Craig Kimbrel's On His Way To The Record Books

Unless you've been living under a rock this past season you know that Atlanta Braves reliever, Craig Kimbrel, is having a fantastic year. He's striking out batters at an astronomical rate, and has been literally unhittable. Many sabermetric fans and traditionalists seem to agree that this is the best season by a reliever, but I want to see just how good he's been. After the jump we'll take a look.

I went into the FanGraphs leaderboards of pleasure and wanted to see if anyone struck out as many batters as Kimbrel has while also limiting walks. What I saw blew me away.

Season	Name	Team	K%	BB%	HR/9	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP
2012	Craig Kimbrel	Braves	50.20%	6.30%	0.45	0.25	92.40%	1.04	0.82
2003	Eric Gagne	Dodgers	44.80%	6.50%	0.22	0.243	83.90%	1.2	0.86
2012	Aroldis Chapman	Reds	44.40%	7.80%	0.52	0.25	86.10%	1.55	1.52
2011	Kenley Jansen	Dodgers	44.00%	11.90%	0.5	0.297	76.20%	2.85	1.74
1999	Billy Wagner	Astros	43.40%	8.00%	0.6	0.226	86.50%	1.57	1.65
2004	Brad Lidge	Astros	42.60%	8.10%	0.76	0.292	88.00%	1.9	1.97
2010	Carlos Marmol	Cubs	41.60%	15.70%	0.12	0.293	78.10%	2.55	2.01
2011	Craig Kimbrel	Braves	41.50%	10.50%	0.35	0.315	80.70%	2.1	1.52
1999	Armando Benitez	Mets	41.00%	13.10%	0.46	0.259	84.90%	1.85	2.1
1998	Billy Wagner	Astros	39.30%	10.10%	0.9	0.336	83.10%	2.7	2.46
2010	Billy Wagner	Braves	38.80%	8.20%	0.65	0.246	87.50%	1.43	2.1
1992	Rob Dibble	Reds	38.50%	10.80%	0.38	0.321	71.60%	3.07	1.62
2012	Kenley Jansen	Dodgers	38.40%	8.90%	0.89	0.216	81.60%	2.36	2.58
1997	Billy Wagner	Astros	38.30%	10.80%	0.68	0.331	78.70%	2.85	2.39
2009	Jonathan Broxton	Dodgers	38.00%	9.70%	0.47	0.263	73.10%	2.61	1.97

 In this table are the relief pitchers with the highest strikeout percentages since 1920. The first thing that stuck out was that Kimbrel is really darn good. He's striking out batters at an unheard of 50% of the time! Not only is he doing an excellent job at striking guys out, but he's also doing an incredible job at limiting walks. As you can see Gagne and Kimbrel are the only ones to post above average BB%, while having astronomical strikeout numbers. The crazy thing is that Gagne struck out over 44% of batters in 2003, but Kimbrel is striking out 6% more while walking the same amount. Kimbrel has also been doing a phenomenal job at leaving men on base. While you may think a 92% LOB% would be in the top 5 for all-time, it actually would put Kimbrel at 13th all-time. The best LOB% by a reliever was 97.%, and that was done by Calvin Schiraldi in 1986. For those wondering I set the IP limit at 50 innings.

 I'm sure you know that Kimbrel has a ridiculous fastball, and he also has a filthy curveball. When he faces both left-handers and right-handers he throws his fastball and curveball generally the same amount of time. Interestingly when he's ahead of left-handers he uses his curveball and fastball 50% of the time. It's clear though that his dominant fastball and curveball are leading him to the record books.

 While looking at this chart I notice some other interesting facts. In 2012 there three relievers who could finish with some of the best strikeout rates since 1920. They are Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, Aroldis Chapman. If Kimbrel wasn't so dominant this year than we might be talking about Chapman instead. Craig Kimbrel is on the list for the second time, last year he struck out batters 44% of the time, but also struggled with walks. In fact besides Gagne and Kimbrel everyone on this list struggled with walks. I found that pretty interesting myself. I also remembered how dominant Billy Wagner was. He made the list four times, with the pinnacle being in 1999.

 While it's extremely unlikely Kimbrel repeats this season it is highly possible that he winds up as one of the best relievers of his generation, or if he's lucky he could be one of the best relievers of all-time. 

Data taken from FanGraphs.com and BrooksBaseball.net and is current as of September 28, 2012.