Over two years ago, a gentleman named Voros McCracken published what might be a revolutionary study about pitchers’ control over balls put into play. His contention was that, aside from walks and strikeouts, a pitcher had very little control over the outcome of every interaction with the batter. At the time, that line of thinking was a long way from conventional wisdom, but here in 2003, I hear that study mentioned very frequently, and many people seem to be uncertain as to whether pitchers actually do control much of the outcome on balls put into play. Needless to say, the real conclusion to this issue would have a sizable impact on the way that pitchers are developed, MLB teams are run, and fantasy teams choose their pitchers. For the purposes of this article, we will try and stay on the fantasy side of things, but as you know, I often can’t resist some extraneous discussions on other topics, so bear with me.

   Diamond Mind Baseball is the home of one of the best baseball simulations available, and founder/president Tom Tippett is without question an astute baseball mind. When I heard that Tippett had attacked this issue in greater detail than McCracken’s 2001 study just last month, I rushed to the site to read the rather lengthy article. This time, the conclusions are much more in line with my own intuitive thinking, and are also much easier to explain. Tippett discerned that some pitchers do indeed exhibit a great deal of control over the results of BHIP (balls hit into play), so much so in fact, that they owe most of their successes to that. He put together some excellent charts toward the end of the article (I will provide a link to it at the end of this column) that basically illustrate batting average on balls in play vs. league average as just another attribute of a pitcher, which is as many people would have expected it to be all along, I would imagine. The simple fact that six knuckleballers are in the top 35 all-time in batting average on balls in play versus the league average should be enough to prove that to be true, and it also illustrates part of Tim Wakefield’s value. So, if certain pitchers have this ability, who are they and how can we find them?

   In one portion of the article http://www.diamond-mind.com/articles/ipavg2.htm, Tippett shows a set of tables based on pitcher type, attempting to show how successful each type of pitcher is in this category. “Crafty lefthanders” seem to be the most successful at hit prevention, but possibly they show up because they are the only finesse-type pitchers to persevere without having overpowering stuff. It seems to me for every one of the names on that list, you have someone like Andy Pettitte that is decidedly poor at limiting hits. However, we can use some of this information in attempting to choose pitchers for our teams, if we understand a few important points. One, K/9 and BB/9 are still the most critical statistics for pitchers. Strikeouts in particular are the best indicator that I can find for future breakout potential, so it is important not to discount the things that we have been doing to facilitate pitcher selection. Two, the results of BHIP are going to be dependent on a number of factors, one of which is the pitcher in question. The other factors (ability of the batter, team defense, park effects, luck) are also going to have an impact, particularly defense. It will be important to try and look at team defense when selecting any pitcher, but in particular a pitcher with average to below average strikeout totals. With all of the other factors, it should be obvious that the impact a pitcher has on BHIP is somewhat limited, but still sizable enough to be important. Defense is still extremely hard to quantify, but the good folks over at Baseball Prospectus are getting closer every year to separating the good from the bad. A lot of the pitchers that are successful in the BHIP area are groundball pitchers, so looking at a team’s infield defense is especially critical. Cleveland comes to mind as a team that has the potential for an outstanding infield defense for quite some time. Remember, we are not trying to reinvent the wheel here. This is simply another tool for you to use in choosing the best players for your team.

   Now that we understand a bit about the topic, let’s try and locate some pitchers that are good at preventing hits on BHIP, that are bad at it, and that might become good at it at the MLB level in the future. Let’s start with the good, and that means that we have to start in Oakland. The A’s pitchers have been remarkable this year in a few different categories, one of which is average on BHIP. Tim Hudson leads the way, but Zito and Mulder are not far behind. They have basically changed their style of pitching gradually over the past few years in order to maximize the amount of time that they are in the game. This change has resulted in fewer walks and strikeouts, but more wins and innings without an appreciable change in their WHIP or ERA. It’s great for their team, great for 4X4 leagues, but mostly neutral for 5X5 leagues, at least until you realize that they are much less likely to injure themselves going forward because of the greatly reduced stresses on their arms. Some effectively wild pitchers are also among the leaders, the top few of which are Russ Ortiz, Hideo Nomo, and Victor Zambrano. They all walk over 4.0 batters per nine, which is usually up in the caution area, but have allowed very few hits despite strikeout rates down around 6.0 per nine. Ortiz in particular seems to have figured something out the past few years, and it has a lot to do with his win totals in 2002 and 2003 (although not as much as Bonds and Sheffield have to do with them). In the crafty lefthander section we have Jamie Moyer, Darrell May, Mark Redman, Mike Hampton, and CC Sabathia. Well, OK, maybe Sabathia isn’t too crafty, but he is better than average in this area for two seasons in a row, which may have as much to do with the aforementioned defensive prowess of the Indians’ infield as it does with any attribute possessed by the gentle giant. For the rest of the crew, it does indeed seem to be part of their skill set. Moyer, in fact, has almost made a career out of this skill alone. A study run by Bill James a few years back (if I recall the timeframe correctly) stated that 4.5 was roughly the cutoff in K/9 for a pitcher’s ability to be successful. Basically, anyone below that mark would be out of baseball in the immediate future. It is worth noting that the only reasonably successful pitcher in baseball this year that is below that mark currently is Ryan Franklin, who is a “crafty righthander.” Darrell May is close however, and I think we can treat 4.5 strikeouts per nine as the point at which even an ability to reduce hits on BHIP is not enough to sustain success.

   On the bad side, we have an interesting mix of pitchers. In no particular order: John Lackey, Jeff Weaver, Shawn Estes, Brett Tomko, Jeremy Bonderman, Elmer Dessens, Andy Pettitte, and Kenny Rogers have been pretty bad at preventing hits on BHIP this year. There are some pretty bad defenses in there that have an impact (NY and Arizona), but some of these guys just don’t have that talent. One interesting thing that I discovered in researching this is that on both lists (good and bad), a number of the top five were also among the league leaders in homers allowed. May, Ortiz, and Wakefield from the good side, and Lackey, Tomko, and Pettitte from the bad are all up above 20 HR allowed. I don’t know what conclusion to draw from that, but it’s interesting nonetheless. In most of the “bad” pitchers, I feel that defense has more to do with it than the pitcher themselves, especially since Lackey, Dessens, and Estes have shown a propensity to have lower H/9 rates in the past. The Yankees, well, their infield defensive prowess has been debated ad nauseum, so standing on that side of the fence is safe, and having Tony Womack fielding couldn’t have helped Dessens all that much. I feel more comfortable picking out pitchers that can do it rather than pitchers that can’t, but clearly watching team defense is critical here.

   As far as pitchers that can do this in the future, the first name that comes to mind is Sean Burnett of the Pirates. He fits the crafty lefty bill, and his H/9 numbers have been consistently excellent despite reasonably low strikeout totals. This year, Burnett has allowed less than a hit an inning despite K/9 rates below 5.0. He is walking the fine line of Tommy John-ness, and is a good bet to be one of the Moyer/May/Redman group in the future. New Reds pitcher Brandon Claussen is another hurler that could have this skill. Keep in mind, this seems to be something that develops over time rather than just appears, so Claussen’s performance post-surgery this year might be the beginnings of it. Again, he fits the crafty lefty description, possibly with a bit more juice. Brandon Webb already looks like he is doing it, but his strikeout rates are rather high. As he goes around the league again, watching his H/9 (as his K/9 are sure to drop) will help you in your search for the next Jim Palmer. Joel Piniero has gotten a lot better in this area this season and bears watching, although the outstanding Mariner defense will certainly have a positive impact on his totals. Kip Wells and Vicente Padilla are another two young starters that throw all kinds of moving stuff, and seem to induce a lot of weak groundballs. I can easily see the two of them consistently posting low H/9 totals going forward, even with K/9 figures in the 5.5 to 6.5 range.