Telling Pitching Stats

Sports handicapping can be viewed as many things – a test of intelligence, or a test of one's true knowledge of sports. It's also a trial of one's patience and self-discipline. And it's a constant battle of wits with the oddsmakers, who are paid handsomely not to be wrong very often.

If they do their job well enough, the oddsmakers will inevitably put "the house" in position to win. That's because in football and basketball, for example, they always have the 11-to-10 odds (or better, in some cases) working for them. In baseball, the odds for each game are set daily based on such basics as home team, the pitching matchup, "streaking" teams, "public" favorites, and so on. If the oddsmakers are right often enough, and the house balances its "book" properly, the house should come out ahead.

That's why sports handicapping is a battle of wits – because the sports bettor must usually win more than half his bets (or, be a great money manager, especially in baseball) in order to come out ahead. And that is why sports bettors who are "in" the challenge versus the oddsmaker for the long run are always searching for an edge, an angle, or a trend that "keeps on giving."

By its very statistically oriented nature, baseball is a sport that lends itself to handicapping analysis. Mind you, all the advantage of your research can be taken away with one stroke of the oddsmaker's pen (or, these days, a touch on his keyboard). And that's what oddsmakers do in setting the "prices" in baseball – they try to neutralize the obvious stats that favor one baseball team over another (winning percentage home and away, starting pitchers' earned-run averages, a "hot" streak or "cold" streak, weather factors in "over/unders," and so on).

Since I am one of those people who's in this exercise for the long run, it shouldn't surprise you that I prefer a different set of stats than those with which an oddsmaker can easily set the line. In judging pitchers, me liketh consistency and predictability. To me, that means pitchers who keep batters off the bases. It has been known for decades that when the first batter of an inning gets aboard, teams score in that inning about 35 percent to 40 percent of the time – more often for the good teams, less frequently for the weak teams. So, it's usually the case that the fewer the base runners (by hit, walk, hit by pitch, error), the fewer the runs. It is more taxing both physically and mentally for pitchers to perform when men are on base. It is also easier for relief pitchers and fielders on that team to perform when there are fewer base runners.

The number of base runners allowed per inning (or per nine innings) is a stat that's available in many print sources and on numerous websites. (I won't promote one over the others. It will probably help you overall to look around for it. And don't settle for just the last three games; that's too short a time frame.) The number of base runners allowed is also good to know for making "totals" plays.

My other favorite pitching stat used to be how often a pitcher throws a first-pitch strike to hitters. It was said long ago that the best pitch in baseball isn't a fastball, a hard slider, a split-finger, an "in-shoot," an "out-shoot," or any other twister, for that matter. The best pitch was, and still is, "strike one." The easiest way for a pitcher to pitch is to be ahead in the count. Batting averages escalate when the hitter is ahead. It's that simple.

The percentage of first-pitch strikes used to be available for every pitcher on what used to be my favorite baseball stat website. However, like just about every other website these days, that one decided to "upgrade," meaning more color, cleaner graphics, more links, more ads, and so on. Unfortunately, that "upgrade" meant using twice the space to display half the old information. Thus, there's no more first-pitch strike percentage information. (It's still around somewhere. If you know where, send me an e-mail).

However, as a substitute, I use the number of pitches a hurler throws per inning – a stat that is available every day on baseball's own website at "MLB.com" (along with a slew of other stats). If you're throwing fewer pitches per inning than the other guy, you're getting lots of strike ones. Obviously, successful pitchers such as Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez will be highly ranked. But you'd be surprised how that stat pointed quite early this season to the April success of lesser-knowns such as Runelvys Hernandez (K.C.), Esteban Loaiza (Chicago White Sox), Shawn Chacon (Colorado), Kyle Lohse (Minnesota), and Zach Day (Montreal).

Try it, you might like it!

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the first word in sports handicapping for 46 years. The amazingly compact Gold Sheet features analysis of every football and basketball game, exclusive insider reports, widely followed Power Ratings, and a Special Ticker of key injuries and team chemistry. If you have never seen The Gold Sheet and would like to peruse a complimentary sample copy, or would like information on its Late Telephone Service, call The Gold Sheet at (800) 798-GOLD (4653) and mention you read about it in Card Player. You can look up The Gold Sheet on the web at www.goldsheet.com.