The Best Ground Ball Pitchers in Baseball

In my previous post, I examined the performance of major league pitchers on ground balls from 2010-2012  and learned that the Tigers had the highest Batting Average Against (BAA) on grounders during the period.  My theory was that their generally immobile infield defense was giving up a lot of hits, but I also noticed that not all their pitchers were affected similarly.  In fact, Doug Fister (in his starts for the Tigers only) and Justin Verlander (each with a ground ball BAA of .212) were significantly better than the MLB average of .241. So, I wanted to see how they would rate after adjusting for infield defense. 

Table 1 below shows the ground ball BAAs for all MLB pitchers allowing at least 400 ground balls from 2010-2012.  The leader was Rockies right hander Jhoulys Chacin at .164.  Chacin was also a fairly prolific ground ball pitcher with a 50% ground ball rate on batted balls.  Given that Chacin plays half his games in Coors Field, a power hitter's paradise, his ability to gets outs on ground balls was certainly advantageous. Interestingly, the second pitcher on the list, Jeremy Hellickson of the Rays at .196, was much more of a fly ball pitcher (38% ground ball percentage).

Table 1: Batting Average Against on Ground Balls, 2010-2012

Pitcher	GB	H	BAA
Jhoulys Chacin	590	97	.164
Jeremy Hellickson	480	94	.196
Ricky Romero	1,004	198	.197
Brad Bergesen	486	97	.200
Kyle Kendrick	678	136	.201
Shaun Marcum	591	119	.201
Henderson Alvarez	498	104	.209
Trevor Cahill	1,074	225	.209
Tim Hudson	1,140	240	.211
Kyle Lohse	683	144	.211
Tim Stauffer	444	94	.212
Justin Verlander	811	172	.212
Clay Buchholz	686	146	.213
Jered Weaver	657	140	.213
Mike Leake	775	167	.215

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet.


Some pitchers benefited from better infield defense than others with team ground ball BAAs ranging from .221 for the Blue Jays to .258 for the Tigers.  Of course, that is not all defense.  It could be that some staffs allow harder hit ground balls than others.  Over three years though, I would guess that it would even out enough to suggest something about team defense.  I attempted to adjust for differences in infield defense by calculating the ground ball BAA of other pitchers on the same staff.  For example, Chacin had a .180 BAA in 2010 compared to .230 for other Colorado pitchers.  So, his BAA was 22% better than the average Rockie pitcher that year giving him a BAA+ of 122.

Chacin's numbers in 2011 and 2012 were 143 and 121 respectively and the weighted average of all three years was 133.  Thus, he was 33% better at avoiding hits on ground balls than the average Colorado pitcher.  Table 2 below shows that this was also the top BAA+ on ground balls in the majors.  The worst pitcher at preventing hits on ground balls was Wade Davis of the Rays at 82 (18% worse than average).

Table 2: Adjusted Batting Average Against on Ground Balls, 2010-2012

Pitcher	GB	H	BAA	BAA+
Jhoulys Chacin	590	97	.164	133
Brad Bergesen	486	97	.200	121
Justin Verlander	811	172	.212	120
Kyle Kendrick	678	136	.201	118
Jeremy Hellickson	480	94	.196	117
Luke Hochevar	728	161	.221	116
Shaun Marcum	591	119	.201	114
R.A. Dickey	939	203	.216	113
Lucas Harrell	426	97	.228	113
Ricky Romero	1,004	198	.197	113
Kyle Lohse	683	144	.211	112
Trevor Cahill	1,074	225	.209	112
Tim Hudson	1,140	240	.211	112
Mike Leake	775	167	.215	112
Jeremy Guthrie	823	188	.228	112

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet.

Looking at Tigers pitchers, Verlander was only 12th on BAA (.212), but moved up to third on BAA+ (120) because he was so much better at preventing hits on grounders than other Tigers pitchers.  Fister was similarly good for the Tigers in 2011-2012, but falls back to 110 when including his time with the Mariners.  Other Tigers pitchers included Rick Porcello (98), Anibal Sanchez (94) and Max Scherzer (85).

I put all the numbers for all MLB pitchers in 2010-2012 into a Google spreadsheet.