Offensive Pitch Analysis: Fastballs

by Jesse on Aug 12, 2008 12:14 PM EDT in By the Numbers Comment 22 comments

Thanks again to Pitchfx, who's daily updated information keeps me from having to log every single pitch myself. We'll examine how the boys have done against fastballs today, and we'll work our way through the other pitches over the coming days.

Name	Balls	Called Strikes	Swinging Strikes	Foul/Foul Tip	In-Play Outs	1B	2B	3B	HR	BABIP
J. Morneau	327	173	42	183	110	30	9	0	11	.313
C. Gomez	242	148	65	198	92	36	8	4	1	.348
D. Young	242	113	86	218	93	36	13	1	0	.350
J. Mauer	405	241	25	158	110	49	10	1	6	.375
B. Harris	290	197	58	168	110	35	10	1	3	.308
J. Kubel	248	122	26	105	103	26	3	2	6	.264
A. Casilla	205	168	19	81	70	31	10	0	4	.391
M. Cuddyer	214	164	24	107	99	21	9	1	3	.256
M. Lamb	166	76	33	96	107	28	2	3	2	.246
N. Punto	97	72	10	61	47	23	6	2	1	.405
D. Span	84	56	6	66	29	12	3	1	1	.370
B. Buscher	50	31	9	29	22	10	3	0	1	.389
M. Redmond	85	22	2	81	34	13	4	0	0	.333
A. Everett	101	54	12	48	53	7	5	0	2	.209

Any observations?

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Comments

Unlucky Minnesota Astros

Both Lamb and Everett have unlucky BABIPs, if you compare this year to their history. These additions made sense for the Twins. Luck can not be predicted. Assuming Everett is healthy, I’ll take him over Punto without a second thought.

Punto is just slightly lucky if you compare BABIP with his historical BABIP. The 0.405 BABIP suggests he is fortunate to see any fastballs.

Finally, statistically, it has seemed for a long time that Cuddyer and Kubel are the same player.

by bertrecords on Aug 12, 2008 12:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

stats

What does BABIP stand for

by WITwinsfan on Aug 12, 2008 1:40 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Explanation

It stands for “batting average on balls in play”. The league average is somewhere around .290-.300. Studies show that BABIP is highly correlated with a hitter’s line drive percentage but not significantly correlated with anything else.

by PhoenixV on Aug 12, 2008 1:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Batting average on balls in play.

It’s largely a function of HOW the balls are hit: line drives (harder to convert into outs), fly balls (can be home runs) and ground balls (easy to convert into outs, can’t be home runs). So the more line drives a player hits, the fewer outs he’s likely to record for his team.

BABIP has to do only with the times the player puts the ball in play, where he either gets a hit or records an out-no strikeouts, errors, walks, etc will count. While there’s a certain amount of luck involved, if a guy has a higher BABIP for a certain pitch, like fastballs, it probably means they’re hitting it pretty well-better contact, more line drives, higher BABIP. Average is right around .300.

by Jesse on Aug 12, 2008 1:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ground Balls

THis is something I think is misstated, or at least mislead, frequently. Ground balls are actually converted into outs more often than fly balls. The difference of course is fly balls that aren’t outs become doubles and homers and ground balls that aren’t made outs almot always just become singles.

Also, taking a look at this data, it pretty much solidifies what I’ve been marveling at all year. Why on earth would you EVER throw Delmon Young a fastball? I’d never throw the guy anything but junk off the corners.

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane

by AdamOnFirst on Aug 12, 2008 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Taking pitches

Have you noticed that Delmon has been taking more pitches when he thinks they are not fastballs or they are out of the strike zone? I don’t have stats in front of me, but he seems to be slowely learning more discipline. Not that he’ll ever be Ricky Henderson or anything discipline wise, but it’s a start.

The exception seems to be the first pitch, which he swings at almost every time no matter what or where it is. So, while I too wonder why anyone would throw him a first-pitch fastball, I don’t marvel that they throw him fastballs when down in the count. It would be interesting to see how he does when ahead of the count versus behind in the count.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Aug 12, 2008 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What sticks out to me

Is Kubel. .264 BABIP on fastballs? That’s got to be some bad luck.

by Eric in Madison on Aug 12, 2008 1:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Erratum

Actually, Jessy, I think you may have made an error in your calculation of BABIP. You seem to use the formula: BABIP = (1B + 2B + 3B + HR) / (1B + 2B + 3B + HR + outs on balls in play).

In fact, BABIP excludes home runs, while instead considering errors, fielders’ choices and sacrifice flies (cf. Wikipedia). So from the raw data in the table above we can only give a rough estimate of the “real” BABIP.

However, the numbers you have calculated certainly do convey some information about how each hitter has been able to manage fastballs this year – we just can’t treat it the same way we treat BABIP. For example, the league average probably isn’t .300 for this number.

by PhoenixV on Aug 12, 2008 2:00 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Sorry for not being able to spell your name...

by PhoenixV on Aug 12, 2008 2:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You bastard.

You’ll pay for your crimes.

by Jesse on Aug 12, 2008 2:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks,

it sounds like a fundamental misunderstanding of BABIP on my part. I thought it was pretty cut and dried, when clearly there’s more to it. Thanks for the correction.

by Jesse on Aug 12, 2008 2:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Basically

Basicaly, home runs are not “in play.” They are one of the three true outcomes. Homers simply fly over everybody and the fielders aren’t part of it, so homers aren’t part of the “in play” category.

by AdamOnFirst on Aug 12, 2008 3:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I ran some quick numbers

I just imported 65,536 batting events from 2007 into Excel and calculated “Jesse’s BABIP” – hits divided by (hits plus outs on BIP) – for the total of all these. It turns out the average is .334, which explains why the Twins numbers seem so high.

Please note that the number .334 is calculated mostly from batters playing for teams starting with the letters A through D, since these were at the top of my Retrosheet file and Excel can only handle a certain amount of rows in one spreadsheet. So don’t put too much stock in it as the bona fide MLB average.

by PhoenixV on Aug 12, 2008 2:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Some more quantitative analysis

It turns out that if we use all the Retrosheet data from 2007, only focusing on batters who made more than 30 outs on balls in play, the total jBABIP (Jesse’s BABIP) comes out at .332.

The median jBABIP for batters with more than 30 outs on BIP in 2007 is .324, with the first and third quartiles equal to .293 and .353, respectively.

The 10th percentile is at .240, meaning that about 10% of the above-mentioned batters had a jBABIP of .240 or lower. The 90th percentile is at .385, meaning that approx. 90% of the batters had a jBABIP of .385 or higher.

So none of the Twins’ numbers (except maybe Everett’s) really scream at you in this context I think. Of course, jBABIP numbers could be very different if we focused only on fastballs, like Jesse does. I don’t know.

by PhoenixV on Aug 12, 2008 3:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hahaha....

...I think we’ve just given baseball it’s 45,722,901st statistic: jBABIP.

by Jesse on Aug 12, 2008 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Holy Swing Strikes, Go-Go

Imagine if Go-Go and Delmon would watch a few more balls and reduce swinging strikes? Their BABIP is already pretty good but just a LITTLE more patience and they’d be having great seasons! Frustrating.

by GopherNation on Aug 12, 2008 2:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not only

Not only the Swing Strikes, but also the Foul/Foul tip. Nobody else is even close to fouling off as many pitches.

Old school baseball theory states that you are taking better ABs, however, I would argue that they are swinging at more balls out of the strike zone, and creating weaker contact on balls in play.

Combine Swings Strikes and Foul/Foul tip numbers and it’s pretty clear to me that either 1) their bat speed simply isn’t fast enough to get to the fastball, 2) their hitting approach is to wait for breaking balls, or 3) they simply can’t recognize the pitch (type and/or location) coming out of the pitchers hand, causing more swings.

I’d say it’s probably a little of each.

What would my life be like without the '91 World Series?

by MJesser on Aug 12, 2008 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Not sure

It is interesting information, but I’m not sure what I can take from it. Is Mauer a great fastball hitter who hits tons of line drives or has he gotten really lucky this year? Is Lamb unlucky or a terrible fastball hitter? Having % of each category might be nice (% called/swinging strikes/balls, etc) as well as batted ball type if that is available.

by Diggity Dino on Aug 12, 2008 3:17 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

a couple comments

Groundballs go for hits more often, and speedy guys can make a living hitting higher proportions of gbs than average, then beating out a higher proportion than average. Gomez and Span’s babips SHOULD be higher than average, since both are gb hitters with great speed.

significant twins babip numbers off the top of my head:
Kubel’s BABIP v. LH is .180
Lamb’s BABIP on GBs is .176 and v. LH is .087.

A bit of regression is due on both counts, which is a good thing for Twins fans.

Unfortunately for Gomez, his problem is not unlucky BABIP (although his LD numbers are unlucky, his flyball numbers are the opposite and his GB numbers may even be a shade lucky, although it’s hard to gauge given his EXTREME speed), it’s sucking at the art of hitting.

by tobynotjason on Aug 12, 2008 3:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I didn't mean...

...I knew those numbers off the top of my head, I meant I knew ABOUT what those numbers were and that they were significant and worth looking up and posting.

by tobynotjason on Aug 12, 2008 3:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gomez and Span

should only have higher BABIP’s than average if they’re hitting the ball well. Although I suppose it depends on how many infield hits those guys actually have.

I think you have it backwards with Gomez and his BABIP—his LD numbers aren’t unlucky, because they’re performance related (how he hit the ball), not results related (what happened after he hit the ball). LD% is a result of how many line drives you hit, where BABIP is also a result of not only line drives but also how many balls in play are converted into outs. So, because Gomez LD% is just 16 while his BABIP is .328, it’s his BABIP that’s benefiting from a bit of luck….but also partially due to Gomez’s infield hits, which you mentioned.

by Jesse on Aug 12, 2008 5:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Actually, no.

A guy with extreme speed like Gomez will hit .300+ on groundballs, whereas the average players BABIP on groundballs is .240. That is, if he beats out 1 in 25 balls the average guy is out on, he’ll bat .270. If he’ll beat out 1 in 12 balls the average guy is out on, which seems more like it, he’ll hit .300 on groundballs. There IS a correlation between LD % and BABIP, but the + .120 formula is a REALLY loose guideline and falls apart for guys who are extreme GB/FB hitters. It assumes an otherwise normal split between GBs/FBs, but extreme groundball hitters have a higher BABIP out of the gate even if they’re not fast, like Gomez and Span are, since GBs go for hits more. Also: LD rate is pretty damn unstable. The year to year correlation doefficient is like .25 for hitters, if I’m remembering correctly. BTW, Gomez’s BABIP on line drives is REALLY unlucky, whereas his BABIP on flyball is a bit lucky. There’s more of the latter, so overall I’d say he’s posting numbers that are about right.

by tobynotjason on Aug 13, 2008 1:41 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs