Using Pitch f/x velocity and movement data to create pitch "rating"

Question

I asked Dave Cameron in the chat today

 

Would it be possible to create a system that uses velocity as well as pitch f/x movement numbers to rate pitches? We could use it to compare pitchers start or pitches across starts...eta

He said that has already been done. But where? and what is it called?

For example Matt Moore has 9.2 inches of horizontal movement 11.1 inches of vertical movement and a pretty velocity of 94.2. So we can see his fastball is better than say Jason Hammel. But can we give them both a number in terms of stuff from that data?

Answer 1

We have the Run Values for the pitchers on the player's page.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1890&position=P#pitchvalues

The movement and speed are just one part of equation. Some pitches are harder to pick up out of the pitcher's hand. Location will also matter.

I would not try to give them a value just on velo and movement.  Brooksbaseball.net does have a nice featue that creates a similarity score between pitchers that can be used to find similar pitchers.

Comments

Does that use velocity and movement data or just runs allowed on a certain pitch...etc?

I agree control and seeing what is coming does matter a great deal, but I want to look at pure stuff as in movement and velocity. Run values isn't a good indicator of this as it says Moore has a below average fastball and Grienke has a terrible slider. We know both are filthy is terms of stuff, but not always effective.

This may not be useful in any sense, but it is more of a curiousity thing. But I could see some use. Perhaps you could indentify pitchers with tons of stuff, but poor control. Then you could look for improving F-Strike% for improvement among other things.

---

Being more concerned with 'stuff' than effectiveness is cool, but you may have a hard time finding someone who is gonna do the legwork on something pretty complicated like this just to quantify an abstraction. It's like trying to measure which guy looks the coolest when he swings the bat.

---

Yeah, I just figured it already had been done. Dave said it had been and Matt Klassen said such a metric would make a lot of sense, but he wasn't a pitch f/x expert.

I disagree with your swing the bat comment. It would be more of trying to measure what guy has the best or sweetest swing. Having a nice swing is obviously important, I mean you'd rather have Ken Griffey Jr.'s swing then have a guy flailing all over the plate.