Add new comment

We all know that pitchers like Wang are doomed to failure sooner, rather than later...but how do you know when the wall is approaching and you should eject?  The logical thing to do, as a hitter, when facing Wang or Erickson or Pinata is to force them to get the ball up.  Most of their swerveballs are going to miss low and out of the zone - they have to nibble to win - so if you just patiently take a whole bunch of pitches and only swing when you get a read on the movement and think it will be at least thigh high...you should be able to work up his pitch count and crack some dingers too.  So what would that look like statistically?  How would we know when the pitcher has been booked by the league?
How about pitches/PA?
Eeeeh...logical, but a look at Erickson's P/PA summary suggests that although the ratio went up subtly from 3.48 in his first three years to aroud 3.60 thereafter, the difference was small.
I want to steer clear or BABIP because that can be misleading on a season to season basis and we're trying to use one season or even a partial sesaon to predict the future.  How about GB/FB?
Hm...now I'm confused...Erickson's GF/FB actually went way UP when he started sucking.  Interesting.
LD% makes sense (and clearly increases as Erickosn gets worse), but that is extremely volatile year to year.
Any ideas?