Banny Log 041308
Posted: April 14th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 25 Comments »
Start No. 3: Vs. Minnesota Twins
Innings: 9 (complete game)
Earned runs allowed: 0.
Strikeouts: 3
Walks: 1
Decision: Victory (3-0)
Number of pitches: 111
Number of strikes: 72
BABIP: .115 (3 for 26)
Season BABIP: .175 (10 for 57)*
*I think I was misfiguring BABIP before — forgetting that strikeouts don’t count for BABIP. So this is the official number.
* * *
Over time, I have come to despise radar guns. I don’t mean that I disapprove of them or feel they’re useless or wish that teams would stop putting so much faith in their readings. I mean I DESPISE them, in the same way that I despise Duke basketball. I root against radar guns. I believe radar guns are way overrated. I wish radar guns would not get all the calls.
To hate like this, as Will Blythe wrote in his wonderful book about the Carolina-Duke rivalry, is to be happy forever. Because the radar gun is not going anywhere. It’s only getting more powerful and important. It too will start doing insurance commercials. Fans now expect those readings when they’re watching a game on television. They look for the numbers on the scoreboard at ballpark. General managers, when asking how a pitcher looked, often do not expect detailed views about a pitchers command and gameplan but rather are looking for a simple, “Plus curve, and he was throwing 94 in the eighth.â€
There are many, many reasons why the radar gun is a valid tool for evaluating pitchers — especially when you use it to measure OTHER pitchers like change-ups — but that’s not what this is about. I’m not talking right now about the gun’s value. I’m talking raw emotion. I DESPISE the radar gun, and I generally root hard for any pitcher who doesn’t break 90 mph but manages to consistently get people out.
This, at the core, is what Banny Log is all about. Sure, I really like Brian Bannister. I like him personally. I like watching him pitch. I like talking to him about pitching and about his gameplans, and also about movies and music*. And, of course, I’m fascinated by the idea that this guy really and truly cares about statistics — not in the back of the baseball card way, not in the “I have 17 wins and that should get me some great arbitration dollars†way but as a way to improve his game and get an edge. It really could start a Bannyball trend.
*Banny, apparently, likes Michael Buble’. As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I try not to judge people for their musical tastes. If he likes Michael Buble, hey, that’s cool, well, OK, maybe not “cool†in the sense that anyone might actually use the word, but it’s cool with me. My buddy at Warner Music has spoken well of Michael Buble .. I should see if we could get Banny and Buble’ together. Now THAT would make for a blog post.
Still, at the heart of things, I see this story as a rage against the machine, a John Henry story (but not the Red Sox owner — he probably likes radar guns). Banny does not throw his fastball 90 mph. He COULD throw it 90 mph, obviously, but that’s not his speed. That’s not his rhythm. His fasball consistently tops out from 86-88 mph, which is well below major league average, which is why nothing has ever been easy for the guy. He pitched quite well for the New York Mets, and they didn’t really believe it, they traded him for a 23-year-old knucklehead who could throw a million miles per hour. The Royals got Banny and they liked him all right, but the truth is they were unimpressed enough to start him in Omaha last year despite the fact that they were DYING for starting pitching. They didn’t really know what they had.
It’s all because of the gun. Banny has pitched with success at every level. He is well liked by everyone. Coaches marvel at his command, his focus, his sense of purpose on the mound. But he doesn’t throw hard, and he pitches off his not-so-fast fastball, and the scouts and decision makers have simply seen this act fail too many time before. The Royals used to have a pitcher named Kris Wilson, who was an absolute bulldog, a former football who went after hitters with everything he commanded the respect and appreciation of everyone around him. Unfortunately, his stuff was short, and he got whacked around a little bit, and there are no second chances for guys who throw in the 80s.
So Banny has had to prove himself again and again and again. He told me that at times in the minor leagues, he would consciously overthrow to light up the gun because he felt like that was his only shot at the big leagues. That’s a common tale. But Banny is the son of a pitcher, Floyd Bannister, who had GREAT stuff (he led the league in strikeouts one year), who made it to the big leagues in no time, who was — fairly and unfairly — tabbed as an underachiever for much of his career. So he had seen how that worked out. He had a better sense of himself than most guys (most hard throwers, I imagine, keep on trying to light up the radar gun until their careers wash away). He decided to go back to what worked for him, and he got people out, and he made his slow and steady climb to the big leagues.*
*Banny can (and has) gone on a long and entertaining soliloquy about how he owes his entire career to Scott Kazmir. He says when the Mets traded Kazmir, he was floundering in Class A ball. But as soon as Kazmir was traded, he was moved up to Double-A to take Kazmir’s spot. Banny was then given Kazmir’s place in the Arizona Fall League, and he pitched quite well. The Mets started looking hard at him at this point because, well, they no longer had Scott Kazmir. And when he made it to the big leagues, the opportunity was only available because Kazmir was gone. “You have to take advantage of it,†Banny says. “But that’s my whole career right there. I know there are still bad feelings in New York because of that trade, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me.â€
Now, he views the radar gun in the same way that Joe Morgan used to view scouts that called him a “good little player.†It’s motivation. It’s a reputation to beat. It’s an opponent to batter. Banny finds pitching fascinating because it’s so involved, so detailed — it’s an artform. Reducing that artform to a single number, like one of those sleep system beds, makes him ill. It’s like that scene in “Dead Poet’s Society†where Robin Williams is supposed to teach the class how to rate poetry using a scoring system. Banny is definitely a stand on the desk kind of guy.
Sunday, he was brilliant again. He gave up one unearned run in the first after Jose Guillen, determined not to take his batting woes out to the field with him, dropped a fly ball.* That run came around to score on a Justin Morneau single. That would be it for the Twins. After the first, Banny retired 12 Twins in a row. He gave up a single to Adam Everett in the sixth and followed that by hitting Brendan Harris. But he worked out of that by getting Jason Kubel and Morneau. He walked Mike Lamb in the seventh but erased him on a double play. He retired the side in order in the eighth and ninth.
*Then Guillen, determined not to take his fielding woes to the plate, promptly struck out. Then Guillen, determined not to take his fielding and hitting woes to his temper tantrum, flung his bad in disgust.
You know we keep up with certain things. Banny threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of the 30 batters he faced. He got batters to an 0-2 count five times and only one reached (he gave up that single to Everett after getting two strikes). He got five swings and misses, which probably doesn’t tell us much in these circumstances.
The big thing I saw is that, at least on this day, the Twins simply could not get good wood on the ball. They would hit one, and you would think from that centerfield camera, “OK, that’s hit pretty good.†And the outfielder would take two steps in and catch it. It’s no fluke — or it has been no fluke so far this year. There is a stat on Banny that I find absolutely incredible, and it’s not very advanced: Banny has pitched three games, faced 76 batters, and he has yet to give up an extra base hit. Not one double. I mean, that’s stunning. Sure, people will say that he can’t keep up that pace — and I agree, he will probably give up an extra base hit before the year’s out — but this is real. There is some late-breaking movement on his pitches that make it difficult to square up.
ESPN now projects Banny to go 41-0 with an 0.71 ERA, 176 Ks (those strikeouts are down!) and 68 walks in 284 innings. I’m holding firm that these numbers would get him the Cy Young Award. And we should all hold up radar guns in celebration.
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If I’m reading the BABIP numbers correctly (seriously, .115?), there’s no way he can sustain that. Of course, the fundamental flaw here is I’m trusting your math skills, Joe, rather than running the numbers myself.
Great, great stuff Joe. You could run a whole separate blog of just Banny stories and it would keep me coming back. I could read your writing about Banny all day long. He’s one of the most fascinating guys in the game and, thanks to his MLBTR interview, one of the most written about pitchers in the blogoshpere. But nobody captures Banny like you do. Once you get done with the Reds you need to follow Banny around for a year for your next book. Keep up the GREAT work Joe!
There is nothing so enjoyable as discussions based on small sample sizes. Bannister is a Cy Young favorite, Mark Reynolds is your early leader in the NL MVP race (And ESPN.com doesn’t even have a photo for him yet!), and George Sherrill is the man Rolaids has always dreamed of.
On the one hand, it’s comforting to know things won’t stay this way, because I need to be able to believe that some things are predictable, but at the same time, it’s great for these guys that they’ve managed to come up huge early in the year. A similar stretch in August gets lost as just a blip on the radar, but here in the early going, these guys are getting some press, and good for them.
This reminded me of the kid the Royals have at AA ball, Rory Hardy. He does throw hard and had a great tyear last year. This year not so good as I looked up his stats, but while looking I see that huge Hawiian first baseman Kaaihue has jacked 5 in 9 games so far. We haven’t had a power hitter in so long that we thought Guillen off roids looked like one. WRONG
No kidding, Banny’s BABIP is low, too low to be true–unless fans agree with me that he got that Light of Maddux that I’ve been seeing–and Baseball Info Solutions marked 0.178 BABIp here:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5718&position=P
Other peripherals: K9, 5.57; walk9, 2.14; HR9, 0.00 (of course, no extra base hit!), Left-on-base%, 81.3 % (they just can’t advance!); FIP, 2.82…
He’s my most exciting pitcher to watch for this season, more than any others I favored (mainly strikeout pitchers, like Zambrano, but Haren and Webb mixed in).
One skeptical look at him, though, is that with the other 12 batters whom Banny couldn’t get ahead in counts early, he got 3-1 or 3-2. He used quite a lot of pitches to work the batters, but vice versa, he threw more.
You could tell with 2603 pitches in 165 IP last season, Banny would use, on average, close to 16 pitches per inning. Maddux was more economical (13-14 ppI), but I wonder if Banny was trying to test the batters, or even challenge them.
In any event, let’s hope that Brian will not overthrow and get hit more down the stretch. He was hit a little bad then end of season, which is maybe more common to pitchers needed-to-be-worried.
And thanks, Joe, for telling me where that photo came. It was fun to spot a trace of “Made in Taiwan” (China Trust, actually not from China) where I never expected a link (Kansas City, well, it was probably New York like you said).
I love Bannister too, and I wish he were still pitching for the Mets, and I certainly enjoy the Banny Watch and everything, but this is a fluke. I think the guy can consistently outperform his DIPS, but not by a great amount, and that’s not enough to make him a great talent. I really hope he proves me wrong, though.
This is unrelated, but I’ve tried to search for Joe’s “The Legend of Bo” article on Bo Jackson and I think it’s gone from the KC Star archives. Can anyone else find it?
Excellent log, as usual. Steve above was trying to remind us of Rowdy Hardy. I’d like to see you compare the two. Apparently Hardy’s fastball is weaker, in the Kris Wilson range you mentioned. – TL
Of course, the Twins have a combined team VORP of -0.1. Not that I’m upset about that or anything…
Radar guns measure throwers, not pitchers.
Ted Williams used to say it was a pitcher’s job to disrupt a batter’s timing. Bannister seems to be locked into that role. Seems like he’s a student of the batters he faces; knows what they think they can hit and can’t, knows what they want to hit but won’t.
I’ve wondered just how many variables an individual player can process. I suspect Bannister knows which umpires have a small strike zone and which will give him the black part of the plate, and pitches accordingly. “Half this game is 90% mental,” and all that…
But it’s such a demanding specialty, a highly-refined, incredibly difficult skill-set to become a major league pitcher, there has to be a temptation for a guy to concentrate on mechanics, speed, control… and not take into consideration the guy who’s trying to hit the ball and the guy who’s calling balls and strikes.
Tom “Flash” Gordon is one of those pitchers with incredible physical ability who never got the game part of of baseball. Part of being a “game” is that the other guy is playing with you and your brain.
I like Bannister’s arm, but I like his brain even more. Even if he doesn’t go 41-0 with an 0.71 ERA, he’s a good part of this year’s Roylz story, I think. I suspect he’ll be a good influence on Zack Greinke and other young arms. And brains.
Anybody else want Bannister to play catcher the days he is not pitching- I bet he would call great game from behind the plate. I know it is a pipe dream- but in the end- you agree.
Looks like The Word has spread… here’s an ESPN article comparing Banny to Maddux:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/notebook?page=bbtn
And just for good measure, if anyone hasn’t seen this feature on Maddux, it’s WELL worth the read:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3336514
I was at the game yesterday and had good seats. The Twins hit some balls hard, but they were all to left field. The wind was blowing from the North and was blowing from left field to right field.
Banny seems to say in the Star today he was giving the hitters left field so maybe it was a strategy. Nonetheless, when the Midwest warms up and the wind starts blowing out, he will not have that luxury.
I love the fact that the Mets, if not for a pair of absolutely horrific trades, could have a rotation of Santana, Kazmir, Bannister, Maine and Perez, with Johann being the oldest at just 29. Barring injury, they’d have been set in the rotation for years.
Of course, Bannister would still be in Double A under this scenario….
So what does the title, ‘eleven. exactly. one louder’ mean? Am I the only dense one that doesn’t get it?
What a stupid I am?
“So what does the title, ‘eleven. exactly. one louder’ mean? Am I the only dense one that doesn’t get it?”
————–
It’s a reference to a line in Spinal Tap
The day after Banny’s start in Detroit, Greinke said it was the first major-league game he had ever seen where a team didn’t “square up a single ball” in nine innings.
Dan, for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhVWJgIzftE
I have what may be a special Cleveland beef with the radar gun. On the Indians network broadcasts of the Indians games, they display the radar gun reading after every pitch, but they display it in the same space in the scorebox where they display the ball/strike count. So after every pitch, if you want to see the new count, you have to wait for the radar gun reading to go away.
Meanwhile, right above that in the scorebox, is the STO logo (Sports Time Ohio), which of course can never be covered.
It just irritates the hell out of me that they will cover up vital game information, to show less relevant game information, but god forbid that their precious logo be covered for so much as a second. Hey, guys, I know what channel I’m watching and furthermore, that is information that a) has nothing to do with the game and b) isn’t going to change.
Excuse me, I think I hear some kids on my lawn.
I had hopes for Guillen to match his Mariner numbers from last year. Sadly, flinging his bad in disgust remains his only mark of excellence this year.
As the father and coach of a college bound pitcher who throws mid 80’s as a senior and who can’t get D1 schools to look at him simple because of velocity. His ERA last season was .90 with a 8-1 SO to walk ratio and opponents hitting .226 and oh yea he wins. But we must all bow to the mighty radar gun becasue it tells us everything we need to know about pitchers.
I join your merry bandagon of rage against the machine!
1) There is no way Banny keeps it up.
2) If there is justice in this world, Banny will keep it up.
3) Let’s all hope this is a just world.
Gogiggs (18), thanks for the Spinal Tap link. I hadn’t seen it and it’s hilarious.
Kyle (21), this most definitely isn’t a just world, but I truly hope Banny can keep it going.
Joe- is there any way we can get a post about the effectiveness of a first pitch strike? Something along the lines of what Bannister is doing, can you direct me to where I can see some numbers of advantages of being ahead in the count?
I have an important question. What kind of dog is that in the picture at the top of the blog page?
This Banny Log is fantastic. As Always.
Thanks, Joe!
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