Dice-K Versus the Fish People

Matsuzaka faced Grapefruit League batters for the first time today, drawing an over-capacity crowd of journalists, a representative from the offices of Major League Baseball to collect all of the bases for post-game auction, a lot of asinine commentary from Marlin broadcasters ("We talked to so-and-so and he says the gyroball doesn't exist." Really? You might want to tell that to the scientists who invented it.) and a surprising number of hits by Marlins players no one has heard of but who will probably end up putting up massive numbers for no money like, say, Hanley Ramirez in 2006. Living as I was at the mercy of the broadcasters and my imagination I didn't see the pitches in question, but it sounded like hanging offspeed pitches were to blame, resulting in a ticklish situation in the second where the Marlins turned a walk and a ground-rule double into runners on second and third with one out. In my mind, Matsuzaka looked around, laughed scornfully and then belched fire at the plate, turning Scott Seibol into a human torch. In the real world, however, a strikeout for Seibol and a bunted pop-up for Reed sufficed.

Pondering the Zen Master phenomenon as I do, I wonder about Dice-K's supposed command of six or seven pitchers and what that means for things like strikeout rate (which just caught my eye in the past few minutes, because he's struck out so many this Spring). So far, including the game against the Eagles, Matsuzaka has six strikeouts in five innings. Baseball Prospectus forecasts 162 total strikeouts for this year, putting Dice-K seventeenth behind The Mighty Santana, who will lead the pack with 218. The average of those 17, by the way, is 176; Johan is a bit of an outlier.

Assuming those projections are reliable, it sounds like being able to throw so many pitches doesn't help or hurt a pitcher's ability to get strikeouts. If it helped, Dice-K would be in the top 10 with Peavy, Bonderman, Sheets, etc.; if it hurt, he'd have a much lower projected total. However, today we had an example of why knowing so many pitches can help a pitcher: Matsuzaka's breaking balls weren't breaking, so the Marlins got two hits and a walk in three innings. However, because Dice-K also developed a group of power pitches, he can still get the first pitch strike, still get the three strikeouts and still pitch his way out of jams like the one he faced today.