2008 Mets Rotation And K/100 Pitches

by James Kannengieser on Mar 4, 2009 8:00 AM EST

Strikeouts per 100 pitches (K/100) apparently has a stronger correlation to runs allowed than strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9). Here are the members of the 2008 Mets rotation and their K/100:

	Johan Santana	Oliver Perez	John Maine	Pedro Martinez	Mike Pelfrey
K/100	5.73	5.35	4.80	4.61	3.31
K/9	7.91	8.35	7.84	7.18	4.93

This stat combines two important abilities for a pitcher: strikeouts and limiting pitch counts. Also, most pitchers last about 100 pitches per start, so it's basically K's per start. Oliver Perez had a better K/9 than Johan Santana, but a worse K/100 because he averaged 3.97 pitches per plate appearance (P/PA). Compare to Santana's 3.73 P/PA. Of 142 pitchers who tossed at least 100 innings last season, Santana placed 18^th, Perez 30^th, John Maine 54^th, Pedro Martinez 64^th, and Mike Pelfrey 122^nd in K/100.

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Comments

Maine = Perez?

it’s interesting that the proportional difference between John Maine’s k/9 and k/100 is so much closer to Ollie’s than Johan or Big Pelf. I always have this perception of Maine being steady and Ollie erratic, but maybe it’s just that Ollie is more erratically erratic and Maine is more steadily erratic … if that makes sense.

by MordecaiBrown3 on Mar 4, 2009 10:38 AM EST reply actions

I hear ya

I think Maine was 2nd only to Kazmir in pitches per plate appearance. Every at-bat is a foul ball marathon.

by James Kannengieser on Mar 4, 2009 10:49 AM EST up reply actions

I'm not sure equal is the right word

Maine’s problems come from having balls constantly being fouled off , which often lead to walks and having to be pulled early because of high pitch counts.Where as Ollie’s implosions usually came from either walking a ton of batters and giving up long balls, or both. So I guess they’re equal in that they both struggled with walks but it was because of different reasons. Plus with Maine we don’t know how much he was being affected by the bone spur.

by Gina on Mar 4, 2009 12:01 PM EST up reply actions