Joe Posnanski has been tracking Brian Bannister's starts over at his blog after another strong outing from Bannister on Sunday.

I find this situation fascinating. Often statistical metrics in baseball come with them an implicit assumption of a level of ignorance of the metric by the actors involved. Just as people may behave differently when on a hidden camera than they would when they knew a camera is watching, it's interesting to watch a statistical phenomenon that one of the pitchers involved is aware of. This could change the normal dynamics of the statistic, or it may be that awareness doesn't really affect it at all. It could lie somewhere in the middle as well.

I think it's safe to say that if Bannister continues to post his current .175 throughout the season, that awareness has made a large difference. I think it's also safe to say he probably won't post a number quite that low. In any event, it's also worth noting that Bannister's expressed desire to strike out more hitters this year also has gotten off to a good start as his strikeout per batter faced total is up over 50% over last year so far in this small sample. His walk total (which he also said he'd like to lower) is roughly the same. He also has yet to give up a home run, a stat often overlooked in the DIPS hierarchy.

As I would warn against with any other player, the sample so far is extremely small and you read too much into it at your own peril. Suffice it to say, anyone who does the sorts of things I do is probably rooting hard for Brian.