Is J.P. Howell the most deceptive pitcher in baseball?

Pavlidis' numbers show yes.

6 months ago R.J. Anderson 14 comments 0 recs |

Comments

Of course it all depends how you define deception

As I mentioned yesterday in a previous thread JP Howell leads the league in called strike %

Perhaps a good measure of deception would be “non contact strike%” as in swinging strikes + called strikes. We could get more advanced in weighting in and out of the zone swinging strikes, but if we weight them equally it would be

Wuertz
Howell
DiFelice
Broxton
Javy Vazquez
Haren

by matthan on Jul 24, 2009 3:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

FYI

The reason why Wuertz was high on what I listed and not on the BtB list is due to Swinging strikes, namely ooz sw strikes. Wuertz dominates that stat.

by matthan on Jul 24, 2009 3:39 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

either way

his stuff has been downright nasty coming out of the pen

by Toe Finch on Jul 24, 2009 3:45 PM EDT via mobile reply actions 0 recs

Deception vs Nastiness

I know they’re confounded either way, but I think it is less of any issue with takes than with swings. What I’m trying out now started with the idea of just using 2 strike counts, btw, which I think is a pretty pure measure of fooling a hitter.

by Harry Pavlidis on Jul 24, 2009 3:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah it can be an issue of semantics

I’d probably say deception is more about called strikes and perhaps in the zone swinging strikes whereas nastiness is more about what you do outside the zone.

by matthan on Jul 24, 2009 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs