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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Hisashi Iwakuma Best Pitcher in MLB?

According to Total Runs for 2013, Hisashi Iwakuma was the best pitcher in baseball.  Why would he even be close many of you are thinking I'm sure.  Let's check his basic stats.
14-6/2.66 ERA/185 K's/219 IP?

On the outside this appears to be pretty good season.  W-L could be better but as we should know by now we need to dismiss that useless stat.

His ERA was good for 3rd in the AL, so his ERA says he wasn't the best so what possibly could?

Another basic stat, Strikeouts he only had 185 of them in 219 IP, what is so good about that?

You might be thinking I'm crazy but know we take a deeper dive.

WAR for Pitchers lists him at 7.0 which is the best in the AL.  Some of you people might be reading this and thinking what?  Max Scherzer is the best pitcher in the MLB because he had 21 wins!  If you think this, well you might as well read another blog because this one isn't in your point of view at all.

His ERA+ was 138, a pretty good total but Clayton Kershaw's was 194 so with that we can say no Iwakuma is not the best pitcher in the MLB.  I could add Park Factors, or AL to NL Adjustments but I doubt they make much difference because Dodger Stadium is an extreme pitcher's park and Safeco is no hitter's park. 

To add onto this is FIP numbers say he got a bit lucky with his 3.44 FIP.  Fangraphs lists his WAR at 4.2, well below B-Ref. 

What about we take a check with Brooks Baseball on Iwakuma?

Trajectory and Movement - from 03/30/2013 to 10/12/2013
Pitch TypeCountFreq  Velo (mph))
Fourseam84627.57% 90.56
Sinker79025.75%89.79
Slider55418.06%81.59
Curve1896.16%72.84
Split68922.46% 86.04














 








 

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