Strikeout Record Watch

[Grandstander]

Triad..

The first thing that must be addressed is this jumping back and forth between definitions of superior. At all times I am using the idea of actual superiority, not relative superiority. If Babe Ruth were around today and still trained on hot dogs and beer and his talent was exactly what it was in his own era, he would not be the best hitter in baseball, he probably woulod still be quite good, but there would be lots of players as good or better.

Now, if you switch that around and your scenario is Babe Ruth being born in 1980 and able to take advantage of modern training etc, then your notions would be more accurate. But that isn't, nor has it ever been my premise.

So, we are not going to resolve anything by employing one definition when if helps our case and another when it does not. If you wish to argue against my assertions, it should be only on the basis of Babe Ruth being the player and person he was while he was playing because that is the basis I am employing. Different hypothetical conditions...different answers.

Further, you are overlooking another factor and that is the talent base from which players are drawn. In Babe Ruth's time, major league rosters were filled out by selecting players from a population of 130 million, minus the African Americans who were barred. Today's rosters are filled from a comparatively immense talent base which not only includes the US population of 300 million, but also all of Latin America and Asia. Of course you are going to have better players if you are selecting the best from among five or six hundred million potential players, than you are when selecting the best from 115 million. How could that not be so?

Further, the Babe Ruth era featured playing fields which were not as well maintained as today's parks, and players wearing tiny, stiff gloves. Babe Ruth was driving a baseball through a much easier defense than are modern players. Between the massively improved fields and gloves, and the much quicker and more acrobatic fielders, Babe Ruth's batting average would suffer greatly. It was far, far easier to be a .360 hitter in the conditions under which Ruth played and if he were forced to compete in modern parks against modern defenses, it is insane to claim that he would have not suffered in his stats as a consequence.

See, you can't have it both ways. On the one hand, you say that today's hitters are better than yesteryear, and yet you still say that hitting is harder than it was long ago. This sounds like an arbitrary assessment.

With respect, it is you who err. There is no conflict with the above. Both hitting and pitching have improved, thus, both are more difficult and both require higher talent levels. Among the reasons I argue that today's hitters are much better is the very fact that they are facing more talented pitchers...and pitching is harder because they are facing more talented batters. I'm unclear on what your complaint is supposed to be.

[nanwynn]

Several scientific studies on pitched baseball velocity have established a consensus that torque, applied to the ball by the pitcher at release, is the key factor in pitch speed to the plate. Physical size, bulk, musculature and leg drive off the rubber contribute only forward body momentum, not torque. Thus the big, strapping 235 pound pitcher [without torque skills] may be outdone by a 180 pound contemporary who has master torque with control over the pitches.

Overpowering speed alone probably wont make for long and successful careers at the MLB either, so "stuff" enters the picture as a significant factor. Aside from the knuckleball, "stuff" also requires torque of a kind different from the fastball.

Bigger and stronger, in pitching, does not mean better.

If we compare pitching across decades and generations of play, we progress from dead balls seldom removed from game use, through scuffed, elmed, spit, cut, waxed, hair-oiled. and jellied, again with relatively low in-game turnover, with exaggerated movement applied to pitches, not encountered by today's hitters who swing at virtually pristine new baseballs.

As to pitching speed, Bob Feller was allegedly clocked several times, including a pre-WW II clocking that allegedly topped 103 mph by a few tenths of a second. However, a much more scientific test was conducted in May, 1946, with a clocked speed of 98.6 mph. Another alleged test had him @ 107 mph.

Tossing out all but the army conducted velocity test @ 98.6 mph, there are a few conditions for equitable measurement vs. today's tests for active young pitchers:

-In May, 1946, Feller had lost 5 seasons to military service in WW II, so it was not the "kid" who opened eyes in 1938-41;

-The army-sponsored test recorded the ball speed as it crossed the front of home plate, while current speed measurements clock ball speed at instand of release from pitcher's hand. There's something in the neighborhood of 57-60' of deceleration between release and front of plate, so 98.6 mph equates with 101-102 mph.

-The historic record of "fastest" pitcher, going back to 1901 must, of technical necessity, lend itself to a mixture of lore, serious study, favoritism and attempted honest observation. The general progression goes from Walter Johnson and Smoky Joe Wood to Lefty Grove and Satchel Paige [in black league play] to Bob Feller to Rob Dibble to Ranndy Johnaon to Joel Zumaya. In 1917, long after his prime, Walter Johnson was clocked in a gravity-drop test against his pitched ball at >92 mph.

-From a medical body of studies, the human arm cannot endure sustained torque-inducing stresses >100 mph for very long, so a pitcher must have a mix of pitches to preserve his career and keep batters off their timing.

If we talk of glove design and the effect of better glove technologies on potential batter average, a point is well made; but it addresses a topic other than the increase of batter strikeouts in the modern era.

The most marked jump occurred in 1996 and seemed to set a new acceptable level. There had been a trend upwards from the late '80s; but this was a less gradual "hike."

So, I believe a legitimate question is "What factor might modify young player batting approaches so that a crop of 21-25 year-olds would be more K prone [and accepting of same] than players from just a few years earlier.

I'd suggest that Little League acceptance of aluminum bats in the early 1970s; NCAA approval in 1974 and considerable adoption in 1975 and years after, made for an atmosphere of continuous aluminum bat exposure for kids aged 10-21, from LL through college.

If this time model is credible, then a kid born in 1968, entering LL in 1978* and college in 1986, would have been in the vanguard of "rookies" entering MLB @ 1992-94 at ages 24-26. Then, anyone similarly exposed thereafter would carry aluminum bat hitting psychology into the MLB level, where only wooden bats are used. [*I refer to LL at no younger than the 10-12 category].

I believe this lies at the root of the thread topic.

[Grandstander]

nan:

Bigger and stronger, in pitching, does not mean better.

Of course it does. "stuff" is no more likely to have been distributed liberally, or generally absent from one generation to the next. Obviously if greater speed is added to "stuff", then "stuff" gets harder to hit.

You would need to offer some proof that there was a surfeit of stuff previously which has now dried up for some reason, for your assertion to have validity.

[nanwynn]

Originally Posted by nanwynn

Several scientific studies on pitched baseball velocity have established a consensus that torque, applied to the ball by the pitcher at release, is the key factor in pitch speed to the plate. Physical size, bulk, musculature and leg drive off the rubber contribute only forward body momentum, not torque. Thus the big, strapping 235 pound pitcher [without torque skills] may be outdone by a 180 pound contemporary who has master torque with control over the pitches.

Overpowering speed alone probably wont make for long and successful careers at the MLB either, so "stuff" enters the picture as a significant factor. Aside from the knuckleball, "stuff" also requires torque of a kind different from the fastball. The Knuckler is unique in that the total absence of torque is essential.

Bigger and stronger, in pitching, does not mean better.

If we compare pitching across decades and generations of play, we progress from dead balls seldom removed from game use, through scuffed, elmed, spit, cut, waxed, hair-oiled. and jellied, again with relatively low in-game turnover, with exaggerated movement applied to pitches, not encountered by today's hitters who swing at virtually pristine new baseballs.

Regarding torque, stuff, etc. this - repeated - pretty much says it all relative to "bigger and better" NOT being synomymous.

[Grandstander]

Yes,I know what was said, I pointed out why it was incorrect. Repeating it does not rehabiliate it.

[nanwynn]

Have it your way. Perhaps contribute something of your own, something based on fact, not supposition.

[Grandstander]

You have not provided any relevant facts which support your position.

The problem is this: You have misunderstood what is being said by the evidence upon which you are relying.

What was presented would be correctly summed as "Bigger and stronger, in pitching, does not necessarily mean better." By leaving out the word in bold, you are advancing a false absolute, not supported by the evidence.

To simplify.....if you have two pitchers of utterly equal ability apart from the superiority of one in intangible areas, then the one with the superior intangibles is very likely to be the superior pitcher. If the situation is two pitchers with equal levels of intangible talents, but one is capable of throwing faster than the other, then the stronger, faster pitcher is more likely to be the superior pitcher.

Bigger and stronger isn't necessarily going to make you a good pitcher, but it certainly helps and is preferable to smaller and weaker if the other factors are the same.

So as I pointed out, the only utility for such information as applied to a decline or improvement in pitching, would be if earlier generations had huge advantages in intangibles and creating that torque, over those who have arrived in the trailing generations. There is no argument that the trailing generations are indeed bigger and stronger, obviously they are. My argument is that there is no reason I am aware of to think that intangibles were legion in times past and at drought levels today. If you have some evidence that there is a reason to believe this, that is what you should be presenting. Otherwise, the evidence which you mistakenly believes supports your position, actually supports no particular position.

You see? Look it over, think it over.

[nanwynn]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

utterly equal ability

Priceless.

[Grandstander]

A response such as that suggest to me that you lack a valid response.

[nanwynn]

Here are some notes addressing the wandering tangents the thread has taken relative to rising batter strikeouts shattering records even as they are made.

Pitching Concept: "Bigger"

1. I go back only as far as 1901, because by then the MLB rules, measurements and basic conditions were in place as we know them today, the three major differences being a lowered pitching mound [1969] and an architectural tendency to shrink ballpark dimensions, and a livelier ball, introduced in 1910 but fully adopted in 1911.

2. With improved general quality of life in terms of health care and nutrition, we have grown some in the last 100 years; but as far as pitchers go, MLB generally favored bigger guys for pitching jobs, based on any variety of suppositions made about any advantage that size might impart.
Six footers have predominated for most of the century since 1901. We just have more guys 6'4" and above today; and they are not consistently among the better performers, either. That laurel STILL goes to guys in the 6'0" to 6'3" range. [NOT much changed].

3. If "bigger" is taken to be synonymous with "stronger;" and if that is taken to mean "faster" [overpowering], the bigger-is-better template gets tossed out the window. Speed is a matter of torque; and the combination of torque and hard deliveries approach human arm maximum load levels. Pitchers must develop varieties of pitches for pacing and preservation of career effectiveness.

Scientific testing, dating back to 1917, has reached a consensus that the upper mph limit for a pitched baseball is 103 mph if measured at point of release [modern guns], or 101 mph if measured at point where pitched ball crosses a line marking the front end of of home plate [military velocity measurement tests.

The above-mentioned need for variety of pitches brings us to "stuff."

4. "Stuff" is here intended to be all pitches other than fastballs, with sudden speed change, ball deviation from linear projectory, down, in, or out [or giving the "appearance" of rising]. Stuff, too, requires torque of a different kind, with the exception being the knuckle ball, where the absence of torque is mandatory.

"Stuff" also has its own history. It can be generated by an unadulterated combination of finger placement on the ball, pressure imparted to ball by finger[s], wrist tension and or "torque" motion, and point of release in the throwing arc.

It can also be adulterated, by spit, Vaseline, sweat, sandpaper [emery], slippery elm, K-Y jelly, belt buckle scuffing [cutting], or whatever an enterprising pitcher or colluding teammate[s] can conjure up.

The "outlawed" spitter was banished with some diplomacy. It was outlawed in 1920; but certified "spitter" pitchers were "godfathered" in and protected through the ends of their careers. So, from 1901 through 1930, there was LOTS OF "STUFF" being used that we do not see in use today.

So, was there an age in MLB during which there was a wealth of "stuff" far surpassing what is on the shelves today? Yes. However, there is still plenty of "stuff" around today.

4. Today's "Stuff" includes the knuckleball and the other moving pitches unadorned by foreign substances. After the 1930s and through the 1980s there have always been pitchers held "suspect" for some sort of "cheating;" [today is no exception] but the proof is not forthcoming, nor is any sustained effort to unmask them. Overall, the variety is a bit diminished; but bad batting training and habits have more than compensated for any such discounts.

6. "Bigger" = "Better"

Well, one willing to limit himself to pitchers not being taller than 6'0" [immediately suspect of foolishness for setting the bar so low when 6 footers were common in 1901], could start with this presentation:

Category: ERA+ Leaders............Seasons.............Height...We ight

Johann Santana......................2004 thru 2006.....6'0"......195
Tim Lanceum..........................2008 YTD............5'11".....160
Pedro Martinez........................1999-00; 02-03...5'11".....170
Greg Maddux...........................1992-95; 98........6'0"......170
Juan Guzman...........................1996............. .....5'11"....195

OR, just taking a look at 2007 full season rosters, limited to top ERA+ staff performers, and also restricting any list, even further to include only pitchers no taller than 6'0", and then being sure they are still active in 2008:

ERA+ Leaders: 2007 [and active]

Pitcher...................Height..........Weight

Moyer.....................6'0"...............178
Geary......................6'0"...............170
Gordon....................5'9"...............180
Wagner...................5'10"..............180
Hudson....................6'0"...............160
Saul Rivera...............5'11"..............150
Lilly.........................6'0"...............1 85
Oswalt.....................6'0"...............170
Y. Petit....................6'0"...............180
Hampton..................5'10"..............180
Herges.....................6'0"...............200
Trevor Hoffman..........6'0"...............205
Meredith...................6'0"...............180
Cameron...................6'0"...............195
Saenez.....................5'10".............185
Billingsley..................6'0"...............24 4

Matsuzaka................6'0"................185
Kazmir......................6'0"................17 0
Fultz........................6'0"................1 96
Byrdak.....................5'11"...............190
Perkins....................5'11"................20 0
Jo. Peralta................5'11"...............170
Fr. Rodriguez.............6'0".................175
Mi. Batista................6'0".................160
Sherrill.....................6'0"................. 210
Street......................6'0".................1 85

7. Stuff & Size & Velocity & Other Mythology

From 1901 through the present, fan fascination with pitching is always piqued when it comes to speed of the fastball. Of the very earliest guys, two were speed tested [gravity drop test] in 1917 long after their peak years:

Pitcher..............Speed...........Height....... Weight

W. Johnson...........93...............6'0"........... 200.....[95.8mph release]
Smoky Joe Wood....92...............5'11".........180.....[94.8mph release]

In 1946, after 5 years in WW II military service

Feller...................98.6.............6'0'.... ........200....[101.6mph release]
.........................101.6+release

and on into the current age with Wohlers and Johnson, Randy's 6'10" frame not upsetting any evolutionary apple carts because his speed set no records or esyablished new velocity standards ... merely anothe fast-baller, only taller.

.... and then guys who, over the years, perfected pitches based on "stuff" rather than velocity and presenting a mixed bag of sizes [6'0" limit OFF]:

Pitcher..................Height..............Weigh t

Joss........................6'3".................1 80
Morris......................6'3".................2 00
Face.......................5'8"..................1 55
Simmons..................6'0"..................187
Bridges....................5'10".................1 50
Pierce......................5'10"................1 60
Brecheen..................5'10"................160
Hooton.....................6'1"..................2 10
Lopat.......................5'10"................1 85

Bigger is not better. Bigger does not imply velocity or mastery of stuff. Bigger may be an attribute but only if potential + training + mentoring + player development come together effectively. Bigger is merely bigger.

In sum: Effective pitching + diminishing batting discipline = record batter K's.

[Triad]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Now, if you switch that around and your scenario is Babe Ruth being born in 1980 and able to take advantage of modern training etc, then your notions would be more accurate. But that isn't, nor has it ever been my premise.

OK, I appreciate the clarification. Isn't this type of premise more meaningful, though? I don't understand the utility of the other premise.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Further, you are overlooking another factor and that is the talent base from which players are drawn. In Babe Ruth's time, major league rosters were filled out by selecting players from a population of 130 million, minus the African Americans who were barred. Today's rosters are filled from a comparatively immense talent base which not only includes the US population of 300 million, but also all of Latin America and Asia. Of course you are going to have better players if you are selecting the best from among five or six hundred million potential players, than you are when selecting the best from 115 million. How could that not be so?

That's a fair question. Look at it this way. Jamaica has a population of about 3 million people, which is 1% of the U.S. population. And yet the U.S., with all its athletic training opportunities, doesn't have a group of elite sprinters that are better than Jamaica's. My point about Ruth's era is that the best players back then match up quite well with the best players of this era, but it's just that there are more such players now. There's nothing that says an increased population base produces better baseball players. When the U.S. is someday at 600 million people, do you expect that there will be several players better than Barry Bonds?

Now, if you took a pool of the U.S.'s top 50 sprinters and Jamaica's top 50 sprinters, then I think it would be a much different story. However, the U.S.'s size advantage doesn't translate into having sprinters that are better than all of Jamaica's sprinters.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Further, the Babe Ruth era featured playing fields which were not as well maintained as today's parks, and players wearing tiny, stiff gloves. Babe Ruth was driving a baseball through a much easier defense than are modern players.

We need to take the bad with the good. Ruth also had disadvantages. He himself played in those same conditions. The bats were also part of the equipment, and the cleats. And the clubhouse conditions. And the train rides. Get my drift here?

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Between the massively improved fields and gloves, and the much quicker and more acrobatic fielders, Babe Ruth's batting average would suffer greatly. It was far, far easier to be a .360 hitter in the conditions under which Ruth played and if he were forced to compete in modern parks against modern defenses, it is insane to claim that he would have not suffered in his stats as a consequence.

He'd be about a .310 hitter I'd guess. And he'd hit 40-50 home runs a year. Ruth couldn't dominate in the same fashion he did in the '20s and '30s, but he'd be one of this era's premier players, and a near-unanimous first-ballot Hall of Famer, up in the realm of Mays and Aaron. I didn't say Ruth's stats wouldn't suffer, but he'd still be one of the game's elite.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

If you have two pitchers of utterly equal ability apart from the superiority of one in intangible areas, then the one with the superior intangibles is very likely to be the superior pitcher. If the situation is two pitchers with equal levels of intangible talents, but one is capable of throwing faster than the other, then the stronger, faster pitcher is more likely to be the superior pitcher.

GS, you seem to have set up an arbitrary standard. The same could be said of any pitching quality. If you have two pitchers of equal ability apart from location, the one with better location is likely to be the better pitcher. If you have two pitchers of equal ability apart from their curveball, the one with the better curve is likely to be the better pitcher. I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate by making power pitching any different than another quality.

[Grandstander]

OK, I appreciate the clarification. Isn't this type of premise more meaningful, though? I don't understand the utility of the other premise.

I do not understand why you would class either view as having more or less utility than the other. Both are hypothetical situations and it doesn't matter all that much which scenario you adopt when discussing it as long as both parties are discussing the same scenario. I was alerting you to my set of assumptions in my hypotheticals, thinking that perhaps you wouldn't be arguing with me at all if you understood that.

I prefer my method to one which involves time travel adjustments because those will always be subjective, no matter how much math is involved, there is a still a theory behind it and the theory is opinion.

Further, since my arument rests on the premise that the ballplayers today are better because they are physically superior, then of course I'm not talking about anything other than absolute superiority, not relative superiority. I would have thought that this would have tipped all to the framework that I was employing. Putting a straw hat and spats wearing Albert Pujols on a diet of beer, hot dogs and whores, sticking him on a train traveling around the American NE, would certainly tend to erode his physical conditioning. Since my argument has been that a Pujols is a better ballplayer than Ruth because he is physically superior to Ruth, then I can't really be discussing this in a hypotherical realm of time travel and altered physical conditions, can I?

I hope that this clarifies it for you. Understanding this will probably fill in the answers I would be giving to the rest of your post.

[Triad]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

I prefer my method to one which involves time travel adjustments because those will always be subjective, no matter how much math is involved, there is a still a theory behind it and the theory is opinion.

Yours involves time travel just as much:

The Ruth era hitters facing today's pitcher's would not be able to put up the fat numbers they posted against weaker arms. The Ruth era pitchers would get raked by today's hitters.
—Grandstander

The difference as I see it is that your method doesn't make an adjustment for the unique conditions a player is subject to for the time he plays in. Your method produces a skewed view of the relative merits of players, with the claim that ten of today's hitters would be as good or better than Ruth. With such a skewed view, it provides no perspective, so I don't see what use it has.

For example, what sense would it make to say that hundreds of today's physicists are more intelligent than Isaac Newton was, being that they have more ideal conditions in which to operate and have learned more things about physics and mathematics than he did back then? It's a nonsensical statement to make. The useful statement would be that Newton was a brilliant physicist and mathematician, and if he had been born today instead, it would only make sense that someone with his mind would be a pre-eminent authority regardless of what era it was.

Minds adapt to their environment, as do bodies. Existing in a different time period doesn't do anything to define the person.

With your method, you're trying to remove a person from the conditions of their time period. With my method, I'm trying to leave them in the conditions of their time period. Mine seems to contain more realism.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Further, since my arument rests on the premise that the ballplayers today are better because they are physically superior, then of course I'm not talking about anything other than absolute superiority, not relative superiority.

Absolute superiority doesn't seem to answer any questions other than a simple evolution of talent, but it says nothing about the individual players themselves. It doesn't tell us how good Pujols is in relation to Ruth. Instead, it gives a false indication that even Lance Berkman is better than Ruth.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Since my argument has been that a Pujols is a better ballplayer than Ruth because he is physically superior to Ruth, then I can't really be discussing this in a hypotherical realm of time travel and altered physical conditions, can I?

But your argument has the built-in assumption along with it that Pujols is better than Ruth as a result of existing in the 21st century, and that Ruth is a worse player than Pujols as a result of playing in the 1920s. You're essentially addressing the time periods instead of the players themselves. If you want to make an analysis, you need to have a control group. Testing Pujols in different time periods would serve to do this. It is beneficial to run the test under different conditions in order to see what variables are contributing to a player's success. If a lot of it is the era he plays in, then we can't very well credit the player for a variable he didn't create, now can we? Your method wants to give props to Pujols for having a superior birth certificate to Ruth's. That seems a little silly to me.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

I hope that this clarifies it for you. Understanding this will probably fill in the answers I would be giving to the rest of your post.

You still didn't address the Jamaica factor, as well as the notion that baseball doesn't rely a lot on pure athleticism. Getting faster track & field times throughout history doesn't translate over directly to having better ballplayers. It's been pointed out to you that players were hitting moon shots back in the '50s and '60s which rival the current day, and pitchers were throwing in the high '90s. I wouldn't confuse a larger frame to being necessarily all that much of a talent improvement in baseball.

I do think baseball talent has evolved to having a greater number of elite players in more recent years and the overall competition is better for various reasons, but I don't think this means it's evolved to having a group of players that are superior to the best players of yesteryear.

Also, you didn't speak to the notion about power pitchers. The same could be said of any pitching quality. If you have two pitchers of equal ability apart from location, the one with better location is likely to be the better pitcher. If you have two pitchers of equal ability apart from their curveball, the one with the better curve is likely to be the better pitcher. I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate by making power pitching any different than another quality.

If you take the top 25 active starting pitchers in career adj. ERA, you get this breakdown:

under 6'0" ...... 2 (Martinez, Colon)
6'0 - 6'2" ...... 11 (Webb, Santana, Oswalt, Maddux, Hudson, Buehrle, Mussina, Peavy, Glavine, Sheets, Escobar)
6'3" - 6'5" ...... 7 (Zambrano, Schilling, Smoltz, Wood, Pettitte, Zito, Beckett)
6'6" and up .... 6 (Johnson, Halladay, Lowe, Lackey, Sabathia, Carpenter)

The average height among this group is 6'3". The median height is 6'2½".

If you take the top 25 active starting pitchers in career wins, the average height is 6'2½", and the median height is 6'2".
(the new names on this list are Moyer, Rogers, Wakefield, Sele, L. Hernandez, Trachsel, Millwood, Hampton, Williams, Lieber, Schmidt, Suppan, Loiaza, Vasquez)

It's not evident how a pitcher's size and strength would tend to make him a better pitcher, on average. If the best pitchers today are typically in the 6'2½" range, then the idea that 6'5" pitchers are preferable is a myth.

[Grandstander]

If what you are arguing was true, then we could chop nine inches from Randy Johnson's height, changing the angle at which the pitches come in from a severe slope to a more flat trajectory, and it would make no difference in his effectiveness.

That obviously isn't true, so your thesis is also obviously false. Of course size matters, of course bigger is an advantage. That it is not the sole determining factor does not make it a non factor.

I would also add that you misunderstood everything that I said about time travel and I have no confidence that we are talking about the same things employing the same definitions.

[WilsonC]

Originally Posted by Triad

If you take the top 25 active starting pitchers in career adj. ERA, you get this breakdown:

under 6'0" ...... 2 (Martinez, Colon)
6'0 - 6'2" ...... 11 (Webb, Santana, Oswalt, Maddux, Hudson, Buehrle, Mussina, Peavy, Glavine, Sheets, Escobar)
6'3" - 6'5" ...... 7 (Zambrano, Schilling, Smoltz, Wood, Pettitte, Zito, Beckett)
6'6" and up .... 6 (Johnson, Halladay, Lowe, Lackey, Sabathia, Carpenter)

The average height among this group is 6'3". The median height is 6'2½".

If you take the top 25 active starting pitchers in career wins, the average height is 6'2½", and the median height is 6'2".
(the new names on this list are Moyer, Rogers, Wakefield, Sele, L. Hernandez, Trachsel, Millwood, Hampton, Williams, Lieber, Schmidt, Suppan, Loiaza, Vasquez)

It's not evident how a pitcher's size and strength would tend to make him a better pitcher, on average. If the best pitchers today are typically in the 6'2½" range, then the idea that 6'5" pitchers are preferable is a myth.

One thing to keep in mind here is the distribution of height among the general population. 6'2"-6'3" is right around the top of the 'common' height distribution - people taller than that tend to stand out in a crowd with their height. Over 6'6" is uncommonly tall. For there to be as many pitchers as there are on that list who are significantly taller than the average person, and for the average to be right around the top of the 'common' height spectrum does suggest that size is an advantage for a pitcher. It's not the advantage it is for, say, a basketball player, but it is enough of an advantage that the majority of good pitchers are of above average height.