Atlanta Braves and the coming pitch clock

If the Commissioner truly wants to implement a pitch clock, he might have to face the ire of a lot of players… and ex-players.

The 20-second pitch clock.  Now in force in the minor leagues, but coming soon to a major league park near you.  So how can we expect Atlanta Braves‘ pitching to handle this?

The last pitching stat that you can add to customize a Fangraphs’ pitching chart is called ‘Pace’… literally the average time it takes a pitcher between throws home.

Fangraphs admits it – this is not a perfect indicator, and there are several things that impact the elapsed time that they measure.  Still, it’s a measurement that can be used for comparison purposes… and to figure whether pitchers might run into some occasional trouble with this clock.

One interesting bit is how they characterize the average pitcher:

• 20.0 seconds between pitches:  this is considered a ‘Fast’ dealer!
• 20.5 seconds:  “above average”
• 21.5 seconds: “average”

You get the idea … most pitchers are already playing from behind, though as noted, there are still a number of factors that go into these figures, and I personally suspect that elements pushing these averages above 20 seconds will be taken into account by umpires… but that’s what we’re going to have to watch for.

Turns out that the clock rarely comes into play in the minor leagues, but the majors are a bit of a different animal.  Still, we hope that means that the fangraphs’ data is a bit high.

Here are the 2017 numbers for Braves’ starters and/or potential starters:

• Mike Foltynewicz:  21.5 seconds
• Max Fried:  21.6
• Sean Newcomb:  22.2
• Scott Kazmir:  23.1 (2016 data, usually was in the mid-22 range in prior years)
• Luiz Gohara:  23.3
• Brandon McCarthy:  23.7
• Julio Teheran:  24.1

The slowest from 2017 was actually Jaime Garcia at 25.7 seconds, but of course he no longer with us.  No matter how you slice that up, though, he’s going to have some difficulty when this pitch clock is imposed.

Here’s a curious thing.  You might think that pitchers who are “on a roll” or “in a groove” might tend to work faster.  But check Julio Teheran’s data over multiple years:

• 2011: ERA 5.03, pace 22.7 seconds
• 2012: ERA 5.68, pace 22.7
• 2013: ERA 3.20, pace 24.4
• 2014: ERA 2.89, pace 24.5
• 2015: ERA 4.04, pace 22.0
• 2016: ERA 3.21, pace 24.9
• 2017: ERA 4.49, pace 24.1

There is actually a reverse correlation going on here:  in most cases, the better he’s pitching, the slower he pitches!

Regardless of this, I have to admit that I’m in the same camp as Hall of Famer Don “Get off my lawn!” Sutton.  Check this out from Chop Fest this morning (with a hat tip to @jondhoward):

Next: The 2018 Non-Roster Invitees

Yep… this is gonna be fun to watch.