Here at Rogue we have developed a stat that will not show up in the box score of any major league game; It’s called the DMO index. I’d argue that all dominate pitchers in the league would have very high DMO indexes even though they don’t know it. The stat is process based, rather than result based like most of the well kept stats in baseball.
I believe strongly in pitching efficiently over everything else. Good pitchers get 3 outs as quickly as possible so their hitters can keep momentum and fielders stay alert. (I’ll touch more on the philosophy in later blogs) The DMO index consists of six individual statistics, three positive, three negative. The three positive stats include first pitch strikes, getting batters out in 4 pitches or less, and completing innings in 12 pitches or less. In order to score well in these three categories the pitcher must be extremely effective and use the defense. On the flip side, there are three negative stats that hurt the pitchers chances of having a quick inning. First pitch balls, walks and bad walks (no out walks and 2 out walks).
The calculation is simple. Each individual stat is weighted based on its effectiveness and ineffectiveness to help the pitcher be successful. (First pitch balls and strikes are weighted as -1+1, walks/HBP and less than 4 pitch at bats are -2 +2 and bad walks and completing innings in 12 pitches or less are -3+3) We take the totals multiply them by their appropriate weight, subtract the negative from the positive and divide by the total number of innings to calculate their DMO index during a given outing or over the course of the season.
Example :
Billy’s stat line reads
5 innings pitched
10 first pitch strikes
8 first pitch balls
1 walk
1 bad walk
6 batters out in 4 pitches or less
1 twelve pitch inning
Positives – Negatives / Innings pitched = DMO index
((10*1)+(6*2)+(1*3))-((8*1)+(1*2)+(1*3))/5 = 2.4
Here is a peek at some of our DMO Indexes from the fall with our 18U guys
The goal of the stat is to encourage our guys to stop worrying about results and evaluate how they did each game in their processes and approaches to each situation. A good DMO index is around +3. Anything above that is getting to Extreme Efficiency and what we strive for! As you can see, as a team we did a pretty good job of being effiicient, and the guys with the high DMO index numbers were definitely our most consistant guys. If they have a good DMO index they will most likely have good result stats as well, like ERA and WHIP. In the future, we will work to provide a basic correlation between a player’s DMO Index and their traditional stats, but not enough data was collected this fall to provide that. We believe this stat helps our pitchers stay locked in on the bump and helps them perform in a way that will best give us a chance to win.
Pitching Instructor