During a discussion on fifth starters, I ended up doing some research on ground balls and their relative worth as compared to non-ground ball batted ball types. What began as a throwaway point has since captured my attention and so I bring some results to you.

First, I looked at batted ball types in complete isolation. I believe it is widely accepted that a ground ball is better than a fly ball from a pitcher’s point of view on average. Arguing whether it is better to be a ground-ball pitcher or a fly-ball pitcher is not the scope in question here. A huge amount of complexity resides in studying such a question, some of which I explore below, but for this first initial look, I just wanted to know nothing more than the relative weight of a ground ball versus a ball in the air on average run scoring.

I need to make a quick note on the terminology here. A ground ball is any batted ball classified as a ground ball or a bunt. A ball in the air is any batted ball classified as a fly ball, a line drive or a pop up. These are my own distinctions. I used the batted ball classifications provided by MLBAM since that is what I had available to me in easy to use database form. I do not expect that the results would be vastly different using other sources since large samples are in play.

I have two sets of information that helped me determine this figure. The first is the average number of outs recorded on each batted ball type. The second is the average run value, derived from changes in score and the run expectancy matrix after each play per batted ball type. For this first isolated comparison I used totals from the American League in 2009. I looked at a couple other years and the National League as well and the numbers change only slightly.

The results were that the average ground ball generated 0.04 runs and caused 0.80 outs while the average ball in air generated 0.23 runs and caused just 0.62 outs. On a runs-per-out basis, balls hit into the air created almost 7.5 times as much offense as balls kept on the ground did.

What constitutes a line drive is somewhat fuzzy and open to subjective bias. However, even with ignoring line drives, fly balls and pop outs by themselves generate an average of about 0.1 runs and cause 0.79 outs. That rate is still about three times more offensive than the average ball hit on the ground. The additional risk of yielding a home run matters, a lot.

Tomorrow, I am going to look at home run rates in closer detail.

I am in a list kind of mood apparently this week. To those that raised good questions in the last two days, I’m sorry that I did not personally respond, I do not yet have any further data to answer those, but I will be working on it. All that working on fastballs though got me on track of thinking about strikeouts and pitchers that are the most efficient at ending at bats in that way.

To put it in variable form, on plate appearances that end in a strikeout, what is the average number of pitches thrown per pitcher? My initial theory would be that pitchers with the best “stuff” would be the most effective at recording strikeouts quickly. I looked at pitchers that recorded at least 100 strikeouts over the 2007-9 period. Top 20 best:

Taylor Buchholz 4.37
Cla Meredith 4.38
Brandon League 4.39
Chad Qualls 4.40
Tony Pena 4.45
Chris Carpenter 4.47
Ross Ohlendorf 4.50
Tim Hudson 4.53
Sergio Mitre 4.53
Brandon Webb 4.54
Peter Moylan 4.55
Pedro Feliciano 4.56
Greg Maddux 4.56
Rafael Perez 4.56
Joakim Soria 4.57
Trevor Hoffman 4.57
Octavio Dotel 4.58
Chris Sampson 4.59
Clay Buchholz 4.59
Derek Holland 4.59

And 20 worst:

Brian Wilson 5.21
David Weathers 5.19
Scott Feldman 5.18
Manny Delcarmen 5.17
Fernando Rodney 5.17
Jason Frasor 5.16
Russ Springer 5.15
Matt Garza 5.13
Greg Smith 5.13
J.C. Romero 5.11
Jarrod Washburn 5.11
Kip Wells 5.11
Orlando Hernandez 5.10
Curt Schilling 5.10
Kyle Davies 5.09
Gil Meche 5.09
Ron Villone 5.08
Damaso Marte 5.08
Guillermo Mota 5.08
Jered Weaver 5.07

The first thing I noticed was just how many more pitches it takes to get a strikeout, on average. The average pitch per plate appearance is around 3.8. For plate appearances ending in strikeouts, it’s around 4.8. There is also a sizable spread here among the most and least efficient with their strikeouts. Almost a full pitch separates the best from the worst. Moving away from the extremes though, the vast majority of pitchers converse quickly around that 4.8 average. In fact, the standard deviation is only 0.15 pitches.

The pitchers in question however exhibited less of a trend than I expected. The David Weathers and Jarrod Washburns I was unsurprised at, but Brian Wilson? He misses bats pretty well. If anything there is a slight correlation between the average number of pitches needed to record a strikeout and a pitcher’s control rate. Which makes some sense, but was not the first thought that came to my mind.

While I was busy looking at increases and drops in fastball speeds, I also made note of the frequency with which fastballs were thrown by each pitcher. As noted previously, changes in fastball speed appeared to have no overwhelming correlation with changes in how often pitchers used their fastball.

Which pitchers did deviate the most from their 2008 ratio then? Glad you asked. Here are the top twenty greatest reductions in fastball usage, according to BIS pitch typing, with a minimum of 50 innings pitched in both 2008 and 2009.

Brian Bannister, -42.8%
Scott Feldman, -19.1%
Sean Marshall, -17.2%
Pat Misch, -15.5%
Nick Masset, -15.2%
Dan Wheeler, -14.8%
Braden Looper, -14.3%
Daniel Cabrera, -13.1%
Brandon Lyon, -12.9%
Tony Pena, -12.8%
Juan Cruz, -12.8%
Scott Kazmir, -11.2%
Mariano Rivera, -11.0%
Ryan Franklin, -10.5%
Brad Ziegler, -10.4%
Tim Lincecum, -10.3%
Cla Meredith, -10.2%
Matt Capps, -9.9%
Lance Cormier, -9.8%
Chad Billingsley, -9.5%

Brian Bannister is obviously a special case as he all but abandoned his traditional fastball in favor for a cutter in 2009. Scott Feldman too went to more of a cut fastball in 2009, explaining his drop. There are legitimate departures on this list however. Sean Marshall tossed a breaking ball about 14% more often in 2009. Pat Misch fell in love with his slider and changeup. Scott Kazmir returned to his pre-2008 fastball and slider levels.

The reverse list also has some interesting names on it. The top twenty greatest increases in fastball usage.

Jamie Moyer, 18.4%
Miguel Batista, 15.7%
Joel Pineiro, 12.6%
Guillermo Mota, 12.3%
Francisco Cordero, 12.0%
Nick Blackburn, 11.1%
Aaron Laffey, 9.4%
Jesse Carlson, 9.2%
CC Sabathia, 7.8%
Clay Buchholz, 7.4%
John Lannan, 7.1%
Brad Lidge, 6.9%
Francisco Rodriguez, 6.8%
Brian Bass, 6.5%
Derek Lowe, 6.4%
Hiroki Kuroda, 6.2%
Justin Masterson, 6.1%
Matt Thornton, 5.9%
Russ Springer, 5.8%
Jarrod Washburn, 5.8%

Joel Pineiro developed his sinking fastball to great lengths this season. Given that his fastball has never been a good pitch, one wonders why Jamie Moyer relied so much more on it in 2009, to his detriment.

A lot of late inning relief aces appear on this list too, to mixed results. Francisco Cordero‘s fastball improved in efficacy a lot in 2009. Brad Lidge‘s went into the toilet and Francisco Rodriguez’s stayed just about the same, as did Mota’s.

Obviously there is not much of an overarching theme at play here. Each pitcher has his own particular reasons for appearing in one of these two lists and many of those reasons are unique. I present the information mostly for the sake of information’s sake. Make of it what you will; I am going to go see if I can tease out any patterns based on disabled list appearances.

Previously, I looked at the pitchers with the biggest increases in fastball speed this past season. The list of the top 20 was dominated by relief pitchers, which is not a huge surprise given how volatile relief pitchers tend to be and since they tend to throw harder, on average, than starters, those fluctuations can cause bigger shifts in absolute speed.

Looking at the list from the other end, however – that is, from the pitchers that lost the most speed on average on their fastballs – produces more starters. Whether because starters will get more innings even when injured, a usual byproduct of diminished fastball speed, or some other cause is open for speculation, but the results are definitely interesting.

As promised, a list of the biggest drops in fastball speed from 2009 to 2008. A minimum of 50 innings pitched in each season was needed to qualify.

Joba Chamberlain, -2.5
Ervin Santana, -2.1
Ross Ohlendorf, -2
Jared Burton, -1.7
Tim Lincecum, -1.7
Daniel Cabrera, -1.7
Manny Delcarmen, -1.6
Chan Ho Park, -1.6
Brian Fuentes, -1.6
Jeremy Sowers, -1.5
Lance Cormier, -1.4
Chris Young, -1.4
Grant Balfour, -1.3
Mariano Rivera, -1.3
Tim Redding, -1.3
Oliver Perez, -1.2
Aaron Cook, -1.2
Kevin Gregg, -1.2
Kyle McClellan, -1.1
Aaron Heilman, -1

Obviously, the decrease in fastball speed meant little to Tim Lincecum as he went on to repeat his NL Cy Young. Ervin Santana’s recovery from injury in 2009 was far from 100% and how his fastball shows up in 2010 could have a major impact on the close AL West race. The Yankees might be starting to worry about the future ceiling of Joba Chamberlain and the Mets, well, the Mets should have been worried about Oliver Perez long before they inked him to that ridiculous extension.

The introduction of splits here on FanGraphs offers us a wealth of new information as my fellow writers have been expanding upon today. I do not have a post centered around splits today, but instead focused on an area that I continually find incredibly useful here somewhat related to splits: pitch-type breakdowns.

I love pitching and love dissecting its fluctuations from year to year. Tonight, I looked at changes in fastball velocity, both in terms of absolute change and in terms of a percentage over 2008 averages. Changes in average fastball speed do not tell an entire story by themselves, but I think they present several interesting points of fact.

I took a look at all pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched in both 2008 and 2009 and compiled lists of the biggest gains and losses in both fastball speed and fastball frequency. One thing that I found interesting was the seeming lack of relationship between the two. I would have expected pitchers that gained speed in their fastballs to be throwing them more often, but there was little to no correlation between changes in fastball speed and changes in how often pitchers threw fastballs.

Among pitchers with the biggest increases in average speed was Justin Masterson (+2.8 mph), Nick Masset (+2.6), a host of other relievers in the 2.0 range and a few starters mixed in as well, notably Justin Verlander (+2) and, surprisingly, Barry Zito at +1.6. Zito however, had a 5% reduction in percentage of fastballs thrown. Nick Masset was even more dramatic, throwing 15% fewer fastballs.

A top twenty list of increases in fastball speed follows and later tonight, a list of fastball speed drops.

Justin Masterson, 2.8
Nick Masset, 2.6
Matt Capps, 2.1
Ryan Madson, 2.1
Kevin Correia, 2
Justin Verlander, 2
Mark Lowe, 2
Huston Street, 1.7
Barry Zito, 1.6
Brad Penny, 1.6
Josh Johnson, 1.6
Jose Contreras, 1.5
Jon Lester, 1.5
Jonathan Broxton, 1.4
Wandy Rodriguez, 1.3
Luke Hochevar, 1.3
Miguel Batista, 1.3
Chris Volstad, 1.2
Bob Howry, 1.2
Ubaldo Jimenez, 1.2

The arbitration-avoiding contract deals continued today with Justin Verlander and the Tigers coming to an agreement on a five year, $80 million deal. Verlander had reportedly been holding out for a sixth guaranteed year, but ultimately settled for a deal that paid him just north of the deal that Felix Hernandez received last month. Verlander and Felix were both in the same contract situation, with two arbitration years left, so how do these two deals compare?

Felix is three years younger in age than Verlander, which is noteworthy, but given that Verlander is not exactly old at soon-to-be 27 and given how pitchers age, I do not feel this is that big of a deal. Hernandez had been slightly better than Verlander from 2006 through 2008, but as good as Felix was in 2009 – and he was very good – Verlander blew him out of the water. Verlander led the league in innings pitched, with 240, and strikeouts, with 269. Frankly, they are both near equals, each clearly one of the five best pitchers in the league.

Verlander is getting valued at a higher rate though. Not just off the extra $2 million in total value, which is really insignificant when talking about such large deals, but also because Verlander was expected to get less in arbitration for this upcoming season. While Felix seemed certain to fall in around $10 million, Verlander filed at $9.5 million and the Tigers countered at just under $7 million. I clearly would side with Verlander, but assuming they split the difference and signed a deal for a bit over $8 million, it increases the gap between Verlander and Hernandez over the final four years of their contracts to about $1 million per year. Still a very small amount, but worth noting.

I think the overall deal is sound for Detroit, but I am worried about their payroll. This deal likely pushes them over $120 million for 2010. If the team can hang on for the year, they will get significant relief in 2011 with the huge salaries of Nate Robertson, Magglio Ordonez and Dontrelle Willis coming off the books. In the meantime, it seems likely that teams will continue to circle around waiting for a Miguel Cabrera salary dump trade should the Tigers fail to compete in the AL Central.

How many different batting orders do you think the average team uses throughout a season? Go ahead, guess a number in your head right now. I will write out the actual number to hopefully deter your eyes from jumping ahead and fixating on it. Would it surprise you to find out that in 2009, the average number of different lineups used was one hundred and twenty-two?

While discussing the addition of Ryan Garko to the Mariners yesterday, a random comment passed by about manager Don Wakamatsu getting to use a different batting order every day for 2010 with all the platoon options he now has at his disposal. Out of curiosity, I wandered, figuratively, over to Baseball Reference to see how many different orders Wakamatsu used in 2009. I was shocked to find out it was 138. I checked other teams and continued being shocked, so I wrote down the number for every team.

The Cleveland Indians came the closest to that passing joke as manager Eric Wedge used 148 different batting orders throughout the season. Their most frequently used lineup went:

Grady Sizemore
Mark DeRosa
Victor Martinez
Travis Hafner
Jhonny Peralta
Shin-Soo Choo
Ryan Garko
Ben Francisco
Asdrubal Cabrera

Wedge used that order five times in 2009. Arizona ran out the next highest amount of differing order with 144. Most teams are in the low 100s. The standard deviation is 16 from the average of 122. Amazingly, the team with the fewest different batting orders used, Philadelphia, is almost 3.5 standard deviations away from the mean, and a far cry removed from any other team in baseball. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel utilized only 68 different batting orders, 29 fewer than the second fewest Florida.

Also surprising to me is that despite having one fewer player to pencil in (I excluded pitchers from the batting order), the National League averaged almost as much variance as the American League. The NL used an average of 118 different batting orders, the AL 126.

I am not claiming the number of different batting orders used to be meaningful in any way. They’re influenced by roster turnover, health, player effectiveness, the manager’s whim and a couple dozen other factors. However, if you had asked me before I had looked how many different batting orders the average team used throughout a season, I would have guessed around 60. I would have been way off.

Ben Sheets signing with Oakland did not surprise me in the least. GM Billy Beane has been making these kinds of deals for years now. What does surprise me is the money because usually on the heels of the announcement of the contract, I have nearly always been left wishing my team had been in on that player at that price. This time? Not so much.

The reported deal is for $10 million guaranteed with some as of yet unknown incentives thrown into the mix. In a straight vacuum, I think this is an overpay. On a one year deal in this winter’s economic climate, Oakland is paying Sheets like a three win pitcher. Three wins is solid pitching and there’s a decent chance, we will know more when they are leaked, that at a three win performance level, Sheets will be triggering some of those salary incentives, meaning he would have to pitch even better to justify the contract.

Neither CHONE, nor the nearly universally optimistic fans project Sheets to even be able to accrue three wins of value due to his very real injury concerns. It is important to remember that the injury that cost Ben Sheets all of 2009 was not his first, or even second or even third arm-related injury. A list of pitching-important injuries to Sheets in the last five years includes his elbow, hand, shoulder (twice) and back.

The 31-year-old last pitched a quasi-full season in 2008 and was worth about 4.5 wins. If he managed to reproduce those 200 innings thrown in 2010, I would expect something around 4 wins thanks to aging, injury-related decline and regression. Dock him another half win for the league switch into the American League and even at full health, I’m not confident Ben Sheets is better than 3.5 wins.

The signing does not come in a vacuum though. The AL West is very tight based on projections and Sheets, even at an expected 2 or 2.5 win total value represents a significant upgrade to Oakland’s win totals, which pushes them into the discussion for the division. As we have discussed plenty of times this offseason, those wins at the edge of the playoff picture are worth a lot of marginal revenue. There is also something small to say about signing Ben Sheets away from Texas and Seattle, both rumored to be interested. It leaves me in a weird balance between not liking the deal for them because of the cost, but liking the deal for them because of the increased playoff odds.

It is also strikes me as odd to see Oakland take risks with high payroll players. Injury reclamations are nothing new, but before they have always seemed to land them on the cheap, possibly luring them with the guarantee of playing time. This time around, Sheets had plenty of suitors and Oakland paid for it. Nevertheless, given Oakland’s position, still, as the fourth best team in the division on paper and the one year nature of the contract with Sheets, do not be surprised if Sheets’ name is on the trading block come summer. That would be another of Billy Beane’s specialties.

The Angels and Maicer Izturis came to an agreement today on a three-year contract reportedly for $10 million. If true, it buys out Maicer’s final year of arbitration and two years of free agency.

Maicer had asked for $3 million for his arbitration hearing and the team countered with $2.3 million. The 29-year-old was worth nearly three wins for the Angels last year and provided a lot of defensive flexibility, being able to man 2B, SS and 3B at an above average level. No matter the result of arbitration, Maicer was going to be a steal for the Angels, that they were able to rope in two more years at an insanely discounted rate is even more in their favor.

Given a full season’s worth of playing time, Maicer has been playing at about a three win level for the prior four seasons. Even in my most pessimistic scenario for Maicer Izturis, his market value for these three seasons is nearly $20 million. If you remove this arbitration year from the calculation – since we know the figures that were filed for and Izturis filed for way too little per his actual value – the Angels are still getting two free agency years at roughly a one win per season valuation.

Izturis even typically adds a few extra runs to the bottom line on the base paths. There is no other reasonable conclusion here: the Angels struck themselves a fantastic deal. The only question is whether he’ll continue to be used as a roving infielder behind Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar and Brandon Wood, a situation that should still allow him to get 400 to 500 plate appearances, or be given an opportunity to win one of those left-side positions.

Mark it down. January 22nd of 2010, the impossible has happened. Tony Reagins actually found a trading partner for Gary Matthews Jr! Obviously Omar Minaya couldn’t just sit back and let Dayton Moore sign Rick Ankiel and not react. No, surely The Contest trumps all and Minaya must have immediately begun searching out a way to put the hammer down on Moore. Of course; Matthews! Was Vernon Wells not available?

The above was the instant reaction for most people I saw as the news worked its way around the internet community. Taking a step back though, and much like yesterday’s Ankiel signing, I don’t think this is an awful deal for the Mets.

The details as currently reported says that the Angels are eating $21.5 million of the $23.5 million owed to Matthews over the next two years so the Mets are essentially getting Matthews on a 2-year, $2 million contract. In return, the Mets are shipping Brian Stokes back to Anaheim.

Now, Matthews Jr is awful. Do not assume I am defending him here, though he might get a minor tick better playing CF again. Stokes is not good either however. He struck out 45 and walked 38 last season and overall, he’s a below average 30-year-old reliever. He’s also coming off a decent season, ERA-wise and set to make about a half-million in 2010 and then enter arbitration.

End result? The Mets pay Matthews $1 million in 2010, expected to produce pretty much nothing. The Angels pay Stokes about $0.5 million in 2010, expected to produce pretty much nothing. The Mets certainly could have found a better player to be Carlos Beltran insurance, and so the wasted roster spot has some cost, but that would be based on how the Mets actually utilize Matthews rather than a variable of the trade itself. In terms of just this particular swap, I feel that its impact to both teams bottom line win and salary totals are close to a wash. It might be a pointless trade, but I don’t see either team getting the upper hand.