RESEARCH: Do pitching skills differ from the wind-up and stretch?
Jul 3 2013
The greatest advances in fanalytics revolve around evaluating pitchers. The next steps will no doubt be fueled via the electronic collection of batted ball data. But while we wait for that information, there is something troublesome about pitching analysis—specifically starting pitching.
Every starting pitcher generates a body of statistics which we treat as a singular entity. But here’s the problem: Each starting pitcher is actually two starting pitchers: wind-up guy and stretch guy. By lumping the numbers together, we create an inherent assumption that both skill sets are identical.
Intuitively, this seems wrong. It seems that since every starter is two different pitchers, we must analyze each subset of data individually.
Admittedly,...
Almost!
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