Who is the Best Ground Ball Pitcher in Baseball?

Rockies pitcher Jhoulys Chacin is excellent at getting outs on ground balls
(Photo Credit: USA Today)

In an earlier post, I examined the performance of major league pitchers on ground balls in 2013 and learned that the Tigers staff had the highest Batting Average Against (BAA) on grounders.  The theory was that their generally immobile infield defense was giving up a lot of hits, but it did not seem to have affected all pitchers the same way.  While the staff had a .278 average on ground balls (versus an MLB average of .241), Anibal Sanchez was apparently unaffected posting a .243 average.  So, I was curious to see what other pitchers in the majors had better than expected results on ground balls.

One year of data doesn't give us a good sample of ground balls to work with for individual pitchers, so I expanded to three years (2011-2013).  Table 1 below shows the top ground ball BAAs for pitchers allowing at least 400 ground balls from 2011-2013.  The leader was Rockies right hander Jhoulys Chacin at .176 (He was also the leader when I did this  previously for 2010-2012).  Chacin was a moderate ground ball pitcher during the period with a 49% ground ball rate on batted balls.  Given that Chacin played half his games in Coors Field, a power hitter's paradise, his ability to gets outs on ground balls was certainly advantageous. 

Table 1: Batting Average Against on Ground Balls, 2011-2013

Pitcher	GB	H	BAA
Jhoulys Chacin	709	125	.176
Scott Feldman	516	99	.192
Johnny Cueto	651	130	.200
Henderson Alvarez	677	136	.201
Mike Leake	846	170	.201
Jeanmar Gomez	402	81	.201
Jered Weaver	570	116	.204
Ricky Romero	681	139	.204
Jordan Zimmermann	767	157	.205
Brad Ziegler	432	89	.206
Hisashi Iwakuma	490	102	.208
Tim Lincecum	772	161	.209
Jarrod Parker	493	104	.211
Shaun Marcum	454	96	.211
Luke Hochevar	632	134	.212

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 .230 for the Reds to .266 for the Tigers.  That is not necessarily all defense of course.  It could have been that some staffs allowed harder hit ground balls than others.  Over three years, however, I would guess that averages 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 .144 BAA in 2011 compared to .251 for other Colorado pitchers.  So, his BAA was 43% better than the average pitcher giving him a BAA+ of 143 that year.

Chacin's numbers in 2012 and 2013 were 121 and 114 respectively and the weighted average of all three years was 128.  Thus, he was 28% better at avoiding hits on ground balls than the average 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 former Yankees' right hander Phil Hughes at 72 (28% worse than average).     

Table 2: Adjusted Batting Average Against on Ground Balls, 2011-2013

Pitcher	GB	H	BAA	BAA+
Jhoulys Chacin	709	125	.176	128
Luke Hochevar	632	134	.212	120
Scott Feldman	516	99	.192	119
Lucas Harrell	508	109	.215	118
Chris Sale	590	128	.217	117
Jeanmar Gomez	402	81	.201	116
Hisashi Iwakuma	490	102	.208	116
Johnny Cueto	651	130	.200	116
Brad Ziegler	432	89	.206	115
Hiroki Kuroda	924	205	.222	115
Henderson Alvarez	677	136	.201	115
Mike Leake	846	170	.201	115
Jordan Zimmermann	767	157	.205	115
Scott Diamond	613	137	.223	114
Justin Verlander	791	184	.233	114

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

Looking at Tigers pitchers, Verlander's 233 BAA did not make the top 50, but his 114 BAA+ was 15th in baseball as he was better at preventing hits on grounders than other Tigers pitchers.  Conversely, Max Scherzer was one of the worst in the majors with an 85 BAA+.  So, it's good that he is an extreme fly ball pitcher as well as a strikeout artist.  Other current and former Tigers pitchers include Doug Fister (109), Anibal Sanchez (100) and Rick Porcello (98).  Note that Sanchez's statistics also include time with the Marlins. 

I put the numbers for all MLB pitchers in 2011-2013 into a Google spreadsheet.