Brian Bannister – The 5 Inning Pitcher

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jun 18, 2009 4:06 PM PDT Comment 7 comments

Sorry everyone, I am back to do another Royal this week by looking at Brian Bannister and his inability to pitch in the 6^th inning. Here is his splits for the various innings, times through the lineup and pitches thrown for 2009:

Split	R	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
1st inning	5	1	6	8	1.33	0.279	0.367	0.395	0.763	0.32	120
2nd inning	9	0	2	8	4	0.319	0.340	0.362	0.702	0.38	103
3rd inning	0	0	3	7	2.33	0.158	0.220	0.184	0.404	0.19	17
4th inning	5	1	3	9	3	0.205	0.262	0.308	0.570	0.24	64
5th inning	2	0	4	7	1.75	0.200	0.310	0.257	0.567	0.24	65
6th inning	10	2	4	1	0.25	0.459	0.512	0.703	1.214	0.43	249

1st PA in G	10	1	8	18	2.25	0.267	0.323	0.333	0.657	0.32	90
2nd PA in G	4	0	6	20	3.33	0.187	0.245	0.231	0.476	0.24	38
3rd+ PA in G	16	3	9	2	0.22	0.368	0.444	0.574	1.018	0.34	193

Pitch 1-25	7	1	6	11	1.83	0.267	0.333	0.350	0.683	0.31	98
Pitch 26-50	6	0	4	13	3.25	0.242	0.282	0.273	0.554	0.3	61
Pitch 51-75	3	0	6	12	2	0.239	0.316	0.296	0.612	0.29	78
Pitch 76-100	14	3	6	4	0.67	0.370	0.436	0.652	1.089	0.34	212

As it can be seen, batters really begin to tee off on him about 2/3rds the way through the game with batters having an OPS in the 6^th twice that of any point previously.

Looking at his Pitch F/X number I could not really find the cause. Here are his numbers in the first five innings vice in the sixth inning:

	Pitch	Number	Average Speed	Average Vertical Position
1st to 5th inning	Slider	367	86.62	2.13
	FourSeam Fastball	122	89.50	2.35
	Cutter	172	87.79	2.92
	Curveball	90	75.16	1.41
	Changeup	87	83.94	1.91

6th inning	Slider	83	86.47	1.94
	FourSeam Fastball	18	89.56	2.47
	Cutter	32	87.01	2.82
	Curveball	13	73.42	1.41
	Changeup	16	84.61	1.91

All of his pitches maintained speed and continued to stay down in the zone. I looked at several over factors (nibbleness, break, etc) and could not find a reason for the drop off. The only explanation I can rationale begins in the chart above where the player's OPS goes from 0.476 the second time in the lineup to 1.018 the third time. Brian is the epitome of finesse pitcher with 5 pitches he uses regularly and fastball the barely reaches 90 MPH. I figure that by the 3^rd time a player has seen Brian, they have figured him out and start hitting him.

Sorry I can't offer more. Next week I will be looking at Scott Baker or Randy Johnson, I haven't decided which one yet.

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I'd agree with your thought,

First at-bat: Hitter can get fooled
Second at-bat: Hitter knows he was fooled in 1st bat. Not exactly sure how OR knows exactly how and is over anxious.
Third at -bat: Knows he won’t get beat by anyone but himself, sits back and drills Banny.

If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.

by Warden11 on Jun 18, 2009 7:31 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

mystifying

two questions:

1) Is there pitch f/x available for 2008 to compare this to?

2) As I understand it, on average, every pitcher is worse each time through the order — so shouldn’t we be comparing pitcher’s “decline” to the league average?

Just askin’.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on Jun 18, 2009 8:47 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Answer to questions

1) He was much more average last year Link

2) Usually there will be some decrease in speed which none is seen. The league average OPS against a pitcher is .767 for the 2nd time through the lineup and goes up to .805 for the 3rd time through.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jun 18, 2009 9:07 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

thanks

would it be useful to incorporate comparison to average in these sorts of analyses?

Good stuff, although I’m having to ease up on the Royals stuff now that you’re on board (hee hee)!

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on Jun 19, 2009 6:26 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

what about looking at the mix of pitches he uses and how that changes (or doesn't/can't change) as the innings progress

Something of a flyer, but from what i know most pitchers try to get people out with certain pitches in the early innings but save something for the later at bats (i.e., using fastball/slider for the players’ first and second at bats and saving the curve/change for the later innings). Maybe Bannister has to use all his pitches from the get-go to work his finesse style (and his BABIP magic).

There is such a stark difference between players’ first two at bats and their third that something must be going on. It seems like a change in strategy from Bannister is more likely than the possibility that the batters learned something in their second at bats than they did in their first.

by benfunke on Jun 19, 2009 9:02 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

also possible that once he’s thrown around 75, something changes about his pitches that we can’t detect (yet) with pitch fx; maybe he shows the ball a little more in his delivery or he loses some cut on his cutter or tips his pitch type with something like arm speed (not that his pitches vary in speed that much).

by benfunke on Jun 19, 2009 9:05 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe he gets lazy

and has a tell later in the game tipping his pitches.

Baseball is God's sport! All Truth Goes Through Three Stages 1.It is ridiculed 2.It is violently opposed 3.Finally, it is accepted as self-evident. kinesiologist

by E5 on Jun 20, 2009 12:32 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

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