/cdn.vox-cdn.com/photo_images/1177763/GYI0061677408.jpg)
So basically, I love whiffs. (That pretty much goes without saying for those of you who've been reading my work here at BtB.) This post will be dedicated entirely to the whiff, as I will present the pitches that garnered the highest whiff rates (misses per swing) in 2010. First, a few notes:
- I'll start by presenting two different top-25 lists - one for pitches that had between 100 and 249 swings, and another for pitches that had at least 250 swings. There are 586 pitch types for the 100-249 bucket and 406 for the 250+ bucket.
- These classifications are a mix of my own and Gameday's. I've classified pitches for many of the pitchers appearing on these leaderboards, though there are still some that are pretty rough. As an example, Shaun Marcum's changeup, which you will see somewhere on these lists, is a big group that contains sinking, cutting, and extra-slow variants (and hopefully not too many cutters mis-classified as changeups).
- Even if I've gone game-by-game on a pitcher, there's always going to be a degree of uncertainty and subjectivity regarding classifications; this is particularly evident in four-seam/two-seam distinctions.
- These data include pitches against both lefty and righty batters, though I admit that it would have been really nice to have split it up by batter-handedness. I don't have splits available for the whole league, but I can do lookups on specific pitchers.
- The league average whiff rate in 2010 was .208.
So, without any further ado, here are your best whiff rates of 2010.
Rank | Pitcher | Pitch Type | Whiff Rate |
1 | Cole Hamels | Changeup | .480 |
2 | Carlos Marmol | Slider | .465 |
3 | Clay Buchholz | Changeup | .462 |
4 | Francisco Liriano | Slider | .448 |
5 | Brandon Morrow | Slider | .444 |
6 | Kris Medlen | Changeup | .441 |
7 | Shaun Marcum | Changeup | .438 |
8 | Clayton Kershaw | Slider | .437 |
9 | Craig Stammen | Slider | .434 |
10 | Tim Lincecum | Changeup | .428 |
11 | Roy Halladay | Curveball | .427 |
12 | Jorge De La Rosa | Splitter | .414 |
13 | Ervin Santana | Slider | .413 |
14 | Mat Latos | Slider | .410 |
15 | Luke Gregerson | Slider | .407 |
16 | CC Sabathia | Slider | .405 |
17 | Edwin Jackson | Slider | .401 |
18 | Felix Hernandez | Changeup | .396 |
19 | Hisanori Takahashi | Changeup | .393 |
20 | Manny Parra | Splitter | .386 |
21 | Ian Kennedy | Changeup | .385 |
22 | Ryan Dempster | Slider | .378 |
23 | Adam Wainwright | Curveball | .377 |
24 | Zack Greinke | Slider | .376 |
25 | Jaime Garcia | Slider | .375 |
Rank | Pitcher | Pitch Type | Whiff Rate |
1 | Jonny Venters | Slider | .656 |
2 | Ryan Madson | Changeup | .645 |
3 | Stephen Strasburg | Changeup | .538 |
4 | Sergio Romo | Slider | .516 |
5 | Joel Hanrahan | Slider | .510 |
6 | Billy Wagner | Slider | .507 |
7 | Edinson Volquez | Changeup | .483 |
8 | Chan Ho Park | Slider | .478 |
9 | Manny Parra | Curveball | .475 |
10 | Peter Moylan | Slider | .473 |
11 | Huston Street | Slider | .464 |
12 | Clay Hensley | Curveball | .463 |
13 | Bill Bray | Slider | .462 |
14 | Jhoulys Chacin | Slider | .462 |
15 | John Ely | Changeup | .462 |
16 | Jonathan Papelbon | Splitter | .457 |
17 | Todd Coffey | Slider | .455 |
18 | Joel Peralta | Changeup | .449 |
19 | Esmerling Vasquez | Changeup | .449 |
20 | Ricky Romero | Curveball | .445 |
21 | Tony Sipp | Slider | .442 |
22 | Will Ohman | Slider | .441 |
23 | Carlos Villanueva | Slider | .441 |
24 | Joaquin Benoit | Changeup | .439 |
25 | Jaime Garica | Changeup | .437 |
Unsurprisingly, just about everything here is off-speed - a handful of curves, but mostly sliders and changeups/splitters. Takashi Saito's four-seamer sneaks onto the first list. Using the 250 swing cutoff, the chart below shows the ten best fastball whiff rates from last year:
Rank | Pitcher | Pitch Type | Whiff Rate |
1 | Takashi Saito | Four-seam | .374 |
2 | Matt Thornton | Four-seam | .320 |
3 | Tyler Clippard | Four-seam | .318 |
4 | Octavio Dotel | Four-seam | .300 |
5 | Hong-Chih Kuo | Four-seam | .299 |
6 | Jonny Venters | Sinker | .293 |
7 | Jason Motte | Four-seam | .277 |
8 | John Axford | Four-seam | .276 |
9 | Rafael Betancourt | Four-seam | .272 |
10 | Billy Wagner | Four-seam | .261 |
In case you were wondering, the pitches at the bottom of the lists are all fastballs, mostly two-seamers. Livan Hernandez's two-seamer, Lucas French's four-seamer, and Joe Blanton's two-seamer sit at the bottom of the list with whiff rates of .055, .066, and .067 respectively. The first non-fastballs to appear are Mark Buehrle's cutter (.096), Mitch Talbot's cutter (.121), and Rodrigo Lopez's slider (.140).
The data in this post are courtesy of Joe Lefkowitz's PITCHf/x tool.