Daily Notes: Adjusted Strikeout Totals for Every Friday Starter

July 6, 2013

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. Adjusted Strikeout Totals for Every Friday Starter
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Adjusted Strikeout Totals for Every Friday Starter
Introduction
Despite allowing four runs, Texas right-hander Nick Tepesch also struck out nine of the 22 — or, about 41% — of the batters he faced on Friday, the best rate among all of the evening’s 30 starting pitchers. That he did it against the Houston Astros, however — i.e. the club whose batters strike out more often than any other club’s — assuredly renders the feat less impressive.

“How much less impressive?” is a question the author more or less asked himself on Saturday morning — and the one he attempted to answer slightly less early on Saturday morning.

The results of the attempt are published below. What the author has done is to identify the strikeout rate for each team relative to league average. That figure is represented as an index stat, Opp K+, where a lower figure signifies a lower team strikeout rate relative to league average. The author has then divided every pitcher’s strikeout rate from Friday’s game by Opp K+, the result of which is an adjusted strikeout rate for the pitcher, or Adj Pit K%.

Table: Adjusted Strikeout Totals for Every Friday Starter
By the methodology described above, here are the adjusted strikeout rates and totals for all of Friday’s starting pitchers (sorted by adjusted strikeout rate):

Rank	Name	Team	Opp	IP	TBF	Act K	Pit K%	Opp K+	Adj Pit K%	Adj K
1	Ivan Nova	Yankees	Orioles	9.0	31	11	35.5%	93	38.2%	12
2	Jeremy Hellickson	Rays	White Sox	7.0	26	9	34.6%	104	33.3%	9
3	Nick Tepesch	Rangers	Astros	5.0	22	9	40.9%	128	32.0%	7
4	Wade Davis	Royals	Athletics	7.0	28	8	28.6%	99	29.0%	8
5	Justin Masterson	Indians	Tigers	4.2	24	6	25.0%	86	28.9%	7
6	Jorge de la Rosa	Rockies	D-backs	5.1	22	5	22.7%	94	24.2%	5
7	Francisco Liriano	Pirates	Cubs	9.0	33	7	21.2%	98	21.6%	7
8	Felix Doubront	Red Sox	Angels	6.2	26	5	19.2%	91	21.1%	5
9	Rick Porcello	Tigers	Indians	7.0	27	6	22.2%	111	20.1%	5
10	Tyler Skaggs	D-backs	Rockies	8.0	26	5	19.2%	98	19.6%	5
11	Mark Buehrle	Blue Jays	Twins	7.0	27	5	18.5%	103	18.0%	5
12	Gio Gonzalez	Nationals	Padres	6.2	28	5	17.9%	105	17.0%	5
13	Aaron Harang	Mariners	Reds	6.0	24	4	16.7%	103	16.3%	4
14	Lucas Harrell	Astros	Rangers	3.2	22	3	13.6%	88	15.4%	3
15	Paul Maholm	Braves	Phillies	6.0	27	4	14.8%	99	15.0%	4
16	Tommy Milone	Athletics	Royals	8.1	31	4	12.9%	86	14.9%	5
17	C.J. Wilson	Angels	Red Sox	6.2	32	5	15.6%	105	14.8%	5
18	Miguel Gonzalez	Orioles	Yankees	6.0	27	4	14.8%	100	14.8%	4
19	Hyun-Jin Ryu	Dodgers	Giants	6.2	26	3	11.5%	87	13.2%	3
20	Jacob Turner	Marlins	Cardinals	6.0	25	3	12.0%	91	13.2%	3
21	Zack Wheeler	Mets	Brewers	5.0	24	3	12.5%	97	12.9%	3
22	Cliff Lee	Phillies	Braves	6.1	27	4	14.8%	117	12.6%	3
23	Kevin Correia	Twins	Blue Jays	6.0	30	3	10.0%	96	10.4%	3
24	Mike Leake	Reds	Mariners	5.0	21	2	9.5%	110	8.7%	2
25	Jeff Samardzija	Cubs	Pirates	6.0	31	3	9.7%	113	8.6%	3
26	Dylan Axelrod	White Sox	Rays	1.2	14	1	7.1%	91	7.8%	1
27	Matt Cain	Giants	Dodgers	2.1	17	1	5.9%	92	6.4%	1
28	John Hellweg	Brewers	Mets	3.2	26	0	0.0%	112	0.0%	0
29	Jake Westbrook	Cardinals	Marlins	7.0	25	0	0.0%	95	0.0%	0
30	Andrew Cashner	Padres	Nationals	2.0	15	0	0.0%	108	0.0%	0

Three Notes
• There are a number of variables — probably important variables — for which this methodology doesn’t account, obviously. Like, the actual nine batters in each team’s lineup, specifically. Nor any sort of strikeout factor that might be belong to the respective parks involved.

• Those caveats having been made, the answer to the author’s original question — i.e. “How much less impressive was Nick Tepesch’s performance from Friday because it was against the Astros?” — the answer seems to be “About two strikeouts less impressive.”

• Ivan Nova’s 11 strikeouts against 31 Baltimore Orioles would appear actually to represent the most impressive of Friday’s adjusted strikeout rates, the Oriole batters striking out 7% percent less often than the average major-league team this far this season.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Oakland at Kansas City | 14:10 ET
Jarrod Parker (100.2 IP, 114 xFIP-, 0.3 WAR) faces Ervin Santana (111.0 IP, 87 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR) in a matchup which — for a number of reasons, likely — would be difficult to explain to a resident of Kansas City from 1957. Or a resident of Philadelphia anytime between 1901 and 1954. Or a deaf person, if you don’t know sign language. Or someone who speaks a non-Germanic or -Romance language. Or probably just anyone’s grandfather, because that’s how grandfathers are, generally.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland Radio.

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.4.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Chris Tillman	BAL	4	9	5	4	5	NYA	Andy Pettitte	13:05
Mike Pelfrey	MIN	1	3	5	7	9	TOR	R.A. Dickey	13:07
Jarrod Parker	OAK	4	6	6	6	7	KC	Ervin Santana	14:10
Nathan Eovaldi*	MIA	7	1	6	4	6	STL	Joe Kelly*	14:15
Anibal Sanchez	DET	10	7	7	8	3	CLE	Carlos Carrasco	16:05
Charlie Morton*	PIT	6	7	6	5	5	CHN	Edwin Jackson	16:05
Jason Marquis	SD	0	7	4	1	9	WAS	J. Zimmermann	16:05
Jer. Bonderman	SEA	0	5	4	3	9	CIN	Mat Latos	16:10
Tim Hudson	ATL	5	8	4	1	3	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	19:15
Chris Sale	CHA	10	1	7	10	4	TB	Matt Moore	19:15
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	6	2	7	3	10	TEX	Yu Darvish	19:15
Stephen Fife	LAN	6	2	6	6	7	SF	M. Bumgarner	19:15
Shaun Marcum	NYN	4	6	4	4	4	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	19:15
Ryan Dempster	BOS	3	7	4	6	4	LAA	Jerome Williams	22:05
Drew Pomeranz*	COL	6	8	6	2	6	AZ	Wade Miley	22:10

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.