Winning with an 89-mph fastball: an analysis of Brian Bannister (Part 1)

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Statistically Speaking: Winning with an 89-mph fastball: an analysis of Brian Bannister (Part 1)
Published 2/25/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
Statistically Speaking: Winning with an 89-mph fastball: an analysis of Brian Bannister (Part 1) The latest work from Mike Fast… Bannister claimed he’d been able to get batters to put the ball in play 155 times with a 0-2 or 1-2 count versus 78 times at 2-0 or 2-1. In 2007, batters put the ball in play against Bannister 78 times at 0-2 and 1-2 versus 61 times at 2-0 or 2-1. The numbers he quoted were for his career, so to check them, we need to add in his 2006 numbers, 19 and 17 respectively, to get a total of 97 career balls in play at 0-2 or 1-2 and 78 career balls in play at ...

Locational Run Values
Published 2/29/2008 by Joe Sheehan at Baseball Analysts
In the last couple of weeks there have been several great articles written about the run value of different pitches. These articles have explored how much every pitch in baseball is worth on a per-pitch basis, and while some of the math behind the scenes might be slightly different from article to article, the general idea is the same. You need to find out how much every event is worth in a given environment (based on the count, pitcher, stadium, or any other type of environment you're working with), and then multiply those weights by the number ...

The Griddle: The Revolution starts in Kansas City again
Published 3/9/2008 at Baseball Toaster
Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports interviews Brian Bannister of the Kansas City Royals . Bannister is likely the first major league player to implement knowledge of sabermetrics in a way that can improve his own pitching. Bannister finished 12-9 with a 3.87 earned-run average, and that was after his two final starts kicked up the ERA nearly a half-point. Otherwise, in his rookie season, Bannister would have finished among the top five in the American League with a record well above .500 in spite of playing for the moribund Royals. To explain Bannister s success in spite of his inability to overpower hitters is the crux of the scouts vs. stats debate that has raged for years but took root with ...

Schrodinger`s Bat: Spring Fling by Dan Fox
Published 3/13/2008 at Baseball Prospectus
... +1. Kansas City Royals As far as sabermetric circles are concerned, there is no more interesting pitcher this spring than the Brian Bannister . That's because Bannister has now become something of a posterboy for players using the ideas and techniques of performance analysis to find and exploit any and every advantage open to them. In Bannister's case, his three - part interview on MLB Trade Rumors and his use of PITCHf/x data in particular has analysts (present company included) all a flutter as we ponder just ...