2011 in Review: Starting Pitcher Vertical Vector Charts

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I got this idea from the guys over at Athletics Nation and thought it was pretty cool way to visualize data. Here is how it works:

Each line corresponds to a Giants starting pitcher. The angle of each vector corresponds to the pitcher's GB percent with 100 percent ground balls as a horizontal line and 100 percent fly balls the opposite (duh) and represented as a vertical line, and the middle between the two extremes (50 percent ground ball rate) represented as a 45° angle.

The length of the line corresponds to the pitchers FIP-, where 100 is equal to league average and each point below is equal to a percent better than league average. So an FIP- of 75 means that the pitcher FIP was 25 percent better than league average. So in this chart a shorter line means that the pitcher pitched better which is kind of counter intuitive for how we would normally look at things.

The stats here are just for games that the pitcher started a game so Dan Runzler has just one game in this sample and Ryan Vogelsong's 4.2 relief innings are also not included here.

What we do see is that the Giants main four starting pitchers this season were all very good, the other guys that started games for the team were not. We can also see that Giants pitchers do there best to maximize their spacious home ball park with only Runzer (and his one game sample) going above the 50 percent mark for ground balls.

Later I will make one for the relief pitchers and hitters.

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