A couple days ago, I started a 2011: By the Numbers series by talking about the hitters. Today, I’ll look at the pitchers from the 2011 baseball set. In the entire list of players from the 2011 data disk, 662 players were listed as Pitcher as their primary position.
Best of the Best
Starters
Here are the top graded starters of 2011, specifically, those rated as an A pitcher.
| Pitcher | St. Grade |
| Clayton Kershaw | 18 |
| Justin Verlander | 17 |
| Jered Weaver | 16 |
| Ian Kennedy | 16 |
| Josh Johnson | 16 |
| Roy Halladay | 16 |
| Cliff Lee | 16 |
| Anthony Bass | 16 |
| Chris R. Young | 16 |
| Gio Gonzalez | 15 |
| Johnny Cueto | 15 |
Relievers
Only one pitcher was rated as an A&B. That was Yankee reliever David Robertson who had an ERA of 1.08 in 66 2/3 innings. Here are the all the relievers from 2011 rated A&C or better.
| Pitcher | Relief Grade | Basic Grade |
| David Robertson | 27 | A&B |
| Eric O’Flaherty | 24 | A&C |
| Al Alburquerque | 23 | A&C |
| Scott Downs | 23 | A&C |
| Jonny Venters | 22 | A&C |
| Santiago Casilla | 22 | A&C |
| Greg Holland | 21 | A&C |
| Mike Adams | 21 | A&C |
| Brad Lidge | 21 | A&C |
| Jose Valverde | 20 | A&C |
| Craig Kimbrel | 20 | A&C |
| Mike Macdougal | 20 | A&C |
| Tyler Clippard | 20 | A&C |
Breaking Down by Grade…
Let’s see how the MLB pitching looks when you break it down by pitching grades. Let’s start with starting pitchers.
| Pitching Grade | # of Starters |
| A | 11 |
| B | 50 |
| C | 96 |
| D | 115 |
And now, relievers…
| Pitching Grade | # of Relievers |
| A&B | 1 |
| A&C | 12 |
| A | 60 |
| B | 84 |
| C | 111 |
| D | 164 |
…and by Ratings
Control Letters
The ZZ rating was not available at this time.
| # of pitchers with a W | 220 |
| # of pitchers with a Z | 170 |
Strikeout letters
Note: Like the ZZ, the K rating was not available at this time.
| # of pitchers with an Y | 151 |
| # of pitchers with a X | 133 |
| # of pitchers with an XY | 87 |
I thought it strange that there would be more pitchers rated with an X or an XY than Y so I thought I narrow the filter down to just starters. This is what I got:
| # of starting pitchers with a Y | 69 |
| # of starting pitchers with an X | 37 |
| # of starting pitchers with an XY | 13 |
This vindicated my theory but I still think pitchers are making a comeback with the K.
Master Game Symbols
I didn’t do all the MG symbols but I thought I’d do a few of them.
| #of pitchers with an H | 52 |
| # of pitchers with an M | 85 |
| # of pitchers with an HB0 | 147 |
| # of pitchers with a BK0 | 465 |
| # of pitchers with a WP0 | 116 |
Some trivia
Which D pitchers won the most games in the majors in 2011? Here’s your answer:
| Pitcher | Starting Grade | Wins |
| Kevin Correia | D | 12 |
| John Lackey | D | 12 |
| Brad Penny | D | 11 |
| Chris Capuano | D | 11 |
| Ryan Dempster | D | 10 |
| Ricky Nolasco | D | 10 |
Arggh! As a Lackey owner, this frustrated me.
Another bit of fun. Which D pitchers had the lowest ERAs?
| Pitcher | Inn. Pit. | ERA | MG Grade |
| Jarrod Parker | 5 2/3 | 0.00 | 4 |
| Graham Godfrey | 25 | 3.96 | 4 |
| David Huff | 50 2/3 | 4.09 | 4 |
| Juan Nicasio | 71 2/3 | 4.14 | 4 |
| Brad Hand | 60 | 4.20 | 4 |
| Anthony Swarzak | 102 | 4.32 | 4 |
| Jon Garland | 54 | 4.33 | 4 |
| Duane Below | 29 | 4.34 | 3 |
| Felipe Paulino | 139 1/3 | 4.46 | 4 |
| Brett Myers | 216 | 4.46 | 4 |
Diamondback Jarrod Parker falls into the “What does a guy need to do?” category. He pitched one scoreless start for 5 2/3 innings on Sept 27 and was rated a D. I understand APBA’s reasoning but there’s a lot of talk going on about rating a player (pitcher or player) for what he’s worth despite his playing time. Godfrey is another case like that.
Finally, who were the lucky bums? All of these pitchers were graded C pitchers despite having ERAs over 5.00.
| Pitcher | ERA | St. Grade |
| Andrew Miller | 5.54 | 5 |
| Daisuke Matsuzaka | 5.30 | 5 |
| Henry Sosa | 5.23 | 5 |
| Clay Hensley | 5.19 | 5 |
| A.J. Burnett | 5.15 | 6 |
| Francisco Liriano | 5.09 | 6 |
| Jake Arrieta | 5.05 | 7 |
Every one of these pitchers had a W to go with their C so that might have helped. Five of the seven were from the AL too (Hensley and Sosa were not).
If you haven’t already seen the 2011 By the Numbers: Hitting post, check that out. That’s kind of fun. I’ll be doing two more. One will focus on fielding and the other will cover the miscellaneous ratings, grades and such.
