When Bill James speaks, many in the baseball committee listen intently–as they should. James, while certainly not always correct in his theories (and, really, who is), can always be counted on to provide the larger community with excellent food for thought.

In this most recent case, James claimed that ground ball pitchers have essentially been overrated. Per Rob Neyer:

Any analyst can give you a long list of reasons why ground ball pitchers should be the best pitchers. The problem is, they’re not.

Make a list of the best pitchers in baseball. Make a list of the best pitchers in baseball, in any era, and what you will find is that 80% of them are not ground ball pitchers. They’re fly ball pitchers.

…

What I have never understood about ground ball pitchers, and do not understand now, is why they always get hurt. Show me an extreme ground ball pitcher, a guy with a terrific ground ball rate, and I’ll show you a guy who is going to be good for two years and then get hurt. I’m not saying this about Chien-Ming Wang and Brandon Webb; I was saying this before Chien-Ming Wang and Brandon Webb. They’re just the latest examples. Mark Fidrych. Randy Jones. Ross Grimsley. Mike Caldwell. Rick Langford. Lary Sorensen. Clyde Wright. Fritz Peterson. Dave Roberts. They’re great for two years, and then they blow up. Always.

Now, there is a lot that can be teased out here, but I want to focus on the last part of James’ claim–that ground ball pitchers are more injury prone. Are ground ball pitchers (specifically, extreme ground ball pitchers) more injury prone?

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Sometimes there seem to be two separate branches of saber-oriented blogging: one that uses sabermetric tools to analyze current events (player transactions, in-game strategic choices, etc.), and another which focuses on more theoretical issues (e.g., specific hitting and pitching metrics). Obviously, the latter is supposed to ground the former, but there still seems to be something of a disconnect between the two levels in popular perception. I say this because I was recently part of a discussion in which some were pointing out the superiority of linear weights run estimators for individual hitters to the approach of Bill James’ Runs Created. Someone then made a comment to the effect that this was simply a nit-picking preference for a “pet metric” that really did not make that much of a practical difference.

Sabermetrics is far from being a “complete” science in any area. Debates about how best to measure pitching and fielding are obvious examples of this. With respect to run estimators, there is a greater level of consensus. However, because of the progress (at least relative to pitching and hitting) that has been made with run estimators for offense, that also means there is less of a difference between the metrics. However, it does make a difference. Rather than arguing for one approach to run estimation over another, I want to simply look at a few different free agents from the current off-season to see what sort of difference using one simple run estimator rather than another would make on a practical level.

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People have been complaining about the length of ballgames for years. While batters stepping out of the box presents its own irritations, one thing that can really get a crowd angry is excessive throwing to first base to hold the runner or pick him off. Years ago, Bill James (and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one) proposed a solution to this “problem,” and I am curious to see what people think today.

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In a post earlier this week, I mentioned a Bill James quote: “If you could split [Henderson] in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.” James was totally serious. Since James wrote those words, Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has become the Nerdosphere’s favorite total value stat. Does it support James’ contention? Let’s “split Rickey in two” and found out.

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People use the description “old player skills” in various ways, from a particular plate approach to a lack of defense to a player’s just being (or looking) “un-athletic.” The term was originally coined by Bill James as a description of hitters who display skills that in their early-to-mid twenties that typically manifest later in hitters: increased power and walk rates along with lower speed and a decreased ability to hit for average. While hitters with good power and high walk rates are obviously valuable, the notion is that younger hitters who rely on those skills while having less of the others will have an earlier overall offensive peak and decline than usual. Which hitters who displayed “old player skills” in 2010?

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Being a magician myself I am very familiar with the work of the legendary Harry Houdini. A masterful illusionist and escape artist, Houdini ruled the magic world from 1899 until his untimely 1926 death. His name continues to live on in magic lore but apparently has found its way into the game of baseball. At Bill James’s website a statistic is kept, titled “Houdinis.” Much more of a list than a stat, persay, it keeps track of every pitcher that finds himself in a bases loaded, no outs situation, and escapes unscathed. In terms of technicalities, the pitcher cannot be charged with a run at all in the inning, regardless of whether or not it scored as a result of the bases being loaded; if I give up a home run, then load the bases and escape the situation, it does not count.

This year, the following pitchers have recorded Houdinis:

• Rafael Betancourt, 3/31, Top 8
• Rich Harden, 4/2, Top 1
• Michael Wuertz, 4/2, Top 7
• Jamie Moyer, 4/3, Top 2
• Tony Pena, 4/5, Bot 8
• Dustin McGowan, 4/9, Top 5
• Jamey Wright, 4/14, Top 8
• Jesse Carlson, 4/16, Top 11
• Franklyn German, 4/21, Bot 6
• Nelson Figueroa, 4/22, Bot 2

Seeing as Fangraphs specializes in win probability data it seemed natural to look at the WPA of each situation. This will enable us to determine which Houdini act was the most magical. There is a potential problem right off the bat, though, in that a pitcher inheriting the bases loaded and escaping without damage will always have a higher WPA; they would not be debited at all for loading the bases. Due to this, Jesse Carlson’s performance of +.479 would completely dwarf everyone else; the other nine pitchers, who began their inning, came in at +.112 or below. We could revert to WPA/LI to get a context-neutral feel but, since Carlson is alone in terms of inheriting the bases loaded it is easier and just as WPA-effective to simply exclude him. Here are the results:

• Betancourt, .112
• McGowan, .072
• Figueroa, .052
• Harden, .049
• Moyer, .017
• Pena, .015
• Wuertz, .013
• Wright, .010
• German, .001

German got in and out of the jam while trailing 8-0 to the Red Sox; they were not very likely to win prior to his efforts and had not really increased their chances regardless of his magical escape act. Betancourt’s WPA leads primarily due to the fact that his Houdini occurred in the 8th inning of a 7-7 game and recorded three outs on a fielder’s choice (out at home) and double play to end the inning. Still, though, Carlson entered the top of the eleventh inning, in a tie game, with the bases loaded, and struck out the side to end the threat. Pretty darned impressive.

With one out in the top of the third, and a 2-2 count, Felipe Lopez made a futile effort to hit a filthy, down and in John Smoltz slider. With the whiff, Smoltz earned a lifetime membership to the 3,000 Strikeout Club, a group that previously consisted of just fifteen pitchers. Making this feat even more remarkable are the facts that Smoltz missed a little over a year due to Tommy John surgery and, upon returning, found himself closing games for 3+ seasons. He became the fifth pitcher this decade to join the club, joining Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, and Pedro Martinez.

Smoltz gave a phone interview to Baseball Tonight following the game in which he admitted to downplaying the milestone as much as he could until the reaction of the Atlanta crowd proved too much to simply brush aside. Later on the show, Kruk and Showalter answered e-mail responses to the posed question: What active pitcher has the best shot at 3,000 strikeouts? Kruk went with CC Sabathia and Showalter went with Johan Santana. Some of the e-mails suggested the likes of Carlos Zambrano, Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels. This got me thinking: Which current pitchers really do have solid shots at joining Smoltz and the others in this illustrious group?

In order to help answer that question I called upon Bill James’s Career Assessments formula; this used to be known as his “Favorite Toy.” ESPN set up a page on which you can type in numbers corresponding to the appropriate fields and generate the current total a given player will amass based on the projected length of his career, as well as the probability said player reaches a specific target. For instance, I used Sabathia, who is currently 27 years old with 1142 career strikeouts entering this season. Plugging those numbers in as well as his strikeout totals for the last three seasons, the system projects Sabathia to pitch 7.5 more seasons averaging 188.5 strikeouts per year. This would give him 2,557 strikeouts for his career with a 26.2% chance at reaching 3,000.

I repeated this for every pitcher that currently has at least 900 strikeouts and was born during or after 1975. Pitchers like Mike Mussina and Jamie Moyer have upwards of 2,600 strikeouts but they are not likely to pitch much more after this season and do not quite rack up the K’s anyway. It is also difficult to plug King Felix and Hamels in because parts of their prior years are not likely indicative of what is to come. Of the 22 pitchers assessed only eight actually had a chance at 3,000; everyone else came out as having a 0.0% chance. Here are the eight, with their projected career total and chance at 3,000:

• Johan Santana: 2961, 47.6%
• Javier Vazquez: 2941, 44.9%
• Jake Peavy: 2827, 40.8%
• CC Sabathia: 2557, 26.2%
• Carlos Zambrano: 2510, 24.6%
• Josh Beckett: 2216, 11.3%
• Roy Oswalt: 2170, 4.0%
• Chris Carpenter: 2106, 1.3%

Of course things can change, and this system is not completely perfect, but it does shed light on just how hard it is to strike 3,000+ batters out. For fun, I plugged Felix Hernandez in and he came out with a projected total of 2,066 K with a 13.4% chance. After adjusting his 2005 season to be closer to what he may have gotten in 30+ starts, though, he comes out with 2286 and a 21.1% chance. Another interesting case is Aaron Harang, who has seemingly learned how to strike out guys as of late; Harang currently projects to 2210 with a 13.1% chance.

If you had to pick just one pitcher, in the above list or not, who would it be?