The 20 Best/Worst Groundballing Seasons, 1950-2001 by Carson Cistulli February 25, 2011 As the title of the post indicates, this is a list of the 20 best and also worst groundballing seasons, 1950-2001, as estimated by the Retrosheet ground-out/air-out (GO/AO) data hosted at Baseball-Reference. For more on the research here, please don’t hesitate to read the last article in this series or a discussion of same at Tango’s Inside the Book blog. I’ve also included a brief discussion of some name on this list after the leaderboards. Here are the 20 best groundballing seasons (xGB% is Expected Groundball Percentage and xGB+ is xGB% relative to league average in the relevant season): Pitcher Team Year GO/AO xGB% LgAvg xGB+ Steve Trout* CHC 1984 3.62 67.9% 43.2% 157 Tommy John* LAD 1978 3.72 68.4% 43.9% 156 Tommy John* LAD 1977 3.87 69.2% 44.6% 155 John Denny PHI 1983 2.90 63.5% 43.9% 145 Kevin Brown FLA 1997 2.99 64.1% 44.4% 144 Bob Stanley BOS 1982 2.82 62.9% 44.3% 142 Tommy John* NYY 1988 2.57 61.1% 43.2% 142 Bill Swift SEA 1988 2.57 61.1% 43.2% 142 John Denny CLE 1981 2.79 62.7% 44.6% 141 Kevin Brown FLA 1996 2.70 62.1% 44.3% 140 Dennis Lamp CHW 1982 2.68 61.9% 44.3% 140 Orel Hershiser LAD 1984 2.45 60.1% 43.2% 139 Kevin Brown TEX 1989 2.47 60.3% 43.3% 139 Jerry Reuss* LAD 1982 2.60 61.3% 44.3% 139 Tommy John* LAD 1976 2.50 60.5% 43.7% 138 Kevin Brown TEX 1990 2.37 59.5% 43.0% 138 Ray Fontenot* NYY 1984 2.40 59.7% 43.2% 138 Al Brazle* STL 1950 2.24 58.4% 42.2% 138 Chuck Rainey CHC 1983 2.50 60.5% 43.9% 138 Bill Swift SFG 1993 2.43 60.0% 43.5% 138 Here are the 20 worst groundballing seasons: Pitcher Team Year GO/AO xGB% LgAvg xGB+ Sid Fernandez* NYM 1989 0.35 21.6% 43.3% 50 Eric Milton* MIN 1998 0.43 25.7% 44.3% 58 Sid Fernandez* NYM 1992 0.42 25.2% 43.2% 58 Herb Score* CLE 1955 0.41 24.7% 41.6% 59 Sid Fernandez* NYM 1990 0.43 25.7% 43.0% 60 Sid Fernandez* NYM 1986 0.45 26.6% 43.7% 61 D. Eckersley CLE 1977 0.47 27.4% 44.6% 61 Kevin Foster CHC 1995 0.48 27.8% 44.6% 62 Luis Tiant BOS 1977 0.49 28.2% 44.6% 63 Sid Fernandez* NYM 1988 0.47 27.4% 43.2% 64 Catfish Hunter OAK 1973 0.49 28.2% 44.4% 64 Bill Butler* KCR 1969 0.50 28.6% 45.0% 64 Rick Helling TEX 2000 0.48 27.8% 43.5% 64 Sid Fernandez* NYM 1985 0.49 28.2% 44.1% 64 Roger Moret* BOS 1974 0.49 28.2% 43.7% 65 Rick Helling TEX 1998 0.50 28.6% 44.3% 65 Eric Milton* MIN 2001 0.50 28.6% 43.5% 66 J.H. Johnson* OAK 1978 0.51 29.0% 43.9% 66 Connie Marrero WSH 1952 0.49 28.2% 42.4% 67 Denny Neagle* COL 2001 0.51 29.0% 43.5% 67 Notes: • Of Tommy John, whose name appears frequently on the leaderboard, The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers says, “John threw a sinking fastball 85 to 90 percent of the time from the beginning to the end of his major league career.” Said Guide also quotes from John’s biography, as follows: I was blessed in that my ball naturally broke down. The sinkerball was my meal ticket. But I also learned the mechanics that added to my natural ball movement. I learned them when I was with the White Sox. Ray Berres, the pitching coach there, taught me to throw with my hand position going from straight up to straight down. It takes effort and a lot of practice to throw the ball that way, since the uncorrected tendency is to keep your hand positioned at an angle. It’s called throwing high-to-low, and that’s the way I pitched, driving the ball down with my hand and fingers. • Sid Fernandez, whose name appears constantly among the most fly ball-oriented of pitchers, was noted for throwing a “rising” fastball — and is, in fact, cited as an example of such at the Wikipedia entry for same. Of Fernandez, Wikipedia notes that Fernandez “was known for throwing a rising fastball from a slightly ‘submarine’ motion.” • Kevin Brown was sooooooooooo good — not only featuring excellent GO/AO numbers, but also, at his best, posting huge K/BB ratios. • If we included numbers for 2002-10, Derek Lowe and Brandon Webb would both feature multiple seasons on the top-20 leaderboard and Chris Young would place among the laggards at least twice, I think it is. • For a spreadsheet with all relevant data, click here.