RESEARCH: The Call of the Wild

A few weeks ago on BaseballHQ Radio, fantasy baseball expert Gene McCaffery said something intriguing while explaining why he would never, ever roster Yankees starter A.J. Burnett.

Among other problems, McCaffery said, Burnett was consistently among the major-league leaders in Wild Pitches (WP) and hit batsmen (HBP) — two stats not included in major metrics of pitcher performance.

At first, this seemed like just one of the many interesting asides that make our podcast entertaining and informative, and well worth listening to. But why aren’t we including WP and HBP in measuring pitchers? After all, two of our key measures — Ctl (bb/9) and Cmd (K/bb) — count walks, which are functionally no different from HBPs. And it seems at least...

Almost!

You’re just a few clicks away from accessing this feature and hundreds more throughout the year that have a singular goal in mind: Winning your league. Subscribe to BaseballHQ.com here!

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

More From Research

The pitching landscape has shifted yet again, and our Pure Quality Start metric undergoes a minor shift to level-set the results.
Nov 28 2023 1:01am
With the new pitch clock we examine who the clock may impact and how the clock may or may not impact pitcher performance.
Feb 23 2023 1:05am
Several years have passed since the original article. It's time for an update and a look at the initial 2021 list.
Jun 17 2021 12:04am
The elite rate at which Dansby Swanson produced 95+ mph exit velocity in 2019 suggests that he's an overlooked breakout target.
Jun 15 2020 1:05am
Nick Pivetta gave up less very hard contact in 2019 than you might think. Could it be a precursor to a rebound season?
Jun 9 2020 1:05am

Tools