I helped Moose's and Hosmer's favorite reporter, Eno Sarris, find all the pitchers who had plus pitches in either ground ball rate or swinging strike rate. With the full list of pitchers, I just decided to go ahead and post how all the Royals stacked up.
His benchmarks for ground ball rate and swinging strike rate were used on pitches from the 2013 and 2014 seasons. The Pitches Plus are pitches which are above average by both metrics. Well let me get to the list:
Pitcher | Count | All Plusses | Pitches Plus | CU | SI | FT | FF | CH | SL | FC |
Greg Holland | 1563 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
Kelvin Herrera | 1557 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Yordano Ventura | 1528 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
Aaron Crow | 1282 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Francisley Bueno | 178 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
James Shields | 5460 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Luke Hochevar | 1043 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Aaron Brooks | 87 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Luis Mendoza | 1576 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Chris Dwyer | 46 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Danny Duffy | 1540 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Louis Coleman | 787 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Michael Mariot | 396 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Wade Davis | 3051 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Donnie Joseph | 123 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Jason Vargas | 4055 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Jeremy Guthrie | 5005 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Tim Collins | 1287 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Bruce Chen | 2306 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Casey Coleman | 34 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Everett Teaford | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Wilking Rodriguez | 33 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Jamey Carroll | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Justin Marks | 55 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- One item the Royals can exploit is flyball pitches, at least in spacious Kaufman Stadium.
- Vargas, Guthrie and Chen only have a couple of plus type pitches, or in Chen's case one.
- Ventura looks like he is going to nice little pitcher if he can stay healthy.