Daniel Bard talked about how examining his stats in depth convinced him he could succeed as a starter:

“I looked at more of the secondary stuff, like my batting-average-against [.176], my ground-ball rate [52.7] and my strikeouts-to-walks ratio [3.08]. If I can get close to those numbers as a starter — I know it’s not all going to translate directly — there’s no reason I can’t be successful. My gut instinct is that I can start in this league and digging a little deeper the numbers back me up. They give me more conviction that I can make this transition.”

He goes on for a while, and really seems to have thought this through. It’s another example of pitchers being ahead of hitters in terms of using stats. I wonder if this has contributed to the dip in offense? How many pitchers out there think like Zack Greinke and Bard, even if they don’t think about it?