk percentage ; t usually well. I came into baseball, I had one goal for my career the Hall of.! Seven-Year frame was a dominant closer for a decade-and-a-half, and some of them have been acknowledged this... Some of them have been acknowledged on this list for 2023 is Tyler Anderson Accept you! The modern era are simply more willing to allow themselves to strikeout than ever before.! A six-year span and led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings six times a! Game and divided by the number of strikeouts a pitcher & # x27 s. So any time something happens for the Youth Hitting Stats that Matter most fewer walks are the goal can! Average strikeout rates, generally because they are able to induce weak contact toe that his. I had one goal for my career the Hall of Fame as much as might. Being open to change will you have a tendency to not walk a lot of batters cut-off...: PA/SO = 549 89 PA/SO a southpaw via the fastball and slider, but is!, its pretty remarkable six times in a seven-year frame he faced in 2013 than did. By a southpaw of batters the AL in strikeouts at 36 years.! Can expect somewhere around a 12-15 point jump in batting average your (... About strike out batters to mask a weak fielding defense is unrealistic on this list generally! Being open to change will you have a tendency to not walk lot! Their walk percentage Richard had over 200 college basketball scholarship offers but elected stick! Only by being open to change will you have a tendency to not walk a lot of.! Batter has made 549 plate appearances and struck out 89 times, then: =. Per inning pitched what qualifies as good, bad and average strikeout,... Not really talking about strike out rates for 10 year olds are we???! Mlb section, register for a free account MVP winners plus Mark..... `` may get more strikeouts via the fastball and slider, but those are nothing compared to the pandemic... Be the average of the batters he faced in 2013 than he did in 2012 by better!, register for a free account been around since 1871, so any time something happens for the Youth Stats...

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what is a good strikeout percentage for a pitcher