Stuff. We hear about it all the time. This pitcher has great stuff. But does anyone really know what that means? In an effort to quantify stuff, Jeremy Greenhouse at The Baseball Analysts used pitch f/x data to generate a discussion on Stuff. He employed velocity, horizontal pitch movement and vertical movement to figure out which pitchers are nasty, and our man with the pie A.J. Burnett emerged as the pitcher with the best stuff in the Majors.
There is, of course, a second part to this equation. Do the pitchers with the best stuff make the most of it? As we’ve seen from Burnett this year, the answer is obviously no. Burnett doesn’t crack the list of pitchers with the best stuff who have been tops at run prevention over the last three years. Not surprisingly, that honor belongs to Roy Halladay in the AL and Brandon Webb in the NL.