Baseball Pitching Stats Explained

Somebody once said that "statistics are the lifeblood" of the game of baseball. And while one can argue that too much statistical anlysis can take away some of the romance of the game, none can deny that in order to understand the game fully, one must be willing to become a bit of a stat geek.

That might not be such a bad thing, though. Being a stat dork has done wonders for Bill James, Billy Beane, and Theo Epstein, just to note some of the most prominent statistics addicts who have translated mathematical realities on paper into success on the ballfield.

One who glosses over those little letters and abbreviations next to the win-loss column of a pitcher's record or box score does so at his peril. Because those abbreviations are the codes that reveal the statistics, and each one of those statistics can teach you something entirely new about how to watch and understand the game of baseball.

So here's a quick primer on pitcher's statistics: their common abbreviations, what they mean, what they represent, and some relevant records for each statistic, just to give some perspective to the codes.

H stands for "Hits" surrendered by a pitcher. If one is reading the daily box score, that period would be the game. On a statistics sheet, the relevant period may be a season or even the player's entire career.

HR means number of Home Runs Surrendered. The record for most blasts given up in a single season is 50 by Bert Blyleven. Hall of Famer Robin Roberts gave up the most career homers, with 505.

ERA means "Earned Run Average," which measures the number of earned runs surrendered by a pitcher per every nine innings pitched. Not all runs surrendered by a pitcher are earned runs. For example, runs that score as the result of an error are not charged against the pitcher, and thus won't hurt his ERA.

The lowest ERA of any pitcher in baseball history who threw at least 150 innings in the subject season is 0.96, by Dutch Leonard of the 1914 Boston Red Sox, who pitched 224 innings and gave up just 24 earned runs.

Last year, the average ERA in the American League was 4.50. The National League average was 4.43.

SO: Number of batters the pitcher struck out. The record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game is 20, held by Roger Clemens (who did it twice), Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson. The single season record is 383, by Nolan Ryan, who is also the career leader with 5,714 strikeouts in his 27-year career.

BB: Number of walks (a/k/a bases on balls) surrendered by the pitcher. Nolan Ryan, the all-time strikeout leader, is also the lifetime leader in walks surrendered. During his career, Ryan walked 2,795 batters.

BB: Number of intentional walks surrendered by the pitcher (these are factored into the pitcher's overall walk total.)

OppBA (sometimes listed as OppAVg): This represents the batting average against the pitcher. It's what the guys who've faced the pitcher have hit against him. For example, if a pitcher faces 500 batters in a season, and gives up 150 hits, the Opponent's Batting Average is .300, which is high. The league latting averages last year were .271 (AL) and .266 (NL), respectively. A guy who pitches that much above the league average might not be in the majors for too long.

WHIP: Walks + Hits per Nine Innings Pitched. This is a valuable statistic. Essentially, It reveals how many baserunners a pitcher surrenders during an average inning. A WHIP that is north of 1.50 indicates that the pitcher is marginal, and that's being generous. A WHIP that is between 1.25 and 1.50 is respectable, and will certainly keep a pitcher in the league for a while. Below 1.20 is considered good. A WHIP that hovers around, or even dips below 1.00, is All-Star quality.

HBP: Hit by Pitch, which is the number of batters who reached base because the pitcher hit them with a pitched ball.

WP: Wild Pitch. A pitch is considered wild if it is thrown in such a wild or indirect manner that it is not possible for a catcher of average skill to field it cleanly, and then doesn't field it cleanly, allowing a runner to advance. Nolan Ryan's aforementioned difficulty with pitching contol is also evidenced here. Ryan threw an all-time record 277 wild pitches during his pitching days.

PB: Passed balls. These occur when the catcher screws up and allows a pitch that he should have caught to shoot by him and roll towards the backstop, allowing a runner to advance.

QSR: Quality Starts Ratio.

(This is a new statistic that came from the mind of Suite101's Feature Baseball Writer. )

If a starting pitcher throws at least six innings and surrenders fewer than three earned runs, he is said to have given the team a "Quality Start." Managers and fans love Quality Starts, because they accomplish exactly what a pitcher is hired to do: put his club in a position to win.

So a Quality Start is a very a important thing. Obviously. If a pitcher throws a Quality Start, and thus puts his team in a position to win the game, he deserves some credit, even if he ends up with a loss. A guy who throws eight innings and surrendered two runs but loses should get more than just the marginal drop in his ERA. He should get a statistic.

If he does that a high percentage of the time, he deserves a respected statistic. That new statistic is the Quality Starts Ratio. It is calculated by taking the number of Quality Starts thrown by a pitcher in a certain time period divided by his total number of starts during that same time period.

For example, in 2007, Andy Pettitte made 34 total starts, and 22 of them were Quality Starts, so his QSR was .647.

As will be shown in future articles, the Quality Starts Ratio is a much more useful statistical assessment of a pitcher's value to his team (or his fantasy team) than either the Win-Loss record, the ERA, the WHIP or the OppBA .

Keep reading. There's a breakthrough-a-comin'.

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