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Jonny Cueto – Not Allowing Runs and Not Racking Up Strikeouts

Posted by Raphy on August 22, 2011

Johnny Cueto leads all of baseball with a sterling 1.89 ERA, despite racking up a low percentage of strikeouts.  Cueto, whose ERA has improved while his strikeout rates declined in each year of his career, has only struck out 83 batters in 128.1 innings this season.  This is  very striking considering the era in which Cueto is pitching. In fact, no pitcher since 1931 has posted an ERA+ as high as Cueto's 210, while striking out less than 6 batters per nine innings. Here are the leaders since 1920. 

Rk Player ERA+ SO/9 Year Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV IP H R ER BB SO ERA HR BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS PO BK WP BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ Pit Str
1 Lefty Grove 220 5.46 1931 31 PHA AL 41 30 27 4 10 31 4 .886 5 288.2 249 84 66 62 175 2.06 10 1160 1 0 2
2 Johnny Cueto 210 5.82 2011 25 CIN NL 19 19 3 1 0 9 5 .643 0 128.1 92 38 27 37 83 1.89 7 511 457 20 0 0 7 7 3 13 1 3 2 1 4 .201 .270 .291 .561 56 1944 1210
3 Dolf Luque 201 4.22 1923 32 CIN NL 41 37 28 6 4 27 8 .771 2 322.0 279 90 69 88 151 1.93 2 1301 5 1 4
4 Spud Chandler 198 4.77 1943 35 NYY AL 30 30 20 5 0 20 4 .833 0 253.0 197 62 46 54 134 1.64 5 989 4 1 3
5 Carl Hubbell 195 4.55 1933 30 NYG NL 45 33 22 10 11 23 12 .657 5 308.2 256 69 57 47 156 1.66 6 1206 3 0 3
6 Mort Cooper 194 4.91 1942 29 STL NL 37 35 22 10 1 22 7 .759 0 278.2 207 73 55 68 152 1.78 9 1100 5 0 5
7 Monty Stratton 193 3.77 1937 25 CHW AL 22 21 14 5 1 15 5 .750 0 164.2 142 55 44 37 69 2.40 6 650 2 0 0
8 Lefty Grove 190 4.62 1936 36 BOS AL 35 30 22 6 3 17 12 .586 2 253.1 237 90 79 65 130 2.81 14 1049 4 0 0
9 Wilbur Wood 189 5.66 1971 29 CHW AL 44 42 22 7 2 22 13 .629 1 334.0 272 95 71 62 210 1.91 21 1316 1224 31 4 2 7 18 5 24 27 12 5 0 6 .222 .263 .306 .568
10 Warren Spahn 188 5.01 1953 32 MLN NL 35 32 24 5 3 23 7 .767 3 265.2 211 75 62 70 148 2.10 14 1055 973 21 3 1 12 0 17 2 1 3 2 3 .217 .270 .288 .558
11 Lefty Grove 185 3.82 1939 39 BOS AL 23 23 17 2 0 15 4 .789 0 191.0 180 63 54 58 81 2.54 8 798 1 0 0
12 John Tudor 185 5.53 1985 31 STL NL 36 36 14 10 0 21 8 .724 0 275.0 209 68 59 49 169 1.93 14 1062 1001 28 3 4 5 4 3 20 12 7 1 0 4 .209 .249 .285 .533
13 Joe Horlen 184 5.90 1964 26 CHW AL 32 28 9 2 2 13 9 .591 0 210.2 142 54 44 55 138 1.88 11 815 746 20 1 4 4 6 4 25 7 3 1 0 4 .190 .248 .264 .513
14 Harry Brecheen 182 5.75 1948 33 STL NL 33 30 21 7 1 20 7 .741 1 233.1 193 62 58 49 149 2.24 6 931 2 1 2
15 Max Lanier 180 5.19 1943 27 STL NL 32 25 14 2 5 15 7 .682 3 213.1 195 62 45 75 123 1.90 3 882 2 0 0
16 Phil Niekro 179 5.61 1967 28 ATL NL 46 20 10 1 20 11 9 .550 9 207.0 164 64 43 55 129 1.87 9 827 752 20 2 3 7 6 6 21 21 6 3 1 19 .218 .276 .286 .562
17 Marvin Freeman 179 5.35 1994 31 COL NL 19 18 0 0 0 10 2 .833 0 112.2 113 39 35 23 67 2.80 10 465 432 20 2 2 5 4 1 13 13 5 0 0 4 .262 .306 .387 .692
18 Johnny Antonelli 178 5.29 1954 24 NYG NL 39 37 18 6 2 21 7 .750 2 258.2 209 78 66 94 152 2.30 22 1071 955 16 5 5 13 4 18 2 3 2 0 2 .219 .291 .315 .606
19 Derek Lowe 177 5.20 2002 29 BOS AL 32 32 1 1 0 21 8 .724 0 219.2 166 65 63 48 127 2.58 12 854 787 30 3 0 12 5 2 28 19 7 0 0 5 .211 .266 .302 .569 3078 1959
20 Whitey Ford 177 5.95 1958 29 NYY AL 30 29 15 7 1 14 7 .667 1 219.1 174 62 49 62 145 2.01 14 872 801 25 3 3 3 5 1 26 0 7 6 1 5 .217 .276 .308 .584
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/22/2011.

 

There are still a lot of old-timers there.  Limiting our search to more recent pitchers gives us the following list of players since 1970.

Rk Player ERA+ SO/9 Year Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV IP H R ER BB SO ERA HR BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS PO BK WP BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ Pit Str
1 Johnny Cueto 210 5.82 2011 25 CIN NL 19 19 3 1 0 9 5 .643 0 128.1 92 38 27 37 83 1.89 7 511 457 20 0 0 7 7 3 13 1 3 2 1 4 .201 .270 .291 .561 56 1944 1210
2 Wilbur Wood 189 5.66 1971 29 CHW AL 44 42 22 7 2 22 13 .629 1 334.0 272 95 71 62 210 1.91 21 1316 1224 31 4 2 7 18 5 24 27 12 5 0 6 .222 .263 .306 .568
3 John Tudor 185 5.53 1985 31 STL NL 36 36 14 10 0 21 8 .724 0 275.0 209 68 59 49 169 1.93 14 1062 1001 28 3 4 5 4 3 20 12 7 1 0 4 .209 .249 .285 .533
4 Marvin Freeman 179 5.35 1994 31 COL NL 19 18 0 0 0 10 2 .833 0 112.2 113 39 35 23 67 2.80 10 465 432 20 2 2 5 4 1 13 13 5 0 0 4 .262 .306 .387 .692
5 Derek Lowe 177 5.20 2002 29 BOS AL 32 32 1 1 0 21 8 .724 0 219.2 166 65 63 48 127 2.58 12 854 787 30 3 0 12 5 2 28 19 7 0 0 5 .211 .266 .302 .569 3078 1959
6 Dave Stieb 173 5.67 1985 27 TOR AL 36 36 8 2 0 14 13 .519 0 265.0 206 89 73 96 167 2.48 22 1087 966 33 2 3 9 14 2 19 10 8 1 1 4 .213 .290 .320 .610
7 Jeff D'Amico 171 5.60 2000 24 MIL NL 23 23 1 1 0 12 7 .632 0 162.1 143 55 48 46 101 2.66 14 667 602 29 3 5 6 10 3 15 3 8 0 0 5 .238 .297 .365 .662 2352 1505
8 Orel Hershiser 171 5.90 1985 26 LAD NL 36 34 9 5 1 19 3 .864 0 239.2 179 72 54 68 157 2.03 8 953 870 26 4 5 6 5 4 25 23 9 3 0 5 .206 .267 .272 .539
9 John Candelaria 169 5.19 1977 23 PIT NL 33 33 6 1 0 20 5 .800 0 230.2 197 64 60 50 133 2.34 29 917 850 29 5 2 2 9 6 13 5 12 2 2 1 .232 .274 .380 .654
10 Jim Palmer 169 5.38 1975 29 BAL AL 39 38 25 10 1 23 11 .676 1 323.0 253 87 75 80 193 2.09 20 1268 1172 37 10 4 2 10 4 32 29 11 1 0 4 .216 .266 .316 .582
11 Steve Ontiveros 167 4.37 1994 33 OAK AL 27 13 2 0 5 6 4 .600 0 115.1 93 39 34 26 56 2.65 7 463 428 12 1 1 6 2 1 9 5 2 0 0 5 .217 .271 .299 .570
12 Jon Matlack 167 5.23 1978 28 TEX AL 35 33 18 2 2 15 13 .536 1 270.0 252 93 68 51 157 2.27 14 1097 1027 31 7 4 4 12 3 14 16 13 7 0 8 .245 .283 .330 .613
13 Allan Anderson 166 3.69 1988 24 MIN AL 30 30 3 1 0 16 9 .640 0 202.1 199 70 55 37 83 2.45 14 815 763 33 3 1 7 3 5 25 12 9 3 4 1 .261 .299 .367 .666
14 Buzz Capra 166 5.68 1974 26 ATL NL 39 27 11 5 6 16 8 .667 1 217.0 163 67 55 84 137 2.28 13 886 783 26 3 6 3 12 4 14 13 7 1 1 7 .208 .286 .299 .585
15 Tim Wakefield 165 5.48 1995 28 BOS AL 27 27 6 1 0 16 8 .667 0 195.1 163 76 64 68 119 2.95 22 804 717 25 6 0 9 3 7 16 13 8 3 0 11 .227 .300 .371 .671
16 Jimmy Key 164 5.55 1987 26 TOR AL 36 36 8 1 0 17 8 .680 0 261.0 210 93 80 66 161 2.76 24 1033 951 29 8 6 2 11 3 24 4 11 7 5 8 .221 .272 .344 .616
17 Mike Mussina 164 5.05 1994 25 BAL AL 24 24 3 0 0 16 5 .762 0 176.1 163 63 60 42 99 3.06 19 712 657 31 2 1 1 3 9 15 7 6 1 0 0 .248 .291 .388 .679
18 Gary Nolan 162 4.60 1972 24 CIN NL 25 25 6 2 0 15 5 .750 0 176.0 147 48 39 30 90 1.99 13 689 649 24 4 5 1 3 6 14 4 4 0 0 5 .227 .259 .336 .595
19 Don Sutton 161 5.43 1980 35 LAD NL 32 31 4 2 1 13 5 .722 1 212.1 163 56 52 47 128 2.20 20 833 773 22 5 5 2 8 3 9 24 6 1 1 0 .211 .257 .330 .587
20 Joe Magrane 161 5.44 1988 23 STL NL 24 24 4 3 0 5 9 .357 0 165.1 133 57 40 51 100 2.18 6 677 612 25 5 4 2 8 4 5 19 9 1 8 8 .217 .278 .304 .582
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/22/2011.

16 Responses to “Jonny Cueto – Not Allowing Runs and Not Racking Up Strikeouts”

  1. Andrew Says:

    An interesting list, but the upper list is slightly unfair -- Lefty Grove and Harry Breechen did lead the league in Ks those years, after all. If they struck out 5.5 batters a game, nobody else in the league was striking out more than four...

  2. Raphy Says:

    Andrew- I guess you're right. I suppose we could normalize the strikeouts and see what comes up...

  3. BSK Says:

    Other Cueto trends...

    Walks down (68, 61, 56, 37).
    HRs down (29, 24, 19, 7).
    WHIP down (1.41, 1.36, 1.27, 1.00).
    WPA up (-1.5, -0.1, 0.5, 2.0).
    GB/FB up (.63, .74, .75, 1.13).
    LD down overall (21, 19, 20, 15).
    HR/FB down (10.5, 9.0, 6.6, 4.6).

    It is also possible that we are overestimating the drop in strikeouts. Keith Law has recently written that K/9 isn't as effective a measure because it doesn't account for how many batters a pitcher faces. A pitcher who allows more base runners is overall striking out a lower percentage of batters than a pitcher with the same Ks and IP but who allows fewer base runners. Now, I'd need to look closer at that to see if I agree, but it does make some sense and Keith Law is a pretty smart dude. Taking that into account, here are Cueto's K/BF compared to K/9.

    K/BF: .205, .178, .177, .162
    K/9: 8.2, 6.9, 6.7, 5.8

    Looking at K/9, he is down 29% over the 4 years. Looking at K/BF, he is down 21%. Still down, obviously, but not QUITE as much when looking at it in this way.

  4. Mary Says:

    A major difference for Cueto is also that the defense behind him has improved each year and he no longer has to fear that ground balls to third will be thrown into the first base boxes. As a result, Cueto is trusting that defense and throwing many fewer pitches and going deeper into games than he did when his K rate was higher

  5. John DiFool Says:

    Well, on that defensive note he's at a .225 BABIP, with ones in the .290's for his other seasons. I wonder when a pitcher seems to benefit from tons of luck like this pretty much across the board that it will give him a false sense of his own ability going forward and get him into bad habits which will burn him when everything normalizes.

  6. Michael E Sullivan Says:

    I was surprised not to see Greg Maddux on this list, but turns out when he was really good, he generally pitched >6 K/9. I only found one year where his ERA+ was excellent that was under 6, and at 159, it was not quite good enough to make this list. He had a number of other solid years (ERA+ 100-130) with under 6 K/9, but he was getting 6.5+ when he was dominant.

  7. John Autin Says:

    Note that 29% of Cueto's runs allowed were scored as unearned (11 of 38). There's only been one qualifying season like that in the divisional era.

    If you judge by Run Average instead of ERA, Cole Hamels actually leads the NL at 2.62, with Cueto at 2.67.

  8. mosc Says:

    I'd love to see someone pull out 128.1 Inning stretches from some leading Cy Young candidates this year for comparison to Cueto. I mean, he's been good don't get me wrong but am I the only guy who thinks you should even be considered for a Cy Young unless you have more innings? Lets say the guy squeeks in and ends up with like, 165 IP with a 1.9 ERA this year. Is that really that historic?

  9. BSK Says:

    Mosc-

    You are literally the first and only person to mention the Cy Young on this post...

  10. camisadelgolf Says:

    For those who didn't know, Cueto changed his delivery this year. He is hiding the ball much better now, and there's no doubt a correlation with his increased production. I'd love to see some F/X data comparing 2011 and 2010 because it seems to me that his pitches are showing a lot more movement.

  11. LeeTro Says:

    @10

    The only big change in his Pitch F/X is that he slowed his slider down 3 MPH. This has allowed for more horizontal and vertical movement. He is also throwing his 2-seamer 40% of the time, compared to 30% last year. The heat maps didn't show any great location differences to explain his rise in GB% from 42% to 54%.

  12. Gerry Says:

    " This is very striking...." Pun intended, Raphy?

  13. Raphy Says:

    @12 not at all. 🙂

  14. Gonzo Says:

    @Mosc: Funny you mention the ERA title. Joe Magrane hurled 165 innings and won the title with a 2.18. Even though his record was 5-9 with 10 no decisions and zero relief appearances.

  15. MLS Says:

    Has anyone noticed that the pitchers have regained the high and inside strike zones? Makes a huge difference for control type pitchers.

  16. George Says:

    Responding to John DiFool,

    I often read these posts but haven't responded yet. I don't know what BABIP is...this is another one of those acronyms that looks bizarre to someone who doesn't live and breathe Sabermetrics. However, I wanted to respond to the gist of your observation, which seems to be a common assumption on these pages. Many writers assume that strikeouts are one of the best measures of a pitcher's worth, because that is the one element that is almost completely in a pitcher's control, and that all other factors are owing to luck. One poster once put up a list of pitchers who had many wins and low strikeout totals and observed that high strikeout totals are a good measure of a pitcher's future success. But the list he put up had about a dozen Hall of Fame pitchers, which is a pretty good indication that they were successful.

    I think these are unreliable assumptions; they confuse what is easy to measure with the value of what people are trying to measure. In fact, not that many of the leading pitchers in history were at the top of the strikeout boards, and many strikeout leaders had very short careers. There are countless pitchers who blew by hitters for a few years and either blew their arms out or lost velocity and couldn't throw the ball by people any more. If there is anything that will give a pitcher a "false sense of his own ability going forward and get him into bad habits", it is the over-dependence on speed.
    What most of the current measures are missing is something that is very difficult to measure, namely a pitcher's ability to work effectively with his defense.

    The best pitchers usually can strike out batters when they need to (thus, they usually need some velocity), but very few aim to strike out every hitter. There are often much more effective ways to get batters out. If there is a man on first base, a smart pitcher will try to get the hitter to hit into a double-play rather than strike out two batters. The best pitchers usually work effectively with their defense, getting the batters to hit to certain fielders (I remember reading once how Gaylord Perry had a set of signals to his infielders for where the next ball was going to be hit). In addition, a strikeout usually requires more pitches at high velocity than a ground-out; Maddux used to mow through lineups using two or three pitches for most hitters.
    And over the long term, a strikeout is often strategically less useful than another means of getting a batter out. There is usually a fairly predictable sequence of pitches and placement that a young strikeout artist relies on, but a master pitcher like a Perry or a Maddux worked out different strategies for different hitters, based on the last ten or twenty or fifty times they faced each hitter. That's how Maddux was able to own hitters for about fifteen years without blowing the ball by them.

    Of course, if your team has lousy defense and offers little run support, then you are out of luck. But "luck" is not equivalent to all the variables that are difficult to measure. A better term for this in many cases might be "skill."