Brian Bannister Looks at His PITCHf/x Numbers
Over the weekend Tom Tango linked an interview Brian Bannister did talking about how he used PITCH/x information to change his approach this year. It is a really interesting interview that I urge you to listen to. This morning Harry Pavlidis posted a great breakdown of the things Bannister talked about. I wanted to expand on a couple of things Harry looked at.
As some of you might know Bannister is a student of sabremetrics. Back in 2007 when he had a great ERA, build largely on a unsustainably low BABIP, he understood what was happening and that his current approach would not work going forward. In the interview he talked about going into 2008 looking to increase his strikeout rate to decrease his FIP. To do so he tried to work on his four-seam fastball. As we know it didn’t work. His strikeouts didn’t increase, his BABIP regressed and he had a very poor 2009. So going into 2009 he realized the other way to increase his FIP would be to increase his GB rate and thus decrease his HRs. So going into 2009 he wanted to stop using his four-seam fastball as much and replace it with a cutter that he had throw in the minors but given up. The cutter has less ‘rise’ and gets more ground balls. He also talked about changing the grip on his changeup to throw a power change, which results in a changeup with less ‘rise’ and thus get more ground balls.
I wanted to look at this change in approach of replacing his four-seam fastball with a cutter as his main pitch and the change in his changeup. First I went through and reclassified his pitches for this year and last year since both BIS and PITCHf/x are mislabeling his cutter.
+--------------------+-------+-------+ | | 2008 | 2009 | +--------------------+-------+-------+ | Four-Seam Fastball | 0.58 | 0.23 | | Cutter/Slider | 0.20 | 0.51 | | Changeup | 0.13 | 0.16 | | Curveball | 0.09 | 0.10 | +--------------------+-------+-------+
I had a hard time telling the difference between his cutter and slider. To the best of my understanding I think in 2008 most of those are sliders and in 2009 mostly cutters. So the big difference is in exchanging his main pitch from a four-seam fastball to a cutter, just as Bannister said in the interview. Here is a comparison of his 2008 four-seam fastball to his 2009 cutter to see the results of this shift.
+--------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ | | zone | whiff | oswing| GB/BIP| +--------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ | Four-Seam Fastball | 0.59 | 0.11 | 0.20 | 0.30 | | Cutter | 0.58 | 0.10 | 0.24 | 0.47 | +--------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
It looks like he can hit the zone and get whiffs and out-of-zone-swings at roughly the same rate with his cutter that he did with his four-seam fastball, but it gets about half again as many ground balls. That is an exchange anyone would be happy to make.
Bannister also mentioned his new power change that is a little faster has less rise, or vertical movement.
It is working, the GB rate on his change has risen from just under 50% last year to 69% this year.
Overall Bannister’s transition has been great. He is striking out and walking about the same number of hitters, but instead of being a 40% GB pitcher he is a 48% GB pitcher. That is a huge difference, which should result in many fewer HRs and probably make him a league average pitcher.
I think this is really cool. Bannister looked at his stats, understood something had to change, went about changing it and so far it looks like it has worked. I am very happy for him.
27
Sometimes his cutter looks an awful lot like a slider (evidently BIS and Pitch F/X agree), which worries me cause his arm might fall off, but I think he’s toned it down a bit since he left one start early with a sore shoulder a couple months back. It doesn’t look as stressful on his arm now, and his power change is really heavy. I believe Joakim Soria has learned the power change this year, too
Soria has always had a changeup..he just seems to be using it a lot more this year..or using it more as an out-pitch (without looking at the numbers).
Banny’s legitimately brilliant. Seems to be front office material one day.
yeah, he’s throwing his changeup harder this year. Less vertical rise, and less of a diff. in velo between his changeup and fastball. Lefevbre has said on the broadcast that both Bannister and Soria had been working with PC McClure on the power change
Has there ever been a playerGM? I wonder what words Bannister uses every time Yuni misplays one of his ground balls?
This post was tough to read. Typos all over and bad punctuation. I know it’s hard to complain about something that is free, but usually the posts are well-written and I’ve grown used to that.
No problem with the complaint, I will work on improving my editing and coherence in the future.
Surely Bannister will be a pitching coach one day…
This is really cool. I wonder how long it’ll take before pitching coaches who pick up on this start pushing the necessary equipment down into the minor leagues (and college programs, and academies, etc.) The best time to make use of this data (in this kind of trial-and-error fashion) is when pitchers are still learning these pitches.
I’d love to see a post about Joel Pinero, who seems to have completely re-invented himself as an extreme groundballer this year.
Here is an article about big jumps in groundball numbers that RJ wrote about Pineiro.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/is-pinerios-newfound-groundball-success-sustainable
Maybe I should do a pitchf/x piece about him.
The sabermetric community will be following Banny’s career the rest of the way. I know I will, and it’s going to be cool to see if he continues watching his Pitch f/x stuff and adjusting further. It’s amazing the change that he can make in such a short major league career just by reading into something like Pitch f/x.
The most frustrating thing about this interview is trying to explain to my coworkers why I’m so excited about it.
The way he talks about his commitment to being a groundball pitcher really reminds me of the way Jim Bouton talked about his knuckleball in Ball Four.
Banny is my hero.
Wow, in the interview Bannister comes off like a really smart guy. Hopefully his improvement continues.
I think he is a really smart guy. Which, unfortunately can be counterproductive to playing baseball.
This is really really cool.
It’s one thing to have access to a bunch of stats and for me, as a fan, to look at it an analyze the game, but it’s great to see a player able to improve his game by doing it. Really awesome.
It just takes a few of these guys to start looking at the numbers and showing tangible improvement for this to spread like wildfire.
I have hard time believing that it will spread. Baseball is full of players/managers who refuse to believe in this kind of thing.
But perhaps not so much among the kids coming up, who already get everything they know through the internet. Video has already been embraced by pitching coaches and players; this isn’t much a big step past that.
One of the reasons baseball is so slow to change relative to the other sports is the role played by the minor leagues. In football, the minor leagues are the college teams, which are a highly competitive hotbed of experimentation and innovation. In baseball the minor leagues are controlled by the majors, so there’s little incentive for the coaches to do anything but toe the line.
However, there are competitive college baseball programs, and they will pick on this stuff (in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if a university with both strong sports and tech programs develops its own). And if they do, and it works, even MLB coaches will eventually notice.
So how embarassed should Dayton Moore be that one of his players understands sabermetrics better than him and his front office?
Especially since Moore traded for Bannister. Maybe he can only appreciate statistics vicariously…
Is this a good argument for the case that pitchers do have some control over what happens with the pitch after they release it as far as how fieldable the contact they give up is?
Not particularly. Bannister knows that groundballs will hurt him less over time, so he’s pitching to get those types of results. He won’t necessarily know how the GB’s come out, he’s just assuming on average that it will be a GB and that those never become home runs.
Did Banny throw a decent sinker or 2-seam fastball last season too (albeit, just for a few starts)? I think I remember a Pos article talking about that sinker having mucho movement. If Dave/Harry/any other pitch f/x guy could help me out, that’d be great.
Logical next step: Fire DM and hire Bannister as GM.
Dave, I think you meant to say he had a very poor 2008, not 2009.