Not sure where to put this, but Hardball Times included Nolan Ryan as a player hard to comp. 5714 strikeouts. The active leader, Colon, isn't even close to half that with 2423. http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-ten-players-who-vex-me-the-most/ Nolan Ryan Pitcher X throws hard. Pitcher X gets hurt. Inevitably, someone will complain about “why can’t pitchers today throw hard and stay healthy like Nolan Ryan?” No pitcher has ever come close to Ryan’s durability and strikeout production. What Ryan did was unbelievable. He was gifted with the greatest right arm in baseball’s history. Maybe someone will get another one, but so far no one has received the gift.
What do you interpret for this? More discerning hitters? Taking more pitches? Striking out more? More foul balls working counts? At least its not simply batters stepping out of the box...
Hitters just seem to be taking more and more pitches these days. A lot of hitters almost outright refuse to swing at the first pitch. I thought that a I read somewhere that K's are up almost 25% just in the last decade. Oddly walk rates have remained steady (come down a little if anything), so there's no correlation with taking more pitches creating more walks. Often the first pitch you see will be the best pitch you see, yet some simply won't swing at it. Plus we are getting more relievers than ever, meaning more time consuming pitching changes. The specialized relief nukes are also playing into the K rates.
More strikeouts/less contact/more swinging strikes, more time between pitches, more relievers, and more homers per contact(at least very recently). I know the baseball commissioner has mentioned the time between pitches, but I don't see a solution to the more Ks and relievers. Homers may get back to normal on their own.
I think with hitters being more selective pitchers that cannot consistently find the strike zone are not ever making it to the big leagues, when in the past they would be able to get hitters to chase outside the zone, especially if they had really good velocity or movement.
Overall swing rate is near unchanged over last 16 years, but batters are swinging more a lot more at balls and a lot less at strikes. My guess is increased velocity has made batters decide quicker on what is a ball and a strike leading to them being wrong more often. Hitters are about same at making contact with strikes and have gotten a lot better at hitting balls. Overall contact rate has gone down as batters are swinging at balls more often. First pitch strike is only up slightly (2 percentage points or about 4% increase) over that period. Pitchers are throwing less strikes than ever. I don't think it is that they can't throw strikes. It is that they know hitters have to decide quickly and are deciding wrong more than ever. Swinging strike is up 9.6% to 10.4% over last 16 years. Only 1 percentage point, but about a 10% increase.
I dont have any facts(stats) to back it up, but my sense is its tied to the ongoing competitiveness of the game itself. Pitchers trying to find advantage over hitters and the reverse. Both sides taking more time. Being more thorough. More focused. Trying to take the other off his game. Mess with their timing and such.
On ball in play...Brandon Moss has a solution to the problem....“3-0 changeups and curveballs,” Moss muttered. “How about an automatic heater down the middle on 2-0. That would get us more balls in play!” A lot of player comments on the fewer BIP trend. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-would-we-increase-balls-in-play/
lol I don't think they needed to include Liriano in that tweet. That's a "one of these doesn't belong" moments.
The biggest problem with the bullpen right now seems to be allowing inherited runners to score, not ERA.
I think the biggest problem is the offense stakes a big enough lead, and all year, the last men in the bullpen (Martes, Feliz, Hoyt, Guadan) don't seem to be able to hold it well. It's a good problem to have. I expect Giles/Devo/Harris/Musgrove to be able to lock down all meaningful bullpen innings in the post-season.
Our top hitters in September: Josh Reddick .417 Yuli Gurriel .333 Marwin Gonzalez .328 Tyler White .316 http://www.espn.com/mlb/team/stats/batting/_/name/hou/split/45
http://thecomeback.com/mlb/why-houston-astros-can-win-world-series.html If there is one crack in the Astros’ armor, it’s the team’s defense. Houston is one of the worst fielding teams in baseball. The only two players that grade out as above average defensively by both UZR and DRS are Josh Reddick and George Springer (when he’s in center field, not right). The rest of the Astros’ regulars grade out as average or worse in one or both of those categories, a list led by Springer in right (-7 DRS, -11.8 UZR/150), Yuli Gurriel at first (-5, -8.1), and Alex Bregman at third (-3, -5.4). Yikes
I've watched damn near every game this season, and not once have I thought that we were a bad defensive team. I mean sure, we make errors here and there, but I would have never thought we were statistically that poor. Interesting.
Yuli is worse than the stats show. A bad 1B makes the rest of the infield defense look worse because he does a poor job of fielding throws (not terrible with short hops, but doesn't stretch and has terrible footwork for receiving throws). I'm also unsure how defensive stats are effected by the number of shifts we employ. I would say most of team is average defensively outside of Yuli.
