MLB Pitchers: Top Ten Effective Curveballs

Who has the most effective curveball? Taking all the curveballs together, the average outcomes in terms of Home Runs allowed, Swings and Whiffs, B:CS ratio were calculated.<br /><br />First, the benchmarks - league averages. <br /><br /&g

by Harry Pavlidis (Columnist)

4

498 reads

Sports

April 09, 2008

MLB, AL East, NL East, NL Central, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Roy Halladay, Pedro Martinez, Ben Sheets

Share this Story

  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • Print
  • Email

Who has the most effective curveball? Taking all the curveballs together, the average outcomes in terms of Home Runs allowed, Swings and Whiffs, B:CS ratio were calculated.

First, the benchmarks - league averages.

Swing Rate 40.8%
Whiff Rate 25.3 %
B:CS 2.1:1
HR% 4.6%

So, if you're better than average on all these, you throw strikes, get hitters to swing and miss, and don't give up homers.

Who makes the cut? Ten pitchers. Some superstars, some not. Here is their PFX chart - I'm using the absolute value of pfx_x to show lefties and righties together.



Here are the numbers for each pitcher














name thrown HR% Swings% Whiff% B:CS mph pfx_x pfx_z spindir spinrate
Ruddy Lugo 156 0.0% 45.5% 28.2% 1.5 75.5 7.7 7.4 226.6 1093.7
Juan Gutierrez 38 0.0% 47.4% 27.8% 1.5 76.0 6.3 7.4 219.7 1009.8
Pedro Martinez 42 0.0% 54.8% 39.1% 1.7 71.1 7.3 5.7 228.6 990.7
Justin Germano 306 0.3% 42.5% 26.2% 1.4 68.1 7.9 7.6 226.3 977.2
Roy Halladay 192 0.0% 42.2% 39.5% 1.9 77.8 7.3 3.2 244.9 865.3
Bobby Seay 105 0.0% 41.0% 34.9% 1.3 76.8 6.8 3.0 115.3 802.7
Ben Sheets 144 0.0% 45.1% 26.2% 1.9 80.1 4.4 4.3 225.8 694.6
Eric O'Flaherty 22 0.0% 40.9% 44.4% 1.2 80.2 2.2 2.8 153.5 688.5
Manny Parra 70 0.0% 54.3% 31.6% 1.5 76.2 3.5 4.5 144.7 627.3
Victor Santos 22 0.0% 45.5% 30.0% 1.4 76.1 3.8 4.1 220.9 601.1



Wednesday night I'll post on Impressive Curves. Hill and Zito come to mind.

Sports

498 views

Share:

  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print

comments (4) write a comment »

  1. Hi Harry,

    This is interesting data. Where are you finding this? Please post it on my bulletin board when you can.

    Thanks,
    Jarek

  2. O'Flaherty throws a curveball?

    Hill and Zito do come to mind on impressive. I'd throw in Bedard, Hughes, Lincecum, McClung as well.

  3. Doug Davis has a pretty-looking curveball when he throws it.

  4. O'Flaherty's pitch may be a slider - I have to analyze him individually to confirm.

    All the data comes via MLB.com

    I'll have my post on "impressive" curves up late tonight

write a new comment


Edit this Article Article History

About the Author Harry Pavlidis (columnist)

  • 46 articles written
  • 22 comments posted
  • 3 fans

Want to write for Bleacher Report

We are a community of fans who write about sports. And we're growing.

Learn More and Sign Up »