The Patience of Carlos Gomez

by Adam Peterson on Feb 15, 2009 1:08 PM EST

We've all been through the details of Carlos Gomez' 2008 season ad nauseum...superb fielding (among the best CF in the majors), poor hitting and lack of plate discipline. Obviously a key to Gomez reaching his potential will be whether he can become more patient at the plate, cut down on the strikeouts and become at least an average hitter in CF (if not better).

The various projection systems call for Gomez to cut down on his 24.6% strikeout rate from last year. CHONE calls for 23.7%, with Marcel (22.2%), Bill James (21.6%) and PECOTA (20.7%) a bit lower. Similarly, the systems call for Gomez to increase his walk rate (4.2% in 2008) up to the 5.2% (Bill James, PECOTA) to 5.7% (CHONE) range.

These are the year to year projections. I decided to dig a little further using MLB Gameday PitchFx data and examine the 2008 season, looking for trends. Did Gomez become more patient as the season progressed? Did he make contact more often? Did he learn to recognize (and lay off) a major league slider?

The results were promising. Gomez showed solid improvement in chasing fewer pitches out of the zone, and this improvement was greater for sliders outside the strike zone. I also found a marginal improvement in patience (number of pitches faced per AB) and a marginal increase in first pitch swing percentage throughout the season.

I examined five attributes of plate discipline for Carlos Gomez, breaking up the season into 9 segments of 18 games each. Here's what I found:

1. Pitches Faced per Plate Appearance

Over the 2008 season, Carlos Gomez averaged 3.44 pitches faced per AB, good for #137 out of 145 qualified batters. By comparison, Nick Swisher led the majors with 4.53 P/PA and Yuniesy Betancourt was worst with 3.15 P/PA. The following graph shows Gomez' patience over each segment of the 2008 season. Gomez started off the season well, lost his patience during the middle of the season, and bounced back at the end. The trend line shows an overall improvement of about 0.1 P/PA over the season. This marginal improvement trends toward about a 3.48 P/PA, or about #133 out of 145 MLB batters.

2. First Pitch Swing %

Over the 2008 season, Carlos Gomez swung at the first pitch in 45% of his plate appearances. I don't have the context (league leaders, etc.) for how this relates to other players across the league, but I can note how Gomez progressed over the season. Gomez' first pitch swing % chart looks (unsurprisingly) like an inverse of his pitches face chart. During the middle of the season, he jumped over 50% swinging at the first pitch. The trend line shows about a 2% increase in first pitch swing percentage, a marginal change in the wrong direction.

3. Chase %

Over the 2008 season, Carlos Gomez chased a total of 48% of all pitches outside the strike zone. This terrible CHASE % contributed to Gomez' high strikeout rate. Again, I don't have context across the league. However, the trend line shows a clear 5% drop from around 50% down to around 45% by the end of the season, a promising improvement in pitch recognition.

4. Sliders Chase %

Over the 2008 season, Carlos Gomez showed particular problems chasing sliders outside the strike zone. Again, the trend line shows a marked improvement over the season, about a 10% decline in CHASE %, from about 54% to about 44%.

5. Contact %

Over the 2008 season, Carlos Gomez put the ball in play 37% of the time when he swung at a pitch. Numbers were all over the map here, ranging from 32% to 46% in the span of a single month. The overall trend line is downward, from about 38% to about 36.5%. Again, in the wrong direction, but marginal and quite possibly within the noise.

Conclusions

In conclusion, Carlos Gomez' plate discipline over the 2008 season was promising. Pitch recognition, especially for sliders outside the strike zone, showed a definite improvement by the end of the year, and as a result, marginal strides were made toward seeing more pitches in any given AB. I suspect Carlos Gomez will never be a hitter with great (or even good) plate discipline, but with his speed, a 5% reduction in SO % and 2-3% increase in BB% would have a significant positive impact on his offensive value. Combine that with stellar range and we've got a very good prospect on our hands.

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Comments

Wow

In the words of Inigoi Montoya: “Who are you?”

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

by cmathewson on Feb 15, 2009 3:12 PM EST reply actions

I...

am not left handed!

by Adam Peterson on Feb 15, 2009 7:25 PM EST up reply actions

Excellent analysis...

…continue the improvement he showed last year will be another plus for the Twins.

by roger13 on Feb 15, 2009 3:31 PM EST reply actions

I hope so

the best way (IMO) to learn to recognize major league sliders, split fingers, etc is…in the majors.

by Adam Peterson on Feb 16, 2009 7:28 AM EST up reply actions

Wow

It funny looking at these graphs brings me back to last season. The excitement of watching Go Go the 1st couple months, the pain of midseason, and him coming back to form at the end of the year. If he can lay off the sliders out of the zone, I wonder how much his OBP would improve?

"I couldn't do that. Could you do that? Why can they do it? Who are those guys?"

by maxisagod on Feb 15, 2009 3:54 PM EST reply actions

Sliders and OBP

Yeah, Gomez showed a definite trend in chasing sliders later in the season, but looking a bit more at that graph, it could be skewed by Segment #2 (late April to mid May) when Gomez chased around 70% of sliders outside the zone. If I set that segment at 52, same as the previous segment, the trend line flattens out much more. I still see a 3-4 reduction in chase % though.

by Adam Peterson on Feb 16, 2009 7:27 AM EST up reply actions

Seriously

I have been arguing that he showed better patience in the second half, but that was just my scouting eye, which is as fallible as anybody else’s. Out of the blue you provide the kind of evidence I need to prove my point. It reminds me of the time I was arguing about how the "little things’ helped the Twins a lot in 2008, but lacking evidence, I had to concede the argument, until somebody posted an analysis that proved my point. And that somebody was you. So I repeat, who are you? Whoever you are, you’re no one to be trifled with.

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

by cmathewson on Feb 15, 2009 5:58 PM EST reply actions

Ah, I think his name is Adam Peterson

"I don't care about feelings." - Lou Piniella

by natetheskate on Feb 16, 2009 3:54 AM EST up reply actions

I know

He’s just like the Man in Black. He comes out of nowhere to become the best analyst in the Twins blogosphere, imo. I’m just thrilled to have you on this site, Adam. Thanks for the great work.

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

by cmathewson on Feb 16, 2009 10:13 AM EST up reply actions

The problem

The problem with these numbers is while he made modest improvements, he still went from really really bad to still pretty bad. I stand by my assessment from the start of last year that he could have used more cooking.

"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 Feb 16, 2009 6:08 PM EST reply actions

Amazing

Amazing statistical look, btw.

by AdamOnFirst on Feb 16, 2009 6:09 PM EST up reply actions

I agree

There was improvement, but it was from horrible to simply very bad. We need to see Gomez go from very bad to something like “pretty bad” next year…if he can ever get to the point of average plate discipline, with his speed he would be slightly above average offensively…well above average overall when defense is considered.

As for needing more cooking, that’s an open question. Would he have improved his plate discipline more quickly in the minors, where he could focus on patience, or in the majors where he could learn pitch recognition against major league pitches? Good arguments can be made on both sides.

by Adam Peterson on Feb 16, 2009 6:43 PM EST up reply actions

+1

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

by cmathewson on Feb 17, 2009 8:43 AM EST up reply actions

Erratic

Fascinating data!

What jumps out at me on those graphs is not the trend lines but the wild swings. (Though I guess you’d need to look at how big the average mean deviation was for other players in the league to know for sure if those swings are extreme.) But I’m not sure how significant the trend lines are when the deviation from the mean is so extreme.

I will choose to take from this that he is just very raw and is still experimenting—which implies the potential for upside is a lot greater than with someone who has plateaued at their true level of ability. Whether he can and will learn is up to him, but I am optimistic.

I just wish that his apprenticeship wasn’t coming at the expense of his major league service time. They have the rare luxury of having extra starting-quality outfielders; they should take advantage of the depth and teach him strike zone judgment in AAA.

by by jiminy on Feb 17, 2009 10:19 AM EST reply actions

No.

Gomez belongs in the majors. He is one of the two or three most valuable outfielders on the team right now (depending on whether you count Kubel as an OF or just DH). If you want Gomez in the minors, you’d better be prepared to concede the 2009 season as a “rebuilding” or “transitional” season and not whine when “Bill Smith does nothing to make the team a playoff winner” or whatever.

by DK on Feb 17, 2009 4:03 PM EST up reply actions

I agree

Gomez has been in the Majors now for one year. He knows what the AL brings and what is expected of him. He is one of (if not the best) defensive CF in the game right now. If we send him down to AAA, say goodbye to Twins playoff games and say hello to the Redwings Playoffs. I am very confident that Gomez will bounce back this year and hit around .286 in the 9 spot….he dramatically improved in the 9 hole last year and if we must have Punto at SS, we then have a very speedy 8-9-1-2 punch (Punto-Gomez-Span-Casilla). Let him stay in the majors…this is the year for him to show us what he has. I certainly hope he shows us some great improvement!

by BCTwins on Feb 17, 2009 6:27 PM EST up reply actions

The real test

will come next year, see if he improves these numbers over a full season. At least there’s some evidence (we can debate the significance) of improvement, which gives me some hope. Not that I need an excuse.

by Adam Peterson on Feb 17, 2009 5:14 PM EST up reply actions

Sliders

Love the analysis, but I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion that he got better at laying off bad sliders as the year went on. Forgive my ignorance of statistical analysis (I took one intro stats course in college and have forgotten basically all of it), but I’m pretty sure that the only reason that line has a downward trend is because it was so incredibly high in segment #2. If we track the trend for just the last 3/4 of the season, it would be going the opposite direction, albeit not as steeply.

I’m noticing that the slider chase % jibes pretty well with the overall chase % other than in segment #2, where the slider % jumped up while the overall % went down. I think that, if anything, he just had a terrible time with sliders during that 18-game period, and otherwise he chases them at a pretty similar rate to other types of pitches.

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

by BeefMaster on Feb 17, 2009 4:19 PM EST reply actions

You're right

I noted this in one of the comments above. When I remove this possible outlier, the trend line flattens out, but still shows a 3-4% reduction. And I fully acknowledge that for the sliders, the sample size for each segment is much more limited.

by Adam Peterson on Feb 17, 2009 5:12 PM EST up reply actions