No one touches Marmol

[GYBE]

Of course that's not always a good thing when it's walks and hit batters. But the fact is, batter hit him less than any other pitcher in baseball. Read on:

Unless you’re a Cubs fan looking for a on-two-three ninth inning, it’s hard to beat Carlos Marmol for sheer baseball entertainment. Chicago’s current closer is nothing short of a spectacle, as he delivers to the plate, arms and legs flailing like he's some sort of marionette. Marmol’s wicked fastball/slider combination is frequently unhittable and often uncontrollable, with significant late movement that often fools hitters, catchers, and umpires alike. When he has command of his fastball and throws his slider for strikes, he can be completely dominant... and even when he can’t, he’s still difficult to hit. But this season Marmol’s act has too frequently devolved into an uncanny Nuke LaLoosh impression.

Through Wednesday’s action, Marmol has unintentionally walked 19 percent of the batters he’s faced, the highest percentage for any pitcher with 60-plus innings in a season since Bobby Witt in 1987 (all percentages here exclude any batters who were intentionally walked). He’s also hit four percent of opposing batters with his frequently errant pitches—easily beating out Bob Wells of the 2001 Twins for the highest plunkage rate of the last half-century. Thus approximately 23 percent of batters that have faced Marmol this year have reached base without a hit—also the highest rate since intentional walks were first recorded in 1955.

On the other side of the ledger, Marmol’s strikeout rate is almost 27 percent, while allowing hits to only 12 percent of batters he's faced—a mark bettered in this century only by noted Frisbee-tosser Jeff Nelson in 2001, and also by Marmol himself last year. Add it all up, and between the strikeouts and free passes, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 percent of batters facing Marmol never hit a ball into fair territory. -Ken Funck