In the midst of a two game losing streak for the Kansas City Royals, last night I started wondering how many pitches players take in an at-bat during games that are lost versus won. The old adage always has seemed to be if a player takes more pitches per at bat, the team will often win more games. It makes sense in theory that the more pitches the opposing team has to throw it also wears down pitching arms.
I was also very much interested to see how many pitcher per at bat Jeff Francoeur takes in comparision to the rest of the team. We are now roughly ten percent of the way through the season, so it all made sense to check the data and see what I found. So I grabbed my caculator and started running some numbers and I must say I was really suprised by what I found.
Royals catcher Brayan Pena is the only player on the Royals roster who takes more pitches per at-bat in wins versues losses so far. My presumption was wrong all along. Pena's average plate appearance is 4.23 pitches in a wins, while in a loss he takes 4.07 pitches on average.
Sure the numbers can be argued and I certainly agree, as the Royals have 10 victories, with only 6 losses. There are many more at bats listed under the win column than there are under the losses. The numbers could be skewed as the wins and losses aren't equal.
Numbers that really stuck out to me were Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur see an entire extra pitch on average in losses against pitches per at-bat in wins. And when the Royals lose, Frenchy actually is second on the team for most PPAB.
Pitches Per At-Bat (PPAB)
Wins Losses
Mike Aviles 3.75 4.19
Melky Cabrera 3.65 4.73
Alex Gordon 3.12 3.77
Billy Butler 3.86 4.19
Kila Ka`aihue 3.74 4.05
Jeff Francoeur 3.28 4.52
Alcides Escobar 3.55 3.56
Brayan Pena 4.23 4.07
Chris Getz 3.54 3.87
Wilson Betemit 3.75 3.83
Matt Treanor 3.93 4.20
Mitch Maier 4.00 NA
Jarrod Dyson 4.25 4.40
Again no earth shattering data, but it is an interesting talking point. Looking over the numbers, the Royals obviously need to play Mitch Maier the rest of the season and they'd never lose another game.