Players · B · Pitcher · 2009 regular season

Brandon Backe

Age: 31
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 195 lb
Number: #41

Born: April 5, 1978 in Galveston, TX, United States
MLB debut: July 19, 2002

dbWAR: 1.3
IP: 13.0
ERA: 10.38
FIP: 7.94
K/9: 6.9
FIP−: 184

Brandon Backe was a relief pitcher for the Houston Astros. In 2009 he struck out 10 batters over 13.0 innings across 5 appearances, going 0-0. His ERA of 10.38 was 140.3% higher than the league average of 4.32. Stripping out defence, his 7.94 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 17.2% of swings (7.3% of every pitch he threw), walked 9.2% of the batters he faced and struck out 15.4%. His -0.4 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2009 regular season.

FIP7.94

K/96.9

WHIP2.08

WAR-.4

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below. Seasons on file run 2005–2009; his career began in 2002, and earlier seasons are not in this data yet.


2009	HOU	5	1	13.0	0	0	21	15	10	6	10.38	7.94	2.08	6.9	4.2	240	184	-0.4
2008	HOU	31	31	166.2	9	14	202	112	127	77	6.05	5.87	1.67	6.9	4.2	140	136	-0.9
2007	HOU	5	5	28.2	3	1	27	12	11	11	3.77	5.65	1.33	3.5	3.5	84	126	-0.1
2006	HOU	8	8	43.0	3	2	43	18	19	18	3.77	4.94	1.42	4.0	3.8	83	109	0.3
2005	HOU	26	25	149.1	10	8	151	79	97	67	4.76	4.80	1.46	5.8	4.0	111	112	0.8

Batting Regular season


2009	HOU	2	2	0	0	0	0	1	1	.000	.500	.000	.000	—	50.0%	50.0%	.360	+0.0	121	0.0
2008	HOU	27	56	13	2	3	0	3	18	.277	.333	.447	.170	.407	5.4%	32.1%	.347	+0.7	109	0.8
2007	HOU	7	11	4	1	1	0	1	3	.400	.455	.800	.400	.500	9.1%	27.3%	.531	+1.8	239	0.3
2006	HOU	8	15	2	0	0	0	1	6	.143	.200	.143	.000	.250	6.7%	40.0%	.168	-2.1	-13	-0.0
2005	HOU	25	53	10	0	6	1	3	12	.222	.271	.356	.133	.303	5.7%	22.6%	.278	-2.3	65	0.5

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Brandon Backe's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2005 Post	HOU	Postseason total	4	3	18.0	13	6	1	6	17	3.00	1.06	8.5
		NLDS	2	1	5.1	6	5	1	3	3	8.44	1.69	5.1
		NLCS	1	1	5.2	2	1	0	3	7	1.59	0.88	11.1
		World Series	1	1	7.0	5	0	0	0	7	0.00	0.71	9.0

Postseason batting

Postseason Brandon Backe's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2005 Post	HOU	Postseason total	3	5	5	2	.000	.000	.000	.000
		NLDS	1	1	1	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
		NLCS	1	2	2	1	.000	.000	.000	.000
		World Series	1	2	2	1	.000	.000	.000	.000

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2009. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	30	27	10	2	3	3	.370	.433	.667	.467	10.0%
vs RHB	35	31	11	3	3	7	.355	.400	.742	.477	20.0%

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2009.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .262.

Pitch sequencing

What Brandon Backe throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamSliderSinkerCurveballCutterChangeup

Select a count to see exactly what Brandon Backe throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	36.2%	84	88.8	1,989	36.9%	21.6%	24	.375	1.256
Slider	21.1%	49	81.6	627	44.9%	35.3%	10	—	—
Sinker	18.5%	43	89.1	2,418	32.6%	5.0%	8	—	—
Curveball	8.6%	20	74.6	1,224	45.0%	0.0%	4	—	—
Cutter	8.2%	19	87.9	1,827	36.8%	7.7%	8	—	—
Changeup	5.2%	12	82.3	1,325	33.3%	0.0%	4	—	—

Brandon Backe's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Brandon Backe

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.