Brian Bannister pitches as a starter for the Kansas City Royals. Bannister is a favorite of the sabermetric community due to his embrace of advanced statistics. Brian tries to minimize hits walks and home runs allowed, while maximizing his strikeouts. In other words, Bannister pitches to minimize his FIP, his Fielding Independent Pitching stats. Over the last two years, Bannister’s projected ERA from his FIP is about half a run lower than his actual ERA. That indicates a good defensive team would improve his pitching a great deal.
Bannister upped his strikeout rate each season he pitched in the majors, and kept his walk rate below three per nine. He’s not a great pitcher, however. At best, Brian’s strikeout rate is below six, meaning no matter how good his defense plays, opponents put a lot of balls in play against him, and many of those will fall for hits. His walk rate is good, but not great. Brain would win with a good defensive team that scored well, like the Dodgers.
In fact, his greatest asset to the Royals came from his tutoring Zack Greinke in the ideas of fielding independent pitching. Greinke is a much more talented hurler, and his pitching to his defense earlier in the count and going for the K with two strikes on the batter helped him win the Cy Young award this season. I like the way Bannister actively tries to improve himself and searches the stats to find ways to do that efficiently. On the right team, he won’t be a star, but he’ll give them lots of good innings and will win more often than he loses.
Posted by David Pinto at 5:22 pm | Pitchers, Players A to Z | Permalink | No Comments
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