Pitching by the Numbers: Special K

Fantasy baseball has increasingly become a game of efficiency and strikeouts, which don’t seem to go hand in hand.

Efficiency is necessary to increase the probability of wins, handing the ball over to the dominant late-inning guys instead of the iffy middle-innings ones. It’s a product of our national obsession with pitch counts.

But strikeout guys have to throw more pitches because you need at least three to register one and often more than three. But what if we isolated the efficient strikeouts, those that come on four pitches or less, as a percentage, not of total strikeouts but of all outs.

That’s not only efficiency but even more pure dominance. What’s more in your face than dismissing a batter back to the dugout with the bat on his shoulder in a handful of pitches?

Using MLB play-by-play data from last year, we’ve calculated this rate of outs on strikeouts of four pitches or less, as well as the league-wide average (13%).

Not surprisingly, relievers who can let it all hang out on every pitch lead the list. So I cut them off at 20%, but I charted all pitchers with at least 1,000 pitches who were well above average — 17% was the cutoff.

Again, these are descriptive, not predictive. The batters have a big say, and some would convincingly argue most of the say, on striking out. The sabermetric guys put that control over batter-pitcher outcomes at 60% hitter.

I looked at the ranges top-to-bottom in key individual stats that have a hitting and pitching component: Slugging, OBP, OPS, AVG, SO%, BB% and my numbers came out to baseball, last year, being 57.3% hitting and 42.7% pitching. My assumption is that if pitchers and hitters exerted equal control, then the ranges top to bottom would be about the same for individual leaders and trailers (averaging out all categories). But hitters’ range beats the pitchers’ every time.

So that’s what we’re up against. The pitchers on this list are not 40% or 42% pitchers. They have skills that swing more of that control into their favor. But it’s still a big reason why the descriptive stats often do not prove predictive.

Now, about our list. First things first, Boxberger has to be rostered in all formats. He’s too dominant. Plus he’s probably going to close if he pitches anywhere near his 2014 level given that Jake McGee is a lefty and managers always prefer a righty closer, when the righty is dominant.

Chapman did not have 1,000 pitches, but I charted him anyway.

Since we know the relievers are dominant (but now we know PRECISELY how dominant), let’s focus on the starters.

Strasburg, Kershaw and Kluber, of course. That’s why you pay retail. But look at Carrasco, who I’d say is a poor man’s Kershaw but that seems like too faint praise. He may just be the AL Kershaw period. And he can be had 100 picks into drafts? That’s criminal.

I thought Trevor Bauer may be the NL Zack Wheeler before Wheeler got hurt and you know if you follow me on Twitter (@michaelsalfino) that Wheeler was on my overrated list. But Bauer is cheaper. Maybe he can be this year’s Kluber when we assumed it would be Danny Salazar.

Fiers has an ADP of 187. Why not take him there? And Phil Hughes is viewed as a guy who can’t dominate. Well, then what do you make of 18% of his outs being Ks on four pitches or less. That's nearly 40% better than average.

Discount Martinez for posting only good reliever numbers in relief. I’d expect him to be barely better than average at dominant Ks as a starter.

Justin Masterson? That’s a blast from the past for me. He gravely disappointed last year. But how did he still dismiss so many batters with such relative ease? The big issue with Masterson was a loss of velocity. If he somehow spikes back up to 2013 levels, I’m in.

Jacob deGrom, what can I say? Unfortunately, he’s much more pricey than some of these other guys. He actually goes ahead of Carrasco in most drafts and I can’t advocate that. But if you grab him after eight rounds, go for it.