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In baseball, a ground ball pitcher is a type of pitcher that has a tendency to induce ground balls from opposing batters. The average ground ball pitcher has a ground ball rate of at least 50% with extreme ground ball pitchers maintaining a ground ball rate of around 55%. Pitchers with a ground ball rate lower than 50% may be classified as flyball pitchers or as pitchers who exhibit the tendencies of both ground ball and fly ball pitchers. Ground ball pitchers rely on pitches that are low in the strike zone with substantial downward movement, such as splitters and sinker balls.
Baseball analysts and sabermetrician Tom Tango agree that ground ball pitchers are generally better pitchers than those with fly ball tendencies. Meanwhile, baseball writer and analyst Bill James argues the opposite because of injury patterns among ground ball pitchers.