Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 11, 2008
Effectively Wild

Daisuke Matsuzaka walked three batters Saturday night, one with the bases loaded. Despite a rate of 5.7 walks per nine innings pitched this season, Dice-K sports a low 2.45 ERA and has yet to lose a game. That 2.45 ERA matches the best ever for a walk rate that high.

ERA < 3.00, BB/9 >= 5.5, Minimum 150 IP
PitcherERABB per 9
Hal Newhouser, 19422.455.6
Nolan Ryan, 19772.776.1
Herb Score, 19552.856.1
Bart Johnson, 19712.935.6

Ryan and Score struck out a ton of batters, which somewhat mitigated their high walk rates. Newhouser struck out 5.0 per nine. In 1942, players started to leave the majors for WWII. Bart Johnson pitched a lot in relief that season, and didn't have much of a career after that. He did make 18 starts in 1974 with a low ERA, but that was it for him. His strikeout and walk numbers in 1971 are closest to what Matsuzaka is posting this season.

One thing that's making Daisuke effective is that he's not giving into walks. He seems to treat them as a mistake he made to that batter, rather than something he has to fix for the next batter. So rather than trying to compensate by throwing the ball down the middle of the plate, he sticks with his game plan, which works quite well. With batters hitting just .170 against him, his opposition OBA stands at .298. It doesn't matter how you get to a low OBA, and so far, all the walks aren't hurting him. He fools enough batters to keep those free passes from turning into runs.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:53 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

his BABIP is below .200, he is due for some regression.

Posted by: Jc at May 11, 2008 10:39 AM

Haven't seen a Bart Johnson reference in the last umpty years. My favorite player when I was young and impressionable...

Posted by: Tor at May 12, 2008 12:14 AM
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