The four lessons of Matt Duffy (or You too can Be a Data Hero)

DING, DING, DING, DING, DING!!!! We have a winner.

The First Lesson of Matt Duffy, The Joe Panik Rule....hmmmm both good titles,  but here at The Slav's Baseball Blog, we lovingly refer to it as The K/BB ratio for pitchers. The opposite ratio for hitters would be The BB/K ratio. Both correlate pretty highly for predicting future success and both are, generally speaking, the first screen I look at to filter prospect lists of any kind (there are others).

These metrics are not as widely available for HS players, but for most collegians and certainly for professional players, there is a plethora of data sources where you can find and filter to your hearts content. And isn't that what data analysis is all about?

from McCovey Chronicles:
The four lessons of Matt Duffy, who doesn't make sense - McCovey Chronicles:

The first lesson of Matt Duffy

Pay attention to the minor leaguers who strike out about as much as they walk. Before you look at any other statistic (other than maybe home runs, of course), check the walks. Check the strikeouts. If they're about even (and neither of them are absurdly deflated or inflated), pay attention to that player. You could also call this the Joe Panik Rule, and it applies to any prospect, regardless if they're doing other impressive things.

In 2013, this skinny afterthought was hitting .303/.389/.443 across two levels, including a cool 45 walks to 41 strikeouts in Low-A. This isn't to suggest that he should have been a top prospect then -- it was a performance that just barely got him onto a consensus top-30 list -- but the lesson isn't that every kid will be a star if he can work a count at the same time he's making contact. The lesson is to pay attention to those types.

'via Blog this'

P.S. - Case in point. Daniel Carbonnell was just sent back to repeat Hi-A after a wretched stint at AA. Now, he hit over .300 in Hi-A last year in a short stint and started there this year at over .300. The Giants promoted him to AA and the wheels literally came off, a .146 AVG in 214 AB's with a 53:4 K/BB ratio. That would be fantastic for a pitcher, but turn that smile upside down and for a hitter, it's 4:53 or a wretched 7.5% when we're looking for closer to 1:1 or 100%.

See why he got sent back? Hard to generate the other things that scouts and fans salivate over, the Hits, Extra-Base Hits, and Home Runs, from the contact AB's, when you're spending too much time on the wrong side of the non-contact AB side of the equation and on the wrong side of THAT equation to boot, On the non-contact side, you can K or BB, one is good, the other bad. Not rocket science here and for the most part, very binary.