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In the neverending quest to project how starting pitchers will fare in the wins, ERA and WHIPcategories, today I bring you the 2010 pitchers who held their opponents to the lowest BAA, or batting average against. As you can see in the table below, many of the pitchers who held their opponents to low hit rates, or BAA, had solid ERAs, and WHIP. In addition, many had very good strikeout and K/BB rates.
| Name | K/9 | BB/9 | K/BB |
|
WHIP | BABIP | LOB% | ERA | FIP | E-F | xFIP | |
| Jonathan Sanchez | 9.54 | 4.47 | 2.14 | 0.207 | 1.23 | 0.262 | 79.50% | 3.07 | 4.00 | -0.93 | 4.11 | |
| Ubaldo Jimenez | 8.69 | 3.74 | 2.33 | 0.208 | 1.15 | 0.273 | 76.50% | 2.88 | 3.10 | -0.22 | 3.73 | |
| Roy Oswalt | 8.21 | 2.34 | 3.51 | 0.213 | 1.03 | 0.261 | 77.80% | 2.76 | 3.27 | -0.51 | 3.45 | |
| Felix Hernandez | 8.36 | 2.52 | 3.31 | 0.216 | 1.06 | 0.273 | 77.40% | 2.27 | 3.04 | -0.77 | 3.26 | |
| Clayton Kershaw | 9.34 | 3.57 | 2.62 | 0.217 | 1.18 | 0.288 | 76.20% | 2.91 | 3.12 | -0.22 | 3.80 | |
| Trevor Cahill | 5.40 | 2.88 | 1.87 | 0.218 | 1.11 | 0.238 | 76.50% | 2.97 | 4.19 | -1.21 | 4.11 | |
| C.J. Wilson | 7.50 | 4.10 | 1.83 | 0.219 | 1.25 | 0.271 | 72.40% | 3.35 | 3.56 | -0.21 | 4.20 | |
| Jon Lester | 9.74 | 3.59 | 2.71 | 0.222 | 1.20 | 0.297 | 74.50% | 3.25 | 3.13 | 0.11 | 3.29 | |
| Adam Wainwright | 8.32 | 2.19 | 3.80 | 0.223 | 1.05 | 0.281 | 79.10% | 2.42 | 2.86 | -0.43 | 3.14 | |
| Matt Cain | 7.13 | 2.46 | 2.90 | 0.223 | 1.08 | 0.260 | 75.30% | 3.14 | 3.65 | -0.50 | 4.19 | |
| Mat Latos | 9.21 | 2.44 | 3.78 | 0.224 | 1.08 | 0.288 | 77.40% | 2.92 | 3.00 | -0.08 | 3.36 | |
| David Price | 8.11 | 3.41 | 2.38 | 0.224 | 1.19 | 0.279 | 78.50% | 2.72 | 3.42 | -0.70 | 3.99 | |
| Clay Buchholz | 6.22 | 3.47 | 1.79 | 0.225 | 1.20 | 0.265 | 79.00% | 2.33 | 3.61 | -1.28 | 4.20 | |
| Tim Hudson | 5.47 | 2.91 | 1.88 | 0.227 | 1.15 | 0.250 | 81.20% | 2.83 | 4.09 | -1.26 | 3.87 | |
| Jered Weaver | 9.35 | 2.17 | 4.31 | 0.228 | 1.07 | 0.291 | 75.70% | 3.01 | 3.06 | -0.05 | 3.51 | |
| Ian Kennedy | 7.79 | 3.25 | 2.40 | 0.230 | 1.20 | 0.265 | 75.50% | 3.80 | 4.33 | -0.52 | 4.28 | |
| Josh Johnson | 9.11 | 2.35 | 3.88 | 0.230 | 1.11 | 0.308 | 79.20% | 2.30 | 2.41 | -0.11 | 3.15 | |
| Justin Verlander | 8.79 | 2.85 | 3.08 | 0.231 | 1.16 | 0.298 | 72.00% | 3.37 | 2.97 | 0.40 | 3.68 | |
| Ted Lilly | 7.71 | 2.04 | 3.77 | 0.232 | 1.08 | 0.259 | 77.40% | 3.62 | 4.27 | -0.65 | 4.16 | |
| Gio Gonzalez | 7.67 | 4.13 | 1.86 | 0.232 | 1.31 | 0.283 | 78.10% | 3.23 | 3.78 | -0.55 | 4.18 |
What caught my eye a few days ago, when I was researching the Jonathan Sanchez trade offer, is the fact that he, of all starting pitchers, lead MLB in BAA. I was shocked to learn that. You can see a few of the better pitchers in baseball are missing from this list, namely Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, and CC Sabathia.
What this chart tells me is that many of the starting pitchers with solid strikeout rates also hold their opponents to low batting averages, which makes sense. But, you also want to look at the pitchers xFIP as that gives you a park adjusted, fielding independent look at how the pitcher performed.