Daisuke Matsuzaka Analyzed, Part I: A Quick Look At Pitch Counts
Published April 15, 2007
The most economical pitchers throw fewer than 3.5 pitches per batter (Greg Maddux is especially good at this, although he's not exactly a strikeout pitcher anymore).
So is Matsuzaka throwing more pitches than conventional wisdom says he should be?
For starters...
Maybe we shouldn't be messing with something good. If a pitcher is dominant and happens to go deep into counts, should a pitching coach have him pitch to contact more?
Let's take a look at how many strikeouts Matsuzaka racks up PER PITCH. This actually doesn't completely give us insight into the above question, but I think it's a start and gives us an idea of how dominant he was in Japan.
In 2006, Matsuzaka threw 2981 pitches (give or take a couple). His K/Pitch ratio is 0.0671.
To contextualize, here are the top seven pitchers in baseball by K/Pitch in 2005 (credit to an excellent article at The Baseball Analysts).
1. Johan Santana, .0714
2. Jake Peavy, .0684
3. Pedro Martinez, .0683
4. Mark Prior, .0665
5. Chris Carpenter, .0627
6. Randy Johnson, .0616
7. A.J. Burnett, .0600
Looks like Matsuzaka is in good company - Mark Prior's health woes aside.
What this tells me is that even if his pitch counts have been high, a K/100 pitch rate of 6.71 K's per 100 pitches thrown is extremely high, indicating that in terms of dominance, Matsuzaka is near the top.
But, this doesn't necessarily mean he's efficient either. He could still be using more pitches to achieve those strikeouts.
Later this week, in Part 2 of this article, I'll try to break down some other statistics to get an idea of Matsuzaka's "efficiency."
- Daisuke Matsuzaka Analyzed, Part I: A Quick Look At Pitch Counts
- Published: April 15, 2007
- Type: News
- Section: Sports
- Filed Under: Sports: Baseball
- Writer: Will Li
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Comments on this articleComments
I agree that Maddux was never a strikeout pitcher, but his K rates were pretty respectable, usually around 6-7 per 9 IP. But you're absolutely right about his pitch counts being low because of the contact he induced (and his miniscule walk rate).
Now I would be very interested to see how many pitches it usually took to Maddux to strike out a batter. I'm going to look for this, as even though Maddux is an extreme example, it could be an interesting stat to see.
As for Ryan and Matsuzaka, the results weren't all that similar (high K's aside if we compare across leagues), although Ryan had some low WHIP years due to minimizing hits despite his high BB/IP rate.
But approach? That's kind of interesting actually. Ryan's heater was great, sure, but he got pretty good later on in studying hitters but not compromising his stuff (i.e., if he knew someone couldn't his a change, he wouldn't rely on that information if his change wasn't working well on a particular day).
From what I've seen of Matsuzaka, he's similar in approach in that he seems to have a very distinct game plan when he pitches.
Ryan, of course, did like the high heat, which apparently Matsuzaka does as well. The key there is control of course. Miss high and they don't swing, miss low and the hitter punishes you.
If you've seen the analysis of his delivery on Hardball Times, it would be interesting to compare his time to the plate with Ryan's - it strikes me (harr harr) that they would both have very quick deliveries after the windup.
At MLB.com, Will Carroll put together a video comparison of Matsuzaka and Clemens. Once you get past the fluff of the early delivery, everything involving the push from the rubber forward is identical. Considering how often Ryan and Clemens are stapled to each other and presented as a set, the comparison of Matsuzaka and Ryan intrigues me.
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/62528)
Maddux was never a strikeout pitcher, really; he 'pitched to contact', getting hitters out on weakly-hit balls and keeping the ball in the park. That keeps pitch counts down.
How do you think Matsuzaka and Nolan Ryan compare in approach and results?