Pitching Clusters

What do all of these pitchers have in common?

Joe Kelly
Tyler Chatwood
Andrew Cashner
Edwin Jackson
Tyson Ross
Zach Wheeler
Jordon Zimmerman
Micheal Wacha
Ivan Nova
Nathan Eovaldi
Matt Garza
Chris Archer
Jared Cosart

They actually have several things in common and these are

A) They are all quite young with the exception of Garza and Jackson.

B) They all have a 3.50 ERA or lower besides Garza and Jackson.

C)This is a list of some good young pitchers.

You may be asking yourself, why are Matt Garza and Edwin Jackson even on this list.  They meet the requirements to be on it is my answer,  Here the things that got these pitchers on this particular list. 

- Right-handed pitcher
- High MPH 93+
-Starting pitcher
-Ground ball pitcher (More groundballs then fly balls)
-Throws their fastball 60% or more of the time

All of these pitchers and most likely a few more that I may have missed meet this.  This is just one example of a pitching cluster.  A pitching cluster is a group of pitchers who are very similar not by their stats, although in this cluster it worked out that way, but also similar traits.  The book that I got this data from, the Bill James Handbook 2014, had a few pages before showing most of this data which explained several things.  A) Fastball MPH is not correlated with pitcher success very much.  B) Groundball % does not make good pitchers.

I would have to say though on the topic of B. that this point is false.  According to these pitchers, GB % is a good factor in how they succeed.  However, we can take my argument with a grain of salt because this is a small sample of pitchers. 

Continuing on the topic of pitching clusters, I will show you the 2nd and final cluster I have figured so far. 
The following pitchers are in this cluster.

-Travis Wood
-Andy Pettitte
-Mark Burhele
-Cliff Lee

The Traits
-Lefty
-Low fastball velocity
-Starter
-Similar repertoire of pitches

I couldn't really make a Groundball, Fly ball requirement because these pitchers were all mixed.  Travis Wood is an extreme fly ball pitcher and somehow he survived and thrived in the extreme hitter's park that Wrigley Field was in 2013 with a lower 3 ERA.  However his FIP said he might have outperformed his skills a bit.  I don't believe that FIP is park-adjusted however so to me wouldn't Travis pitching in a hitter's park and his luck in FIP about balance themselves out?  It makes sense to me but I don't really know. 

Thanks for reading, I will have up a post on Luck and Where to Find it (Part 2) and I might do another pitching clusters one.