Dave Studeman and Mike Webber of the Hardball Times worked with Bill James on his The Bill James Gold Mine 2009, collecting "short, interesting and meaningful" statistical "nuggets". Not all their finding made it though, and they present the rejected nuggets on The Hardball Times. Here are some highlights:

• 33% of Barry Zito’s innings required 20 or more pitches, the second-highest figure in the majors.
  
• Zito threw the fifth-slowest fastball in the majors last year. The only pitchers who threw slower fastballs were Tim Wakefield and old guys like Greg Maddux.
  
• Zito threw the second-slowest changeup in the majors last year (74.1 mph)
  
• Zito now throws his changeup more often than his curveball

            Curve  Change
  2005       25%     14%
  2006       19%     19%
  2007       19%     20%
  2008       16%     20%

• Batters are sizing up even his pitches out of the strike zone. They were much more likely to swing at pitches outside the zone last year than in previous years, and also more likely to make contact when they did swing.

Pitches outside the strike zone...
           Swung at    Made contact
 2005         21%           52%
 2006         22%           62%
 2007         20%           64%
 2008         26%           72%

No wonder Zito was so bad last year. If hitters start smashing your pitches outside the zone, where are you going to throw? Another reason why Zito's contract is one of the worst active contracts in MLB.

Dodger pitcher Hiroki Kuroda pitched some of his best games against the best teams, but only had a 1-2 record to show for it. Yet he posted a 5.66 ERA against the worst teams and posted a 2-1 record against them.

Opponent             G    IP    W     L    SO    BB   ERA
.600 teams           3  21.2    1     2    19     5  1.66
.500 - .599 teams   12  66.1    3     3    43    16  3.66
.400 - .499 teams   12  74.2    3     4    40    14  3.86
sub .400 teams       4  20.2    2     1    14     7  5.66

I guess that's the kind of pitcher you need in October. The ERA, not the wins. And now to the complete opposite case:

B.J. Upton batted .200 with a .598 OPS against the best pitchers he faced and .361/1.013 against the worst.

                                 AB    H   HR   RBI   Avg   OPS
Pitcher with ERA <= 3.50        155   31    2    15  .200  .598
Pitcher with ERA 3.51 to 4.25   144   34    0     9  .236  .688
Pitcher with ERA 4.26 to 5.25   123   41    4    18  .333  .924
Pitcher with ERA over 5.25      108   39    3    25  .361 1.013

Check out the rest yourself over at HBT. And if those are the rejected nuggets, what actually made it to the book really must be pure gold.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites