In a recent post at Beyond the Box Score, I introduced a new way to measure deception by a pitcher. Simply put, how often do hitters take called strikes in each count, as compared to the league average. After a little bit of simple math, I get a number that is a reasonable estimate of how good a pitcher is at tricking a hitter into thinking a pitch is a ball.

It doesn’t distinguish movement, delivery or any other factor that really gets at the source of the deception. Except control. Based on a suggestion or two, I’ve factored out the expected impact of the pitcher’s ability to throw strikes.

The stat I created is Called Strikes per Takes Above Average, or CSpTAA. The best CSpTAA, belonging to Tampa’s J.P Howell, is .378. Sean White has the worst, -.232. 0 would be, by definition, average. These leaders are shown in the updated version of the leaderboard at BtBS, which can be found within the comments there.

Here are the Cubs. Two differences from the BtBS numbers - the minimum here is 100 takes in 2009, it was 350 for the leaderboards. And I’ve included Friday’s game against the Reds as well.

Lilly is 30th in the league this year. Before the “control” correction, he was top 5. Theodore of the Bad Shoulder leads the league in strike rate, so the adjusment hit him rather hard. Hart looks awful with this measure of deception, and was actually helped by the control adjustment.