Ground Ball Pitchers---now among the elites where they've always deserved to be

"When a batter fails to put the ball in play, there is little or no chance for him to reach base or to advance runners on base. [I guess this means excluding walks, bunts]. Among batted ball types, infield flies are the least harmful, followed by ground balls, outfield flies, and line drives. Although groundballs result in a higher batting average than fly balls, their run impact is lower because the hits are usually limited to singles and an occasional double down the first or third base line,

• whereas balls in the air that turn into hits are almost always doubles, triples, or home runs."

(Thank-you Rich Lederer for the above, from baseballanalysts.com, 1/8/07).

Lederer adds, "According to Dave Studenmund's Batted Balls Redux article in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007, strikeouts had a run impact of -0.113, infield flies -0.088, groundballs 0.045, outfield flies 0.192, and line drives 0.391 per incident last year."

Mr. Lederer has a graph showing results for GB and SO pitchers with a minimum of 100 IP, but wait---he promises that tomorrow he'll show results for RELIEVERS. I appreciate David Pinto of Baseball Musings highlighting this article.

• (This study puts the lie to the phony propaganda that more strike-outs are always better than ground balls. If you have a pitcher with men on base and get a ground ball, you can get what is called a ....DOUBLE PLAY. This primarily happens with a GROUND BALL PITCHER, of course...NOT WITH A PITCHER WHO HAS MORE AIR OUTS).

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