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While watching the White Sox / Orioles game tonight, I was pleased to see John Danks pick Brian Roberts off at first. I've noticed that Danks has improved at keeping runners at first. In his rookie season, baserunners were 91% successful (with 2 pick offs) and last year they were only 74% successful (with 6 pick offs). That's nothing compared to Mark Buehrle.

A baserunner against Mark Buehrle has a better chance of being picked off then actually swiping a base. In his career, he has picked off 61 baserunners and only given up 36 stolen bases. That's incredible. Even outside of Buehrle's pick off move, only 41% of baserunners have been successful stealing. The league average is 73%.

I started wondering, what kind of an effect does this have? I'm going to break it down by adjusting WHIP. WHIP stands for Walks + Hits per Inning PItched. Essentially, WHIP looks at the number of baserunners per Inning (excluding errors). Buehrle's pitched 1865.2 Innings, given up 1937 hits and 431 walks, so a 1.269 WHIP.

Among active players, a 1.269 career WHIP is the 21st among active players . That feels about right, he isn't an Elite pitcher, but he is still very good. Now, what if we remove his Pickoffs (61) from his Walk+Hit total? That ends up with a WHIP of 1.236.

Does this make any difference? That adjustment moves him up to 15th. Now to be fair, I didn't adjust all of the players in baseball, just Buehrle. Still, the guy he passes up (Brandon Webb) only has 8 career pickoffs, so Buehrle benefits from a change like this more than any other MLB pitcher.

Obviously, adjusting the WHIP like I did isn't really a helpful exercise. WHIP does a good job of measuring baserunners per inning, so no adjustment is really needed. My point is that while Buehrle might lack the strikeout numbers of the elite pitchers, there is something to say about a guy who has pitched 8 straight seasons of 200+ IP and is excellent at neutralizing the opponents running game.

Note: Repost from rmlumley.com.

9 months ago Headerrock_bigger_tiny shaftr 16 comments 2 recs  | 

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Comments

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this is pretty incredible:

A baserunner against Mark Buehrle has a better chance of being picked off then actually swiping a base. In his career, he has picked off 61 baserunners and only given up 36 stolen bases.

MB shutting the running game down and not hurting himself is probably the difference between being an above average innings eater vs a very good innings eater.

Props to MB.

by madvillian on Apr 23, 2009 11:14 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

We can never have enough folks on SSS

linking to their own sites. Soxmachine, rmlumley, whatever. I bet colin and U-God are next.

TAEG is too much of a puss to leave the nest. Too Tribal.

Good info, shaftr.

We’re a pack of a-holes.
by rhythm on Apr 14, 2009 1:45 PM EDT

by winningugly on Apr 24, 2009 8:52 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

I liked it

Something I’d be interested is if there is any tilt to the distribution of Buehrle’s pickoffs per month. Anecdotally at least, it feels like over the years teams try to run on him more early in the season, as if they were testing to see if he still has the good pickoff move. Once it is established that, yeah, he does, the seem to stop running on him later in the season.

Of course, I may just be imagining things.

White Sox: Trying to roll a hard six.

by vince_ on Apr 24, 2009 9:26 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

huh.

i didn’t realize authors of this site were permitted to write about baseball on other blogs.

SSS twitter race: me or the cheat? http://twitter.com/SouthSidelarry

by larry on Apr 24, 2009 9:41 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

Why do you think they call it "shaftr"?

We’re a pack of a-holes.
by rhythm on Apr 14, 2009 1:45 PM EDT

by winningugly on Apr 24, 2009 12:03 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

Rec'd that.

We’re a pack of a-holes.
by rhythm on Apr 14, 2009 1:45 PM EDT

by winningugly on Apr 24, 2009 12:54 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

lock me up

to an exclusive contract.

by shaftr on Apr 25, 2009 11:48 AM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

this is front page worthy material.

you can always simulblog. but it deserves more eyes than it’s going to get in a fanshot and on your site.

SSS twitter race: me or the cheat? http://twitter.com/SouthSidelarry

by larry on Apr 25, 2009 12:20 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

i know have the ability to move it there

but I feel wrong doing so. I don’t mind changing this into the entire post and putting it on the front page.

by shaftr on Apr 25, 2009 2:26 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

i'm not talking about linking or bringing this fanshot up.

i mean the article, post, whatever should be on the front page in full text so people read it.

SSS twitter race: me or the cheat? http://twitter.com/SouthSidelarry

by larry on Apr 25, 2009 2:31 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

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