2014 APBA Baseball by the Numbers: Pitching grades and ratings

Clayton Kershaw tops all starters (again) with the only A&C grade

Yesterday, I posted the first in my APBA Baseball by the Numbers series where  I covered defensive ratings.  Tonight though, it’s time to go over the hurlers.  Who was the best?  Who got lucky and got cheated out of a good grade?  And of course, the general distribution of the grades and ratings.

Before I start, a quick tutorial on Master Game grades.  Instead of Grades A, B, C and D, Master Game breaks the pitchers’ grades into numbers 1-30.  They are consistent from year to year though.

Here is the conversion chart:

Ok, now the starting pitchers:

Starting Pitchers

Congrats to all of the Clayton Kershaw owners out there.  He was the only A&C pitcher this year.  Not only that, this is the second year in a row he’s topped the Majors with the best grade.  He did it last year with a MG 19 grade.

Here were the best starting pitchers by grade.

Here was the overall distribution of starting pitcher grades.

Highest ERA by an A starter:  Jake Arrieta, CHI, 16XY, 2.53 ERA, 156 2/3 IP

Highest ERA by a B starter:  Homer Bailey, CIN, 10Y, 3.71 ERA, 145 2/3 IP

Lowest ERA by a B starter: Michael Pineda, NY, 14YZ, 1.89 ERA, 76 1/3 IP

Highest ERA by a C starter: Franklin Morales, COL, 5W, 5.37 ERA, 142 1/3 IP

Lowest ERA by a C starter: Gavin Floyd, ATL, 9Z, 2.65 ERA, 54 1/3 IP

Can anyone explain Franklin Morales’ gift?  I had a similar situation with Manny Parra and since he was on my team, I wasn’t about to complain.

And thank you APBA, by the way for Homer Bailey!

Relievers

The best of the best.  There were a couple of A&B bullpen aces in this set.  Funnily,  enough, they were both from the Royals.  Look down a little further, and you’ll see another A&C from KC too.

Overall distribution of relievers.  Split grade pitchers are included here, by the way.

Let’s do the same here as I did for starters.  It’s always interesting to see the anomalies (I’m trying to avoid the split grade pitchers here).

Highest ERA by an A reliever:  Jake Petricka, CHI, 15W, 2.96 ERA, 73 IP

Highest ERA by a B reliever:  Jacob Diekman, PHI, 10XYW, 3.80 ERA, 71 IP

Lowest ERA by a B reliever: Carson Smith, SEA, 10XYW, 0.00 ERA, 8 1/3 IP

Highest ERA by a C reliever: Rex Brothers, COL, 5YW, 5.59 ERA, 56 1/3 IP

Ratings Distribution

Taking a look at the pitchers ratings distribution now.  Keep in mind that the ZZ, K, and R ratings are still unknown.

Let’s start with the strikeout rating.

…and now the control ratings.

I thought I’d do the Master Game homerun ratings as well.

As appropriate, the more restrictive ratings are rarer.

A few more miscellaneous stats left.  I’ve already mentioned the Royals’ impressive bullpen.  But which team had the most B or better starting pitchers?  Would you believe Oakland has six?

Finally, here is a list of non-pitchers who took a turn on the mound in 2014 and were graded as a pitcher on their APBA card.

Worth gets a Grade 2 because he appeared twice and only allowed one run, I suppose.  Defensively, Drew Butera is the only one who is rated a P-2.

This series gets more and more fun.  Next up, “Hitting by the numbers”.  Again, check out last night’s article on defensive ratings too.

[photo credit]