A flyball pitcher is a type of baseball pitcher who produces an above-average number of fly balls, typically by keeping his fastball high up in the strike zone and relying on late movement to cause the batter to be unable to make solid contact. This designation is constructed around the ground ball fly ball ratio, which measures how frequently a pitcher gets batters out on fly balls versus ground balls.
The downside of a flyball pitcher is that, in a ballpark where the design tends to favor hitters over pitchers (an example being Yankee Stadium), a flyball pitcher will tend to have a higher earned run average as the ball will carry further.
Examples include pitchers Ted Lilly and Chris Young.
Famous quotes containing the word pitcher:
“Indolence is heaven’s ally here,
And energy the child of hell:
The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear
But brims the poisoned well.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)