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Let's Rank More Revered Starting Pitcher Prospects Based On Their Ability To Induce Weaker Contact



In this exercise we will ignore strikeouts and walks altogether and only examine plate appearances in which the batter swung the bat (no bunts) and sent the ball into fair play or homered.

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Study Population

The 107 pitchers who were assigned a B- or higher preseason Sickels prospect grade and have faced at least 200 minor league batters above (not including) the Gulf Coast League and Arizona League since the beginning of 2013 while averaging at least 10 batters faced per game. The cutoff dates for 2014 data were June 15 for A leagues and June 25 for AA and AAA. Relevant play event data was downloaded from the MLB Advanced Media web archives.

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Method

The Fielding- and Ballpark-Independent Outcomes statistical evaluation system that I employ works as follows. Every pitcher in the league gets charged with the number of runs shown in the table below for each such event they allowed in the season (after correcting for ballpark/stringer-related biases in event type determinations); each value in the table corresponds to the number of runs that said event is typically worth in league play. And then each starting pitcher in the league gets ranked from best to worst at runs avoided per batter faced; that amounts to their Performance Rating. This process gets repeated for each unique league that a pitcher appears in during a season.

Leagueeventrunvalues_zps8b018d80_medium

Excluding non-batted-outcomes (HBP,BB,K) allows for computation of a Batted Ball Rating that quantifies how well the pitcher avoided the batted ball types that are most frequently associated with run generation. It is this Batted Ball Rating that will be the point of emphasis here, and it will be expressed on a percentile scale (the percentage of league peers who were beaten or equaled on the parameter).

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Results

Here are the top 54 of the 107 B- or better pitchers, listed in descending order of 2013 AND 2014 Batted Ball Rating (an asterisk designates a southpaw).

2013and2014battedballs-sptop54_zps399deb6c_large

The group at the left would stand to be your proverbial "tough to square up" pitchers. Some get there via the groundball pathway while others reach the same destination via some combination of inducing pop-ups, limiting line drives, and avoiding pulls on outfield flyballs. Meyer, Nelson, Hendricks, Hahn, and Gausman would comprise the top 5 rotation for 2013 and 2014 based on the numbers. No southpaws appear until Urias at the number 19 spot.

And below are the bottom 53 of the 107 prospects.

2013and2014battedballs-spbot53_zpsde464370_large

The group at the right bears some extra attention given the poor nature of the ratings. Bauer serves as a sort of perennial poster child for loud batted ball outcomes, and his (deceptively) hot start to 2014 has been no exception. Berrios and Wisler seem to be making some strides forward in this realm versus their 2013 campaigns. Bradley was also showing signs of improvement before injury set in. Stephenson has really gone downhill in this parameter since he graduated the Midwest League a year ago. Manaea claims the 107th best spot per his smallish sample of 2014 pro debut data.

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Discussion

It should be appreciated that Batted Ball Rating explains 34% of a pitcher's overall Performance Rating when assessed via this sort of approach, with strikeouts explaining 43% and control explaining the other 23%. So it is possible for a pitcher to rate among a league's top performers despite a low Batted Ball Rating provided that their Strikeout Rating and Control Rating are high enough collectively to offset that blemish. Likewise, a pitcher who sports a high Batted Ball Rating may rank among the league's poorest performers if their Strikeout Rating and Control Rating combine to rate well below league standards.

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Bonus: Best of the Rest

Presented without commentary are the Top 40 batted ball performers for 2013 and 2014 among starting-biased prospects who received C+ or C grades from John pre-2014.

2013and2014battedballs-sptop40cs_zpsfc38d0fc_large

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