Is anyone familiar with this 2001 article?:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...?articleid=878
My friend and I were discussing this theory as we were watching some games this year. Basically saying that a pitcher has no control over whether balls in plays are hits. It is a hard thing to accept because it basically tells you that all the baseball announcers are full of it, when they think a pitcher got someone to flyout or that their to blaim for a base hit. I've been watching this years playoffs with this in my head, and it really seems to hold true. The better a pitcher does at preventing HRs, striking guys out and avoiding walks, the better he does. It seems if a guy gets tagged for a few base hits and give up a couple runs one inning, he'll get through a few scoreless to average things out. If a guy is walking guys all the time, giving up the long ball and not striking guys out, he isn't going to last long. Interesting theory for sure, really changes how you evaluate a pitcher's performance.