intrastatelovesong: Here are the top pitches (rated as most effective at preventing runs, a pitcher with a great changeup will have a more effective fastball even if it's not as good on its own) from fangraphs for 2009-11.

Fastball:
1. Ted Lilly (i think it's hilarious that a mid to high 80's fastball has prevented the most runs in the past 3 years)
2. Matt Cain
3. Cliff Lee
4. Johan Santana
5. Josh Johnson

Curveball
1. Adam Wainwright
2. Bronson Arroyo
3. Livian Hernandez
4. Josh Johnson
5. Gavin Floyd

Slider
1. Clayton Kershaw
2. Zach Greinke
3. Shawn Marcum
4. Adam Wainwright
5. John Danks

Changeup
1. Felix Hernandez
2. Tim Lincecum
3. Shawn Marcum
4. CC Sabathia
5. Ubaldo Jimenez

Thank you very, very, very much for doing the legwork on this wonderful and interesting list. Seems that Marcum has been woefully underrated as he, Josh Johnson, and Adam Wainwright are the only ones to show up on multiple lists. It also proves how important command is as no one would say that Ted Lilly or Livan Hernandez have the best anything based purely on stuff. 

Still, I’d be interested in seeing how they arrive at these conclusions. If the batted ball numbers they use are based on the same data from which UZR is derived, a flawed statistic in itself, then I would expect some corrections. 

A wonderful jumping off point, though. 

  1. oldtimefamilybaseball posted this
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