The National League Central and Fastballs: Part Two

Oct 15, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Shelby Miller (40) pitches during the first inning against the San Francisco Giants in game four of the 2014 NLCS playoff baseball game at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

A few weeks back I wrote about the National League Central and its infatuation with the fastball. To summarize for those who have not (or do not want) to read what I wrote on January 24th, the five teams in the N.L. Central — the Pittsburgh Pirates, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs — threw and saw (something which is almost certainly correlated) a helluva lot fastballs compared to other divisions in 2014. Today I have taken it upon myself to do a follow-up post where I will be examining which pitchers within the division contributed the most to this statistical oddity.

First of all, let me tell you what, exactly, a fastball is in this study. A fastball can be either combination of the following more specific pitches: two-seam fastball, four-seam fastball, cutter, sinker and split-finger fastball. The stat fastball percentage, which is the one that I have somewhat arbitrarily decided to use, is courtesy of Fangraphs’ Pitch Type.

When I began this article I did not know how I would format it, but now that I am here I think a slideshow would be fitting, so that is what you are about to see. Remember that the top four biggest contributors in terms of percentage are those who qualified as a starting pitcher by pitching an inning for every game their team played; in other words, over the course of a typical season a starter would have to attain 162 innings to qualify.