Yes, K/BB is an indicator, but it’s possible that you could have a pitcher with, say, 120Ks and 40 or 50 BBs who has a tendency to give up the long ball or who does significantly worse once he’s gone through the lineup twice. Usually, though, if a guy has 200 Ks and 65 BBs, that’s a pitcher who shows an ability to command the strike zone, which is usually a very good indicator of pitching quality. The odds are, a guy who strikes out 150-200 batters per year is going to get ahead a lot in the count, which favors the pitcher. It’s also more likely that a pitcher with a high K total is going to get out of a jam with 2 on and nobody out. That doesn’t mean he can’t occasionally lose an 0-2 count or occasionally go from 2 on and nobody out to a 5-run inning. It’s just that, statistically, the odds are less likely with a pitcher who demonstrates command of the zone.
Just for a point of comparison, Fangraph’s calculation of pitcher WAR relies on FIP, which uses homeruns allowed, walks and HBP issued, strikeouts and infield fly outs. Since the rest of those are the same, the FIP calculation comes out (before adding in a constant, which would also be the same), with the 10:5 guy ahead, 0.874 to 1.274*. Ensuring that 6 more outs per game result in (nearly) zero base advancement is extremely valuable. Now, maybe the 4:2.2 guy has slightly more infield flies than the other guy - but that wasn’t your example. That’s also why we have and use more stats, and never rely on just one or two.
*I assumed 200 IP and 22 HR for each pitcher as well
I like this Yankees/White Sox trade. The Yanks get David Robertson, Todd Frazier and Tommy Kahnle, and give up Tyler Clippard (good riddance), Blake Rutherford, Ian Clarkin and Tito Polo.
Frazier is rental for the rest of the season, so there isn’t much risk and maybe he can stabilize the corner infield issues. Robertson improves the bullpen, no doubt, even if means taking on a lot of salary for 2018. The only part that hurts a little is Rutherford, but who knows if he will be an above average mlb outfielder?
It seems to me that Brian Cashman is much better at making trades than he is at signing free agents.
When you use the word “significant,” what do you think that word means?
That is wrong.
I give you, again, Nolan Ryan, who is the perfect example of offsetting walks with strikeouts. Look at his numbers with the Angels. Between 1972 and 1978, Ryan led the AL in strikeouts and walks every year, except 1975 when he missed some time to injury and still missed leading the league by just one walk. In fact, his walks allowed were historically high, numbering among the highest walk totals in modern baseball history.
If your claim that:
… were true, Nolan Ryan would have been the worst pitcher in baseball, by a wide margin; he wasn’t just leading the league in walks, he was blowing the league away by 30, 40, 50 walks or more. In 1976 he walked 183 guys and no one else in the league even walked a hundred.
But Ryan actually pitched pretty well those years; he had an above average ERA+ every year, except for a 98 and a 99, and that’s still fairly valuable. He was high in Cy Young voting several times, and deserved to be. How is that? Because he struck a lot of guys out.
If you look at his numbers and ask yourself “how the hell did a guy walk 204 men in one season and still pitch really well” the answer is clearly his strikeout rate. Because Ryan struck out many batters, he did not give up many hits. Those are not independent events; they are immediately connected. It’s important to keep in mind that the number of hits a pitcher gives up is largely a function of how many balls are hit into play. Whether those balls are outs or hits is not much controlled by the pitcher; once hit into play the likelihood of a batted ball that is not a home run being a hit or an out is pretty close to the same for all pitchers. Pitchers who allow many batted balls will generally allow many hits. Pitchers who do not will generally not allow many hits. Because Ryan allowed fewer hitters than anyone else to hit the ball into play, he allowed very few hits - and that’s why he got away with walking so many people. If he hadn’t struck out so many guys, he would have allowed far, far more hits. If in 1977, when he walked 204 men, he’d struck out 204 men instead of the 341 he did, he probably would have allowed an additional 38 hits or so and that would have made his ERA much worse, causing more of those walks to score.
Now, before you propose Ryan was better than normal at not allowing hits even when he wasn’t striking them out - nope. He wasn’t; the league average on balls hit into play was .287. Off Ryan it was at least .275, which is not much of a difference, maybe one hit, possibly two. (ETA: Actually, Ryan’s BABIP was even higher; I am figuring that number manually, and just realized I did not account for baserunner errors and GIDPs, which would add outs to his stat line without reducing batting average. BBRef has the exact number for a whole league but I had to do Ryan’s by hand, and the stat lines don’t have GIDPs and runners caught stealing.)
What allowed Ryan to walk many men but still be effective is that his skill in amassing strikeouts meant that an unusually high number of those walks were stranded. More strikeouts, fewer hits. It also reduced the opportunity for players to hit home runs, and indeed Ryan allowed an unusually low number of homers.
So does the ratio work the other way? Sure; logically, if you can offset many walks by striking men out to reduce hits, you should be able to offset many hits by walking few men, thus reducing the damage the hits cause. A very good recent example was Jimmy Key, who allowed a fairly large number of hits; despite being a hell of a pitcher, he gave up quite a lot of hits. In 1994, when he was Cy Young runnerup, he allowed more than a hit an inning. He allowed a fair number of hits because he didn’t strike out a huge number of guys. But the impact of the hits was reduced by the fact that he didn’t walk many people; there were no cheap baserunners to drive in with all those hits.
An even more extreme case is Dan Quisenberry. Quisenberry posted a career ERA+ of 146, which is astounding, despite giving up more hits than he pitched innings, and he gave up many hits because he couldn’t strike anyone out. That’s AMAZING. That is the seventh-best ERA+ in the modern history of baseball and he is the only one in that group who gave up a lot of hits; look above and below him, every one of those guys gave up few hits. How’d Quiz do that? Primarily by not walking anyone; his walk rate was stupid low, less than half normal.
The two things balance. They absolutely are connected. You can walk a lot of guys if you strike out many men because then you don’t give up as many hits that score runs; you can strike out few men, which inevitably means hits, and get away with it if you don’t give them any free baserunners via the walk.
Now, as asahi points out, there is also the issue of allowing home runs; some pitchers are more prone to allowing more home runs than others. Of course, striking men out prevents them from hitting home runs.
[QUOTE=Fotheringay-Phipps]
Here’s an example that illustrates the point. You have two pitchers who each give up 9 hits per 9 innings (and the same number of HRs etc.) One guy averages 10 Ks and 5 Ws per 9 innings. The other guy averages 4 Ks and 2.2 Ws per 9 innings. You’re going to say the first guy is better because his K/W ratio is better?
[/QUOTE]
That’s not a statistically significant difference.
If you’re expecting the second guy to be better, though, you’re very likely in for a great deal of disappointment; he will not last very long in the major leagues. In today’s game a pitcher who strikes out just 4 men per 9 innings is going to get the shit kicked out of him. That is so low I can assure you he’s getting lit up like a Christmas tree. An unusually low K ratio is almost always indicative of a pitcher who just isn’t very good at avoiding major league bats.
For fun, I went to the 2014 table for the American League and just looked up pitchers who
- Pitched a reasonably meaningful number of innings, and
- Struck out fewer than a man per 2 innings.
Almost all of them are gone already. Kevin Correia’s gone, Nick Tepesch is banging around the minors… I had to go down after that to guys who only pitched 30 innings or so, and THEY’RE all either out of baseball or in the minors. The only exceptions are Mike Pelfrey and Ryan Pressly are still with the Twins, but they’re terrible.
I agree with all of the above, though there is a fairly good chance Rutherford will be good, he is several years away and the Yanks are actually in good shape as far as young outfielders.
Clippard needs a change of scenary, the fans have turned on him. (and for more than enough reasons). I think he’ll bounce back again. The bullpen just got a big boost and will hopefully turn back into the strenght of the team it was for the first 2½ months.
I know nothing about the prospects the Yanks gave up, but adding Robertson to their bullpen is nice and Frazier is an upgrade over Headley. At least Frazier can hit some HRs.
The White Sox apparently called up Yoan Moncada, the best player they got from the Red Sox for Chris Sale. Moncada is going to have to be damn good to make that trade look like a win for the CWS. Sale has more than met expectations in Boston.
RickJay
Well yeah, once you treat hits allowed as being interchangeable with strikeouts, then of course it interacts with walks, hits and walks being two forms of baserunner. But hits can be and generally are looked at separately. Which is why I kept hits constant in my comparison example.
In sum, you’re saying high strikeouts is a proxy for low hits. But it’s a very imperfect proxy at best and a completely unnecessary one, since it’s trivially easy to look directly at the hits allowed stat.
I like the trade to get Robertson back to the Yankees, and Todd Frazier adds some needed punch to the lineup. Headley can stay for now but he needs to step up more defensively.
All the hype about Aaron Judge has benefitted one guy more than any other- Clint Frazier. Frazier is an amazing talent with legendary bat speed, having the press fawn over Judge has allowed Frazier to get some MLB experience and is turning out to be a pretty good player, perhaps even will be a great player. He has all the tools to be a star for years to come. If the Yankees can get some youth in CF, that outfield will be very good for some time.
If that’s what you took away from his post, you should read it again.
But that is not what happens in major league baseball.
You are correct in the theoretical claim that if hits were independent of strikeouts, the effect of having more or fewer strikeouts would be very small; an out is an out. A strikeout reduces the chance of an error and baserunners advancing, but really it doesn’t amount to much. That is not, however, how professional baseball works. Hits are not independent of strikeouts.
I’m sorry, but that’s a really inaccurate summary, and heck, I didn’t even get into the predictive nature of K/W ratio.
[QUOTE=Barkis Is Willin’]
The White Sox apparently called up Yoan Moncada, the best player they got from the Red Sox for Chris Sale. Moncada is going to have to be damn good to make that trade look like a win for the CWS. Sale has more than met expectations in Boston.
[/QUOTE]
As the old saying goes, try to get the best player in the trade.
I don’t know how Moncada’s defense is, but he was hitting really well in AAA and he’s only 22. Prospects are just dreams, but Moncada’s as good a dream as you can bet on, I suppose.
What I find a little weird is that if I’m reading the stats right, Moncada’s been playing SECOND base in AAA. Why? Wasn’t the plan always for him to be a third baseman?
I’m sorry, I’ve read your post, and best as I can figure that’s what you’re saying.
So, apparently the Royal’s have decided to play baseball at the start of the second half of the season the same way they played at the start of the first half.
Hopefully they don’t dig such a big hole that they can’t climb out.
Fuck! Kris Bryant looks like he injured his hand sliding headfirst into third. That’s NOT what the Cubs need now that they are starting to heat up.
I’m gonna say it looked more like a sprain or dislocation than anything super serious.
Why does anyone *ever *slide headfirst? It doesn’t get you to the base any quicker than feetfirst; it only increases your exposure to injury.
He’s only a marginal upgrade, but the trade does keep him away from Boston, which I gather was the real point. His offense in Chi this year has not been that good.
Yep. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Any long-time fan can name guys who were supposed to be great, who they looked forward to seeing dominate for years, but somehow just fizzled out. Say, what’s Will Middlebrooks doing these days? 
Red Auerbach used to say “Potential is a Latin word that means you ain’t worth a damn yet.”
According to Chip Carey, Bryant has a left pinky sprain. No fracture. Info said during today’s game.
Your arm and shoulder have more mobility when evading a tag.
Article from August 2015: “Kris Bryant Won’t Slide Head First Any More”:
Hmm…
He’s been terrible in Chicago this year, but away from home his OPS is .923. Who knows, maybe a change of scenery will do him good. I don’t think he was acquired just to keep him out of Boston; the Yanks can stop starting rookies and split first and third between Frazier and Headley.