"By embracing baseball analytics, Brian Bannister has transformed himself into a must-own fantasy pitcher. "
--headline text at fantasysports.yahoo.com
You know, I think it's utterly fantastic that Brian Bannister is a baseball stat geek (as well as an actual pitcher). But his stat-geekdom isn't what makes him succeed on the mound! If that were all you needed, hey, sign me up. But I know better than to think a 55-mph fastball will work at this level.
Even among people with the raw talent to be pro athletes, understanding stat geek principles is a far cry from applying them. I heard somewhere that Dante Bichette (of all people), for example, had a deep innate understanding that OBP is life. This didn't change the fact that hacking at the first hittable pitch he saw was too ingrained in him to do it any other way.
(Ironically, whatever Bannister preaches, what he practices is well worth staying away from if you do fantasy baseball: In the long run his strikeout rate is unlikely to be sustainable.)
Posted by Matt Bruce at April 17, 2008 03:49 PMWell, there is some difference, in that hitting is a reactive activity, while a pitcher can plan what he wants to do. So a pitcher could choose his pitches and the way he sets up a hitter in sabermetric fashion, I suppose, in a way that a hitter couldn't.
That said, what's described in the article doesn't really sound particularly sabermetric. It sounds like he's just using the scouting reports, and "pitching to weak contact" is kind of the opposite of what DIPS would say you should do (unless the Royals defense is great, which I don't think it particularly is).
Posted by: Paul at April 17, 2008 11:02 PM