BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Who Is The Best Pitcher In America? Consider Looking Beyond Baseball

Following
This article is more than 5 years old.

National Pro Fastpitch

Any search for the best pitcher in America could start with the starters in Major League Baseball's All-Star Game. For the second year in a row, these were Chris Sale of the Boston Red Sox and Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals.

Of course, we could also look at statistics. Earned run average favors Jacob deGrom while Sale leads in both strikeouts and Fielding Independent Pitching.

Then again, maybe this isn't just about the All-Star Game or statistics. Maybe what we want to find is the pitcher who is most likely to get a top Major League Baseball player to strike out. Yes, Sale leads Major League Baseball in strikeouts. But it's possible there is another pitcher that is even better.

Back in 2004, Jennie Finch — one of the greatest softball pitchers ever — was given a chance to pitch to major league All-Stars Albert Pujols, Mike Piazza, Brian Giles and Mike Cameron. The results were surprising: Four All-Stars in their prime couldn't touch what Finch was throwing.

What Finch did in 2004 suggests that if we want to find the best pitcher, maybe we should consider more than just the men who throw baseballs. Maybe we need to think about the women who throw softballs.

Finch retired from the National Pro Fastpitch league in 2010. Although she is still only 37 she may not be the best pitcher today. To find the best pitcher today we should probably look at the top pitchers in National Pro Fastpitch league (NPF) from the 2018 season.

There are many ways to think about who is the best pitcher. Strikeouts are the one statistic in a standard box score that gets the most attention. Certainly, when we look back on the story of Jennie Finch it is the fact she struck out those baseball stars that seems most impressive. According to the statistics tabulated by 805stats.com for the NPF, the list of top five pitchers in strikeouts (as of the games of July 16) is dominated by the Beijing Eagles:

  1. Angel Bunner (Beijing Eagles): 78
  2. Jordan Taylor (Aussie Spirit): 57
  3. Emily Watson (Beijing Eagles): 56
  4. Wang Lan (Beijing Eagles): 51
  5. Allie Walljasper (Beijing Eagles) & Kelsey Nunley (USSSA Pride): 42

Of course, the objective of the game for the pitcher is to stop runs. The statistic most often cited when we focus on a pitcher's ability to prevent runs is Earned Run Average. When we turn to the Earned Run Average (minimum 30 innings pitched), it's the USSSA Pride pitchers the lead the league:

  1. Jessica Burroughs (USSSA Pride): 0.50 ERA
  2. Jolene Henderson (USSSA Pride): 0.52 ERA
  3. Kelsey Nunley (USSSA Pride): 0.65 ERA
  4. Shelby Turnier (Chicago Bandits): 0.73 ERA
  5. Ellen Roberts (Aussie Spirit): 1.06 ERA

Although Earned Run Average (ERA) is still frequently cited, it has its problems. As Voros McCracken noted back in 2001, ERA depends on the defensive players that support the pitcher. This observation led McCracken to argue that in evaluating pitchers we should focus on fielding-independent factors like strikeouts, walks, home runs, and hit-by-pitches.

The Fielding Independent Pitching ERA (FIP ERA) measure is designed to address the issues McCracken raised. How this is calculated for then NPF is detailed in Sports Economics. For here, let's simply noted that FIP ERA is an estimation of a pitcher's ERA that focuses on the pitcher's strikeouts, walks, home runs, and hit-by-pitches.

And as the following list reveals, the best pitcher in the NPF according to FIP ERA in 2018 is Shelby Turnier of the Chicago Bandits.

  1. Shelby Turnier (Chicago Bandits): 1.40 FIP ERA
  2. Jolene Henderson (USSSA Pride): 1.44 FIP ERA
  3. Jessica Burroughs (USSSA Pride): 1.66 FIP ERA
  4. Lacey Waldrop (Chicago Bandits): 1.71 FIP ERA
  5. Jordan Taylor (Aussie Spirit) 1.90 FIP ERA
  6. Kelsey Nunley (USSSA Pride): 1.93 FIP ERA
  7. Allie Walljasper (Beijing Eagles): 1.96 FIP ERA
  8. Ellen Roberts (Aussie Spirit): 2.o7 FIP ERA
  9. Angel Bunner (Beijing Eagles): 2.11 FIP ERA
  10. Gretchen Aucoin (Cleveland Comets): 2.52 FIP ERA

So, is Shelby Turnier the "best" pitcher in America? Turnier has pitched well this year. But in 2017 she was not nearly as good as Monica Abbott, who led the NPF in FIP ERA for the Scrap Yard Dawgs. The Scrap Yard Dawgs, though, have left the NPF.  If we focus on returning players in the NPF, Jolene Henderson is a good choice. Not only is Henderson second in FIP ERA this year she was second last year as well.

So, there are some choices for "best" pitcher in America. Of course, this entire approach may not be perfect. We don't know for sure if the men who failed to hit Finch would have learned to hit her pitching if they had more experience facing Finch and other softball pitchers. We are also not entirely sure that the top pitchers today could replicate Finch's success. In other words, we don't know if Mike Trout could touch a pitch from Monica Abbott, Shelby Turnier, or Jolene Henderson.

But that's not really the point. If your list of "best" athletes only includes men, you need to widen your perspective. And when it comes to "best pitchers", one can certainly argue that the best pitcher in America is a woman. However -- as the above analysis indicates -- it isn't entirely clear which woman is the best choice.