How Many Pitches Does it Take? Part Two

As promised, let’s split up the starters from the relievers. Rather than set an innings barrier, I instead opted to eliminate all of those with less than 50% of their appearances coming in the form of starts. Our friendly neighborhood Ryan Franklin no longer qualifies to be spoken about and the overall numbers drop like you would expect. Here’s the causality breakdown:

5 P – 7 dropped
4 P – 34 dropped
3 P – 64 dropped
2 P – 30 dropped

That leaves:
5 P – 21 pitchers
4 P – 85
3 P – 70
2 P – 9

How did they fare?

If you’re thinking to yourself that those numbers look a lot like those presented yesterday, then you have a good memory. In fact, here’s the differentials between yesterday and today:

Note that a negative value indicates a drop in FIP.

5 P: 0.02 runs
4 P: 0.03 runs
3 P: 0.08 runs
2 P: 0.66 runs

As expected, looking at mostly starters sees the run averages increase.

To address some concerns from this analysis:

I’m not looking at grips, arm slots, release points, etc. instead simply the classification of the pitch. Some of the classifications are erroneous or too simplistic for the pitch style. That’s understandable.

Also not looking at the quality of the pitch, that would take examination on a pitch-by-pitch basis.

Looking at individual pitchers before and after the addition of a new pitch is definitely something I’ll look into pursuing. No guarantees though.