Quote:
Originally Posted by tschock
It's a skill. It's a preference to do it but a skill to master it. Which they both did. So both had their own skill set which they mastered. The end result of them having a different style pitching and each pitching to their own strengths. Neither would have been nearly as successful of a pitcher had they tried to pitch in the style of the others strength.
As to the article, it is good in what it does, but it's comparing averages and really doesn't mean much when you are looking a pitchers on the elite end of the scale, as is the case with both Johnson and Maddux. They both were much more effective in what they do so you could probably ignore what any 'analysis' would say they should do.
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This particular analysis says that the tradeoff evens out in terms of run production, so there isn't really a "should" here in terms of ground balls vs fly falls preferences. However, in general, the mindset that you "could probably ignore" what the data says you should is a golden ticket to the bottom of the league. Try telling an NBA team to stop shooting 3s and see how that goes.