Now that you have pitcher types, how about looking at pitch repertoire and platoon splits?

Size shouldn't matter if they manage to get to the Majors. What about the guys that failed to reach the Majors? Perhaps the bias against short pitchers is that they don't make it to the Majors as often as taller pitchers do.

You have a small error - "note that the only heights with ERAs under four are the cadres comprising those who are 6'4" and 6'5"." According to the chart, the ERAs under four belong to the 6'6" and 6'7"ers.

The reason that most pitchers are tall is the same reason that most baseketball players and swimmers are tall, and most gymnasts and jockeys are short.

I truly believe that baseball is a Darwinian process. If a pticher has the talent, then he will find somewhere to pitch regardless of his size. And if he puts up the numbers, he will get a shot at the next level.

Your data shows the result of a filtering process called High School, College, Indy Leagues and Minor Leagues. Scouts pick from the pool of available talent. And most of the talent is tall.

There very well may be a bias against short pitchers at the professional level, however I think the bias at the amateur level has much greater impact on the number of short pitchers we see at the professional/major league level. How many hard throwing 'short' 14 year olds, showing up for their first day of high school practice, get a chance to develop on the mound? It's more likely that they are ushered to the middle infield (assuming they are athletic) or given shin-guards and a mask.

There is an easy way to answer this question: "Does height matter?"

You need two groups, the first group would have the top 40 (or so) pitchers by VORP (or other metric) and the second group would have everybody else. Then take the heights of the players and compares the means. It should give you a pretty clear answer.

I'll see if I can't dig something up because I need practice doing this anyway.

Before you start any major analysis, I think it is important to pin down the exact question you are trying to answer. If body type matters, how? Do taller pitchers have better pure stuff? Does their delivery throw off hitters? Are they more durable? Each one of these questions will require a different set of data, and I am not even sure it is would be possible to collect anything that resembles clean data (as a result of biases that extend to high school or before).

One thing to keep in mind when doing any analysis on this topic is that the population size of 6'2" people is considerably larger than 6'6" pitchers, more so than what looking at height data of mlb pitchers will reflect. Because of this comparisons get hard. MLB "Skyscrapers" may represent the top .00001 percentile of all "Skyscrapers" in the world, while MLB "Normals" may represent the top .0000000000001 percent of "Normals" in the world. Comparing the average of one groups "very good" to another groups "elite" is not going to be very informative.

Kevin,

Interesting findings, but two points to consider.
1) As others have already commented, much of the natural selection takes place at the amateur level - just like with our lack of left-handed catchers

2) Your first height/production chart does not account small sample size issues - I think it would be more instructive to only look at starting pitchers who at least pitched 50 innings as starters. It might also be instructive to view the same issue with releivers and then to compare the charts - I would make the minimum cut-off around 30 appearances. Why should Danny Ray Herrera skew the numbers all by his lonesome?

Thanks

Just looking a the innings pitched totals, the tall pitchers have an advantage across most of the weight groups (Johan Santana and a small N likely throw off the short/beefy group).

Numbers in chart are AVG IP over last 3 seasons

Height Thin Normal Beefy
Tall 218 189 206
Normal 193 184 183
Short 185 178 187

This fits with the conventional wisdom, but it might be better to rerun with VORP instead of IP to see how that plays out.

An interesting comparison is that the average American adult is about 5'9.5", 189 lbs, 27.5 BMI. (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf)

That means ALL Major League pitchers are above average height, even the "diminutive" Lincecum. That seems extreme enough to be more than just bias.

However, how accurate are players' reported heights? Certified doctors and nurses have measured my height with an error of +/- THREE inches. If there is a bias for taller pitchers, wouldn't most teams tend to err on the plus side and throw off the data?

Kevin- Interesting piece, but the one thought I had regarding this assessment is that these pitchers have already defied the odds associated with smaller players by making it to the Major Leagues. Because of this, it is hard to assess the relative success of these players because they are the enigma's that defied the stereotypes. Does that make sense?

I'd like to see him do a similar study on the heights of successful catchers. I tend to believe that a guy like Angel Salome can succeed despite protests from prospect experts who claim he is simply too short.

Height and BMI don't tell the full story about pitching anatomy (nor did Kevin, or anyone else knowledgeable, say they do). If the data are available -- and they may not be -- I'd be very interested to see this analysis repeated using wingspan rather than height. Many of the greats of the past (a good example was Walter Johnson) attracted notice for their exceptionally long arms. Pitching has changed a lot, of course, but I'm still curious whether that's true today.

This smells like PFP08's Rob Pitzer's "Wide Receivers: Size Matters" 4 boxes detailing where BMI and height creates probable scenarios where WRs are productive or less productive.

I do think that the questions you asked like "Which group would you think is more likely to give you 225 innings? Which group has the best health record?" are good questions if you were to consider the role of pitchers as an NFL coach would want to analyze the role of the WR. Some obviously make better slot reveivers and others would be better for blocking purposes while others would be useful for diversions.

In baseball, at least in today's game, you have pitching roles. So maybe this is one way to set up what location in the rotation you should place a pitcher. A frame capable of higher workloads would go towards the front of the rotation while other pitchers should be relievers instead of starters. However, there are probably many who would mess with the roles because of their own better mechanics. There are exceptions that dismiss general rules all the time.

But what we may be able to develop from this sort of data with the right questions is probabilities in efficeincy. I would define efficiency in this context as the maximum output for the longest period of time. At some point/pitch count or inning count on the season certain body types may prove to become less efficient in certain roles. But if a pitcher, because of his body type, were in another role perhaps his effectiveness/efficiency can be lengthened for the full season rather than see it decrease when the penant race is in full swing, namely, when it is most important to have effectiveness. I also believe this would help evaluate if certain pitchers are worth more than other pitchers of equal body type. Financially you want the most for your money and if you get above average efficiency then you get more for your money.

First the research would need to be done on a broad scale (beyond top 40 VORP) to see what is the average pitch number or inning number at which each body type begins to decline. From there you should be able to determine roles or what pitchers would be better compared to the same body type as far as financially more sound. I think you'd also need to consider some age analysis too. Same age and body type comparisons would help. Body type might vary as to when the pitcher declines in age. Perhaps the tall-thin/normal crowd remains efficient longer in life than other body types?

Does this make sense? There are a lot of ways this can go to help a baseball team, whether in the front office, or managing in game scenarios over the course of a season.

Another thought comes to mind. Since pitching is so much a product of leg strength, rather than measuring BMI and total height of a pitcher, perhaps the height of their legs is more important than overall height. Some with longer legs and more BMI may be just as durable as the shorter leg less BMI pitchers. The leg strength is needing to be measured... the "rubber leg" to be more exact since some pitchers have one leg longer than the other!

Another thing, I think this may be helpful in analyzing when a pitcher begins to peak. Pitchers don't all peak at the same time. One may be good and then all of a sudden have more velocity on his pitches because he bulked up. I know from my own experience I grew tall just as I entered Highschool. My friends did not hit their growth spurt until late in their sophmore year. It was not an age issue, but just different timing. Same thing happened in my 20's. I was pretty skinny and as much as I worked out I could not build big muscle. Then I started to gain weight on my frame and am no able to build bigger muscles. It was a timing issue unique to me. My BMI changed at a different point than others. Just because a pitcher has not come to that point an organization may need to realize that the pticher, while good enough for AAA just needs to hit that growth spurt in their life before making the jump to MLB. A patient organization may be rewarded, while another one capitolizes on an impatient organization. Not sure what this might be called in scouting circles if it is or is not discussed at all.

where does Roy Halladay fit in? Seems he was left off the list.

Halladay is 6' 6" 225 lbs

Your cutoff date (1969?) excludes one of my favorite players, Bobby Shantz. But for the life of me I can't remember how tall he was. I think he was sub-Lincecum. Help?

Just running some quick numbers (some of the averages are not precise because I didn't scale for IP...but close enough for ballpark):
Looking at 3 year averages, only for pitchers with at least 20 starts:
Best VORP by subgroup is Short/Beefy (Santana seems to dominate the 3-year averages). Best VORP by group is Short, with Beefy and Thin groups also being close.
Most Average IP by subgroup is Tall/Thin, but it's one data point. Tall/Beefy is also high on the list. But what's surprising is that Most Average IP by group is Thin, with Beefy and Tall groups also being close.
Best ERA by subgroup is also Short/Beefy. Best ERA by group is Short.

In general, the biggest outlier is the Normal weight. Everything else looks like random noise punctuated by certain data points (Haren and Santana, once again on opposite ends of the spectrum).

If you break it down to just this year, where the data is more complete because the group of pitchers was sorted by this year:
Best VORP is still Short/Beefy, but best group is Thin or Short.
Best ERA is also Short/Beefy, but best group is Short or Thin.

The lack of data points make the data skew quite a bit due to Zambrano hurting the Tall/Beefy categories and Haren and Santana helping the Tall/Thin and Short/Beefy categories. But it still falls out that Normal seems to have the worst performance in general.

There are two major faults with trying to ascribe any meaning to this data:

1) Listed height/weight for professional athletes is notoriously inaccurate. You say that no pitcher listed at 5-10 has made a start this year. Well, I've stood next to Radhames Liz and he's about as 5-10 as it gets. Unfortunately, the O's list him at 6-0 or 6-1 or something.

2) As others have mentioned, there is a selection bias to the data. Tim Lincecum and CC Sabathia are at the extremes and they both are in the data pool because of their exceptional talent. Their talent led them to be put on the mound as children, they would've had extra chances because they had large signing bonuses (not that they needed them), etc. How many other 5-11 or 300 lb guys can we say that about?

So what do I suggest?

Well, there's nothing we can do about these faults in the data points, but we can try to get some conclusions from them anyway. For instance, we could see HOW a 300 lb man or a skinny 5-11 kid succeeds. Certainly, they utilize different arsenals, arm speeds, release points, and other variables. to be among the most effective pitchers in the world. If CC tried to pitch like Tiny Tim, or vice versa, I'm sure their effectiveness would be compromised.

I guess I am saying that the issue isn't what an ideal pitcher's frame is; it's more like how pitchers with certain frames tend to find more success. If there were an easy way to quantify the variables I listed above, it actually wouldn't be that hard to throw together.

I ump'd some Little League this year ... and it's my general observation that plenty of short players had an opportunity to pitch ... and many of them seemed "above average". Yes, there's a bias for tall players ... but that seems more than justified by reality (especially by the observation that *all* MLB pitchers are taller than average). Are there so few innings available to HS freshman and JV and varsity teams that a good pitcher who is short will not get them?

Perhaps the college ranks are a good place to look ... as their objective is "winning" rather than "development for MLB" ...

I've seen many good pitchers who are short ... such as Lincecum, obviously ... the other example who comes to mind is former Oregon St closer Kevin Gunderson ... http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/2008/09/organizational-consistency.html ... listed as 5'10" ... hmmm, I'll bet he's not 5'10" :-)

How can it be that guys like him don't make MLB because of "bias" ... as opposed to "results"? He's getting enough of an opportunity to make it or not based on results, imo.

Noticing that the "Normal" groups tend to have sub-par comparisons to the more extreme groups leads to a question of cause and effect:
If there is a selection bias, where amateur managers/scouts/general managers/etc... tend to look for pitchers with a specific body type, the players that make up that body type will not necessarily represent the best available talent, because they have a different selection criteria applied. But a pitcher who makes the major leagues with an extreme body type (Sabathia/Lincecum even Santana/Haren) will have to have a talent level that overcomes the selection bias. So rather than seeing a normal distribution of talent around a normal distribution of body types, you will see an inverse distribution of talent. Which is essentially what you see (albeit with the small sample size/rough analysis caveat).

My suggestion to test it with a real sample size is to use PECOTA. Take all of the pitchers in the pool and give them a height/weight in the middle of each of the subgroups and re-run PECOTA. Since PECOTA takes these factors into account, you will see an increase or decrease in projected value IF the data is more than just noise. I will bet that you will find that putting more normal body types into the projection will cause a very conservative projection, whereas each of the extremes will cause some increase in the projection.

I am not sure your data analysis reflected your query. You really only looked at pitchers that have 'made it'. Lee doesn't fit in that category, yet. And really, if Lee turns into just about any player on your list, the Indians will be ecstatic.

The analysis should really be looking at domestic players drafted (and a controlled subset of foreign-born undrafted players to avoid the Nomos and Dice-Ks of the world) to see whether height impacted whether they 'made it'. If in the first four rounds of the draft 70% of pitchers over 6'3" make it, but that number drops to 40% for pitchers over 5'11", that would be telling data, particularly as the pitchers taken in similar rounds will carry similar expectations.

It would also be useful if we had reliable measurements, but you work with what you get.

It would be interesting to explore whether the preference for a certain frame at the amateur level is an effective strategy. For example, the primary reasons a taller frame is desired is 1)potential for future velocity gains 2)better downward angle 3)ability to handle larger workloads.

As many have mentioned, the "shorter" pitchers at the ML level have been selected out b/c they are special. Therefore they don't necessarily serve as the best data points. The real question is whether the selection bias at the lower levels is appropriate-- a tough question to answer quantitatively.

Blue Jays have a 5'7 155 pitcher who can throw 91 according to our GM JP Riciardi

I know he is only in the Midwest League but his stats were pretty good...

His name is Tim Collins

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=525768

There is another variable to consider in this discussion...there is a much stronger bias among college coaches and professional scouts against the "little righthander". They are much more apt to give an opportunity to a "little lefty". It's one of those old school "truisms".

I'd be interested to know the percentage of "short" lefties vs. righties who have been successful. Granted there are lots of selection biases based on population (short people who are left handed are more unique than other demographics). My hunch is that most of the successful, short pitchers are lefties.

I agree with ostrowj1(8095): "Before you start any major analysis, I think it is important to pin down the exact question you are trying to answer."

The most relevent questions this type of investigation could answer that I can think of off hand are:

1. Do teams over- or under-draft pitchers of a certain build?

2. Do pitchers of a particular build take longer to reach their peak . . .

3. . . . develop further . . .

4. . . . more durable . . .

5. . . . have longer lasting careers . . .

6. Taking 1976reds question a step further, is there a difference at any height between the development of lefties vs. righties? There is a myth begging for verification.

The questions about fooling the hitters and pitch movement really boil down to success, which is ultimately all that matters.

The first question above regarding under/over-drafting would obviously be looked at from the point of view of the draft as suggested by tballgame. Some fair way to fudge the pitchers drafted lower due to unaffordable expected salary demands would be helpful. A control would have to be in place to make sure high school pitchers are not shorter or taller than pitchers drafted out of college. And, yes, as mikehollman points out, excluding lowest draftees might have some bias as well. However, I think some cut off could be allowed for those drafted so low that there is very little chance of their reaching the majors.

Questions 2-5 above are somewhat related. As drmboat suggests PECOTA could be a useful tool. As PECOTA is based on historical data, I don't understand Corkedbat's objection.

I generally agree with the comments warning about sample size, but I think some generalities might be found if a broad enough perspective is taken.