This team is totally pitch inefficient

[redsfan28]

Ok, so my new favorite stat regarding pitchers, especially starters, is pitch efficiency. Basically, I look at the one of the following two categories: pitches thrown per inning (P/IP) or pitches thrown per plate appearance (P/PA). For this thread, I am looking at pitches thrown per inning. The MLB average this season is around 14 P/IP. Let's compare this to the Reds starting 5 and bullpen...

Starters:

Leake - 14.42 P/IP
Arroyo - 17.65 P/IP
Harang - 18.58 P/IP
Cueto - 18.64 P/IP
Bailey - 20.13 P/IP

Bullpen:

Rhodes - 13.70 P/IP
Herrera - 14.71 P/IP
Fisher - 16.00 P/IP
Lincoln - 17.10 P/IP
Owings - 17.82 P/IP
Ondrusek - 19.00 P/IP
Cordero - 19.69 P/IP
Masset - 21.89 P/IP

We all knew this team was going to struggle offensively (possibly not to this degree), but we all probably thought that this team would pitch well. So far, this team is throwing way too many pitches...

[Saber]

Pitch efficiency is something like strikeouts for hitters. By itself, it doesn't tell you too much. Should Reds pitchers throw more strikes? Sure, so should everyone else. Problem is, what are the quality of those strikes? Grooving fastballs won't work too well. On top of that, we have to assume that several young Reds pitchers can even find the strike zone.

Overall, maybe the pitchers just need to pitch better.

[redsfan28]

It isn't that they aren't throwing enough strikes. Its that they are relying on spot pitching too much. They aren't going after the hitters they should and groove pitches to ones they shouldn't. As weird as it sounds, pitch efficiency isn't about throwing more strikes, its about going after hitters and not spot pitching. Halladay doesn't care who is up there, he goes after them and gets them out. The Reds pitchers don't. On top of that, the umps seem to (a lot more than in past years) are all over the place with their strike zones. I thought Questec was supposed to eliminate that...

Plus, inefficient starters lead to worn out bullpens...

[Kingdom]

Assuming you have a bullpen to begin with

[redsrbetter]

Actually we are talking about the same names as last year when discussing the Reds bullpen. This same group of guys had the 3rd best ERA in the national league last season. They have a good bullpen, they just started off like garbage just like the starters have and are now getting worn down. Excellent post redsfan28. This is a huge problem that this team has got to get past. No starters are going into the 7th inning at all and we are used to Harang and Arroyo being work horses. I am just waiting for a game that is pitched effeciently and it seems as if the youngest guy is the one getting it done and the rest are lagging behind.

[redsfan28]

Pitch efficiency is why we won't see Aroldis until July at the absolute earliest. He's way to inefficient to be an effective MLB pitcher right now. Yeah, he's got 100 mph stuff, but is 3/4 of them are nowhere near where they need to be to challenge hitters.

[missionhockey21]

I do agree that there has been a lot of spot pitching going on. I also agree with Saber that striving for pitch efficiency can lead to problems of its own. This has been a problem with virtually the entire staff and while its true that some may be unable to attain this, our pitching coach has not done much to address the issue. It seems that the early count strategy is really to waste pitches, hoping to get big swings and misses to get ahead, without an almost sense of expecting the 3-2 jam eventually. Not that the Reds staff needs to be grooving pitches, but it would be nice not to see a second or third pitch of that at-bat be something a blind man wouldn't even hack at.