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.

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.