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Tim Dierkes recently asked the Royals’ Brian Bannister a few questions, and is posting the responses at his blog, MLB Trade Rumors. To be honest, I think Bannister is overrated. His 3.87 ERA in 2007 benefitted from some excellent Kansas City fielding and a bit of luck. He only struck out 4.2 hitters per nine innings, while still walking 2.4 — not a recipe for success.

However, from his answers to Tim’s questions, I’m now a fan of the guy. Bannister sounds extremely smart and takes an extremely analytical approach towards pitching. Here’s hoping he can continue to improve. My favorite answer of his is below, and you can read more responses in parts one and two at MLB Trade Rumors.

MLBTR: What’s the most misunderstood aspect of succeeding in baseball by typical fans, sportswriters, and announcers?

Bannister: There are two things that make baseball unique from other sports. One, baseball is a game of skill that is accentuated by the physical tools of the person performing those skills. Most people superficially judge a position player solely on size, strength, and speed, when his eyesight, balance, rhythm, hand-eye coordination, and mental makeup are much more influential factors in his future success. It is when a player embodies all of these qualities that we get our superstars and hall-of-famers. I would much rather face a hitter with “80″ power and “80″ speed but bad strike zone discipline than one with no power and a .400+ OBP. Over the course of time, the hitter with the .400+ OBP is going to hurt me much, much more, especially if he is surrounded by other good hitters.

Secondly, whether you like it or not, baseball is a game of randomness. We play outdoors (mostly) in changing elements and field dimensions, and each pitch results in a series of events that can go in either teams favor. One thing that I have have come to accept is that just because I train hard physically, I practice perfectly, I prepare diligently, and execute a pitch exactly as I wanted, it can still result in a home run. In golf, if you analyze all the variables correctly (lie, distance, slope, wind, etc.) and execute your swing perfectly, it will result in a great shot. Not so for a pitcher or a hitter. A hitter can swing the bat perfectly and it will result in an out more than six times out of ten. Therefore, as a pitcher, I study and play to put the percentages in my favor more than anything because I know that I can’t control the outcome in a single game or series of games, but over the course of a season or a career I will be better than average.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Around the Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.