It is amazing to think that pitchers can be so good as to choose whether or not they want to make the hitter put the ball on the ground or just strike them out completely. Well, ok, it's not that simple. But the truth is that there are a lot of pitchers who think, "I'm striking this guy out." Or something like, "He can't put the ball over the wall if he can't hit it." But, there's also plenty of pitchers that can't strike out the guy at the plate and resort to letting their infielders put him out. As the battle of launch angle vs. pitch type continues to rage on, I was curious as to what actually makes the difference between those strike out pitchers and those who put the ball into play and specifically on the ground in hopes of getting the out. First, I started with fangraphs (all the data used in this analysis is Fangraphs) data from showing 2017 - 2019 season stats. Then, I sorted to find which qualified pitchers have shown up as top 50 K/9 pitchers in all three seasons. They were: 1. Max Scherzer 2. Jacob deGrom 3. Trevor Bauer Then, I did the same, but rather than K/9 pitchers, I wanted to see who has consistently been a ground ball heavy pitcher between 2017 - 2019. Who was in the top 50 each of the three seasons? 1. Aaron Nola 2. Patrick Corbin 3. Sonny Gray Remember, I'm looking for consistency from 2017 - 2019 so Stroman being omitted from this list is for that reason, but don't worry, he'll come up later. For simplicity, I chose the top 2 in each category. The graph below compares K/9 among these 4 pitchers. Besides the 2018 season when Nola had such an excellent year, Scherzer and deGrom are well ahead with Scherzer steady above 12! That's crazy. Now, you would think that pitchers who are not even allowing guys on base would have lower ERA and FIP totals. As you can see below, that holds up. Ground ballers are simply allowing the hitter a higher probability of getting on base than those pitchers who simply won't even let you even hit the ball. That makes sense. This is not groundbreaking work. Again, notice Nola's ERA in his great 2018 season? And it appears Corbin had a good defense behind him helping bring down his ERA despite a higher FIP. Another way to look at the comparisons between ground ballers and strikeout pitchers is to notice their pitch arsenal. Scherzer is clearly an "overpower you" kind of hurler, whereas Corbin relies heavily on the slider. Other than Scherzer throwing a cutter and deGrom throwing a sinker, both of their profiles look very similar. This can also be seen in Nola and Corbin's ability to keep a batter honest with Nola throwing way more curveballs than everyone else and Corbin throwing the slider more than anyone else. What about a rotation where this really matters? Just focusing on one team that plays in Colorado...they're named the Rockies...we can see that it's not as clear. You would think that in a place like Coors Field, these guys would be doing everything they can to put the ball on the ground. As you'll see in the next graph, their doing a decent job. Now, it gets confusing. Below, you'll see that Senzatele is the Rockie pitcher who forces the most ground balls, nearly as much as the ground ball king, Marcus Stroman and well above league average. But, with only 124 innings pitched, it may not be the best sample. Clearly Senzatele pitched like a groundballer in Colorado in 2019, but his arsenal looks similar to Scherzer's. However, his K/9 (5.49), BABIP (.333) and ERA (6.71) were all way too high to make him effective. So yes, he was a ground ball pitcher in only 124 innings last season, but did it help his team win? So, what is a ground ball pitcher? Well....I'm still not sure. It could be, in the case of Senzatele, noise. Give him a few more seasons and we'll see if what he's doing is groundball pitcher worthy. Is Stroman a groundball pitcher? Almost everyone would say yes. But, what about deGrom? He was above league average in 2019 and he throws a sinker. In the end, this analysis is only as effective as the pitchers we are making comparisons between. What is clear, however, is that pitchers who effectively force a ground ball more than others are throwing a number of different pitches with movement and typically a sinker is one of those pitches. Creating groundballs may not translate to success, but in a place like Colorado, it may be necessary and Rockies pitchers are doing it above league average.
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