May 28, 2014

Pitchers in Control

Zack Greinke struck out 11 Tuesday night without allowing a walk. While that was the best performance by a starter on May 27th in terms of walks and strikeouts, it was not the only outstanding one. Wade Miley struckout 11 and walked one. Collin McHugh recorded nine K without allowing a walk, and is turning out to be a very good starter for the Astros. All-in-all, 14 pitchers struck out at least four times more batters than they walked in their Tuesday starts.

David Price

David Price owns the best strikeout to walk ratio among major league starters. Photo: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

Pitchers with a four strikeouts for every walk are rare over a full season, although the numbers have been growing. In the 1960s (1961-1970) there were 28 such seasons, defining a full season as at least 162 innings pitched. With the lowering of the mound for the 1969 season, that total dropped to four in the 1970s. In the 1980s it rose to 10, in the 1990s to 41, and in the first decade of the 21st century hit 79. In the first three years of the 2010s, there were 29 such seasons. Pitchers recorded 14 such season in 2013, the most of the expansion ERA. So far in 2014, 26 pitchers with at least 50 innings have K:BB of at least 4.0.

Pitcher K per BB
David Price 10.50
Phil Hughes 8.33
Masahiro Tanaka 7.90
Tim Hudson 7.33
Bartolo Colon 7.17
Cliff Lee 6.78
Zack Greinke 5.43
Jose D Fernandez 5.38
Felix Hernandez 5.29
Dallas Keuchel 5.08
Brandon McCarthy 4.92
Corey Kluber 4.88
Adam Wainwright 4.81
Alex Wood 4.58
Kyle Lohse 4.54
Ian Kennedy 4.50
Stephen Strasburg 4.50
Madison Bumgarner 4.41
Dan Haren 4.36
Johnny Cueto 4.25
Rick Porcello 4.22
John Lackey 4.21
James Shields 4.20
Hiroki Kuroda 4.18
Nathan Eovaldi 4.07
Wei-Yin Chen 4.00

Not all of these pitchers will last the season at this level. Jose Fernandez obviously won’t pitch 162 innings. Not all of these pitchers are getting good results at this level. Interestingly, two of the Yankees big three prospects, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes are on the list, and the third, Joba Chamberlain, has struck out 25 and walked six as a reliever. A third of the way through the season, however, the majors are well positioned to top the 14 who reached this level in 2013.

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