We had a nice long discussion about Jonathan Sanchez on here a few days ago, with many of his supporters enamored with his high strikeout totals and his detractors (well, me) still looking at his high walk totals.

That prompted one of my readers to point me to an interesting study by Derek Carty at The Hardball Times. You can read it here, but essentially Carty says that strikeouts do more good than walks do harm. In other words, a pitcher who strikes out 10 and walks five per nine innings is likely to be more successful than one who strikes out two and walks one, even though their ratios are the same.

While I think that Mr. 10/5 is still going to have trouble getting deep into games because his pitch count will be much higher than Mr. 2/1, I'm willing to concede that there is something to the suggest Mr. 10/5 can still pitch more effectively for as long as he lasts.