Is Delmon Young the Third-Most Patient Hitter On the Team?

by Jesse on May 23, 2008 6:30 AM EDT in WTF

Color me surprised...

Name	P/PA
Brendan Harris	4.1
Joe Mauer	4.0
Delmon Young	3.8

Those are your team leaders in pitches per plate appearance. Seriously. This doesn't mean he doesn't have poor strike zone judgement, but it goes against the idea that he's been horrifically aggressive in pitch selection. Just goes to show that you can't always trust what your eyes tell you. Sorry about that one Delmon--my bad.

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A couple things

1) I bet that number has been going up. This is just “what my eyes tell me”, but I sure think I have noticed a considerable increase in good at-bats from him over the last 3 weeks or so.

2) He still turns a lot of balls into strikes by swinging and fouling off pitches. Seeing 10 pitches isn’t THAT much better than seeing 3 pitches if they are all balls out of the zone that he is fouling off. Until he gets hitters’ counts, they’ll keep throwing him stuff he can’t hit very well. But if a hitter can do a better than average job of fouling pitches off, he will see more pitches per plate appearance, without any noticeable benefit. Could this be what is happening in his case?

Either way, he is definitely turning things around, and it’s exciting to see.

http://noblingblings.blogspot.com/

by Aaron Fix on May 23, 2008 8:36 AM EDT reply actions

A better question might be

how many swings per plate appearance does Delmon take?

He fouls off a lot of pitches, especially early in the count, and I think the word on the street is that he will chase. So, after pitchers get ahead of him, they try to expand the zone.

Perhaps his eye is getting better, but that does not mean he is getting more “patient”, just a little bit smarter about where to spend his impatience.

by Old Twins Cap on May 23, 2008 9:07 AM EDT reply actions

You're right, this doesn't mean he's patient.

All it really means is that his plate appearances are lasting longer.

I’m still gathering pitch selection data, I should share that again soon.

by Jesse on May 23, 2008 9:20 AM EDT up reply actions

He's still swinging alot

According to Fan Graphs, he’s swung at 36.42% of pitches outside of the strike zone, 5th highest in the Majors (GoGo Gomez is 2nd at 37.23% behind only Vlad) and has swung at 55% of the pitches thrown to him, 4th highest in the majors.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=4&season=2008

The Ragnarok

by TBird41 on May 23, 2008 10:35 AM EDT reply actions

Punto

Don’t know where he stacks up, and I understand that someone will cry out “small sample size,” but my guess is he was seeing the fewest pitches per PA of his Twins’ career, and until he went gimpy on us, was doing just fine.

Patience is not always rewarded in this game. Sometimes, adjusting to what the opponents know is the ace up your body armor.

by Johnny Safron on May 23, 2008 5:41 PM EDT reply actions

you're right on Punto...

exactly 3 pitchers per plate appearance…wicked low.

by Jesse on May 23, 2008 5:45 PM EDT up reply actions

the thing about that

Punto probably sees better pitches. If they throw it right down the middle, there’s not reason not to swing. And against Punto, there is no reason to nibble around the edges since he’ll get himself out.

Patience is definitely not rewarded if you’re bad at hitting the ball.

http://noblingblings.blogspot.com/

by Aaron Fix on May 23, 2008 11:19 PM EDT up reply actions

The problem with generalizing

“Unfortunately for you, none of your statements are correct. I found the P/PA on ESPN.com. Throughout Punto’s career, he has seen basically 4 pitches per PA. In 2006, he batted nearly .300 in more than 500 PAs, had a career-high OPS over .700, and saw 3.73 pitches per PA, a career low. Last year, he was more patient, and he didn’t hit at all. This year, he is not seeing 3 P/PA, but his BA was up and his OPS was the second-highest of his career. What this tells us is the opposite of what you state, and confirms that, for whatever reason, he had been more aggressive this year.

At one time, he worked the count, more, and after doing OK with that approach in ‘06, it failed him in ‘07. This year, I noticed he was no longer waiting for those ball calls. He was swinging the bat. Whether this was a strategy, I don’t know, but I do know that last year Punto did a lot more watching than this year, andthe aggressiveness was working for him.

As for pitchers throwing it down the middle, you can’t get away with that very long at this level. Even a guy who had never batted as a pro, Bobby Korecky, showed what a guy with a decent swing can do with a fastball down the middle. If pitchers were laying it in there for Punto, who is a .246 career hitter (a helluva lot harder to accomplish than people accustomed to sitting at their keyboards might think) he would be a .320 lifetime hitter.

by Johnny Safron on May 24, 2008 12:17 AM EDT up reply actions