Baseball fans have always wondered which of the finest Pitchers who play various changing balls, such as a slider, a curve, and a change-up, who throws a fastball of more than 150 km/h, are likely to lead the team to victory.
Unlike Pitcher, Pitcher has faced one batter in a Kyonggi several times, and it has been accepted as a popular belief that the 'Minist' Pitcher, who can throw various balls and can not predict which ball to throw, is more advantageous than the fastball Pitcher, who plays with restraint () rather than the old ().
But Professor Jung Woo-sung’s team used big data to classify major league starters’ main weapons according to their types, and analyzed the “rule of victory” to see which Pitchers contribute more to team victory according to the type of starter.
As a result, it was found that Pitcher (Fireballer), a fastballer who can overwhelm the batter with a certain restraint even if there are not many old-fashioned balls, was rather advantageous for victory.
In the domestic KBO league, Yang Hyun-jong (9 wins, 7 losses) of Kia Tigers, Henry Sosa (7 wins, 5 losses) of LG Twins, and Angel Sanchez (6 wins, 3 losses) of SK Wyverns belong to this type. (Service is in order of multiplier, record as of July 9)
The team first defined the “uncertainty” of pitches thrown by Pitcher based on the type of ball and the normalized mutual information of the Strike Zone location. Uncertainty is reduced when the same ball of the same sphere frequently enters a specific Strike Zone.
Unlike the conventional theory, Pitcher, who has a high uncertainty, showed a variety of unpredictable ways of flying the ball, and the correlation with victory was not significant. Rather, the better the Pitcher, the less uncertain, who throws a ball that does not hit even if he knows what the batter throws.
This tendency has been observed continuously over the past 10 years, and it is analyzed that it is not related to the temporary slump of the player and the peak season.
The results of this study were recently published as a highlight paper of 'Sae Physics' published by the Korean Physics Society.
“Pitcher, who is dealing with batters with proper restraint and various types of game, has a competitive edge in professional baseball,” said Professor Jung Woo-sung, who led the study. “Pitcher, who can overwhelm batters with a clear weapon, has the law that contributes to team victory.”
“We plan to further use various baseball big data, such as catcher information, runners, and ball counts, to reveal the correlation in more detail,” he added.