Doesn’t it seem a little bit negligent—or, if you don’t want to go that far, lazy—to completely disregard it?

One disappointing lesson I took from 2009 is that the front office is not as directly involved with the day-to-day management of the team as I expected. I am hesitant to believe that Shapiro thought it was wise to send Garko into the outfield or deny Marte plate appearances at a time the club needed more data on him, and yet those things occurred. So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that it isn’t standard procedure for pitchers and catchers to be studying these data. But the front office clearly believes that data helps them make better decisions… why aren’t they showing their coaches and players how they can benefit from the data as well? I don’t understand. It seems to me like it should be a standard part of a player’s routine.

I didn’t know they had room for a TV in their mom’s basement amidst all the computer screens!

see what I did there?

I wonder if we shouldn’t separate the pitcher’s approach to strikeouts from the evaluative use of the statistic. That is to say, a pitcher might be able to improve his performance by de-emphasizing the strikeout. Think about what’s ancillary to a pitch-to-contact approach—improved control from slightly reduced velocity, decreased pitch counts, a faster pace (which the much-maligned conventional wisdom says leads to better fielding), etc. I think there’s a lot of value in a pitcher not actively aiming for strikeouts.

Of course, when we look at pitching lines as fans, we can’t de-emphasize strikeouts. Good pitchers will get K’s no matter what their approach is—they’ll just get a few less than they would otherwise. Fausto’s a good example—his strikeout rate basically has easily and conspicuously tracked his success or the lack thereof, but it was always obvious he wasn’t consciously attempting to strike out the batter.

I think the Indians should have demoted him to the minor leagues, then left him off the playoff roster. Then, there would be no doubt in my mind that he’d bounce back to win the Cy Young next year.

Too bad we’ll never know what Jake Westbrook circa 2008 would have looked like.

I remember reading that his problem getting lefties out, which the statistics seem to bear out ( .317 .385 .500 line against, although he had a high BABIP and he wasn’t that much better against righties, .806 OPS against).

His changeup is effective against righties, but he needs a breaking ball to be effective against lefties, and his breaking ball was spotty at best this year. There is reason to believe he can improve, as his minor league numbers show that he has actually been more effective against lefties than righties (10.13k/9 against lefties vs. 7k/9) against righties.