A Small Victory

George Will notes a small blow for freedom of speech in a recent Supreme Court ruling that puts a dent in the McCain-Feingold law. That purpose of that law, in the words of Will, "is to protect politicians from speech that annoys them". In this case a right to life group attempted to run an ad that the censors felt violated the

"ban on any 'electioneering communication' -- a radio or TV ad that 'refers to' a candidate for federal office -- within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. The blackout period silences speech when it matters most."

Hopefully, other challenges will ensue and the law will get repealed.

Friday Links on 6/29

These Friday links have gotten to be something of a habit but for some reason I don't catch up until Friday and there's always something interesting to pass along.

Racism? - This article over at MVN is titled "Believe it: Racism still in baseball". Unfortunately for the author he doesn't provide any evidence for his argument and instead talks about the fan reactions to Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds - two players who provoke a lot of reactions not primarily related to their race. However, I did find it interesting that the author, quoting Jayson Stark, noted that "37 percent of black fans think Bonds used steroids, compared to 76 percent of white fans". The implication is that this somehow shows that white fans are racist. Of course it's just as plausible (and perhaps more so since the white population is larger and therefore probably more varied in their views) that black fans on the whole are seeing the issue through racial lenses.

In addition, it can be argued that his other major example of shrinking black participation in the sport is caused by a myriad of others factors (some of which he lists) and not implicit nor explicit racism. The issue of African Americans in leadership positions in baseball is perhaps the only one on which he has a leg to stand. Not having researched the issue I don't really have an opinion. That said, it seems to me that the idea that imposing a quota on interviewing minorities for specific positions is not really the answer.

The main problem with the article is that the title appears to claim something for which the author shows little evidence and so it smacks of an attempt to grab some attention. It worked (I'm sure lots of people read it) but it's not very honest.

Chad Gaudin - In case you missed it, Marc Normadin did his regular player profile feature on A's starter Chad Gaudin. This is a self-serving link since I contributed a sidebar to the piece using the PITCHf/x data but still Marc's attention to detail is always outstanding and you never fail to learn when you read his work.

DePodesta - Interesting article at THT on the status of Paul DePodesta.

The Imbalance of Interleague - Dave Studeman calls for the demise of interleague play..well, almost with a recommendation for paring it down similar to what I threw out last January. John Perrato at BP also runs down the stats division by division as the AL took the 137-115 advantage. A far cry better than last year but still it shows the AL is the stronger of the two leagues in the same way the NL was the stronger in the mid 1960s.

Sammy Sosa Hits 600 - There were several articles like this one in the last couple weeks being less than generous to Sosa. It seems reasonable to me, as with Mark McGwire, to take a bit of a wait and see approach regarding Hall of Fame credentials and celebrating the accomplishments. Clearly (although I have to admit I'm a Cubs fan) there is less, actually bordering on zero, circumstantial or other evidence linking Sosa to steroid use and so in my mind he gets the benefit of the doubt for now. Interestingly, I received a copy of the this great set of DVDs the other day and it has the game where Sosa hit his 61st adn 62nd homeruns in 1998. Haven't watched it yet but it should be interesting.

The Umpires Strike Back

My column today on Baseball Prospectus takes an initial look at the oft-said belief that hitters with better plate discipline and pitchers with better command end up getting the benefit of the doubt from the man behind the plate. I recall first hearing this idea in the late Ron Luciano's book The Umpire Strikes Back that I read back in 1983 or so. There he says the following regarding pitchers.

During a game an umpire gets into a groove with a pitcher. People like Catfish Hunter [pictured above] and Ron Guidry are always going to be around the plate, so an umpire gets into the habit of calling strikes. Even when they miss the plate, it's usually a situation pitch intended to setup the batter for the next pitch or entice him to swing at a pitch outside the strike zone that he can't hit solidly. The umpire becomes so used to calling strikes that it's difficult to call a ball. Strike one, strike two, foul ball, it's close to the plate, strike three.

Then there are pitchers like Ed Figueroa. He was all over the place. One pitch would be high, the next pitch would be in the dirt, the third pitch would be in the concession stand. He would throw three pitches outside the strike zone, then nip the corner of the plate by a quarter inch and expect the umpire to be ready to call a strike.

Within certain limits we can use the PITCHf/x data to try and get a read on this by measuring the number of called strikes and called balls for pitchers and hitters and how many of each went in favor and opposed to the player. By adding these up and we can then calculate a percentage of pitches for each player. Overall, what we find is that umpires, within the limits of the system, seem to get the calls correct 9 out of 10 times with pitchers getting the small upper-hand. It's also the case that left-handed hitters incur a 10% penalty on called strikes over their right-handed brethren.

You'll have to read the article to see all of the conclusions but suffice it to say that Luciano, if he was speaking for all umpires, may have overstated his case.

Sinkers

As many of you know I've been writing about the PITCHf/x data captured by the new Gameday system the last several weeks in my Schrodinger's Bat column over on Baseball Prospectus. In answering a question for a colleague I ran a query to take a look at which pitchers have the most sink on their sinking fastball and so I'll share the results here.

There is certainly some difficulty in separating sinking fastballs from four-seamers (in some research on Chad Gaudin I found I couldn't reasonably classify some 5% of his fastballs) since the data is continuous and doesn't come nicely labeled. So as a first approximation I thought I'd take a look at all pitches thrown between 87 and 93 miles per hour and that had the appropriate horizontal break for a fastball in order to weed out any sliders. This is similar to what John Walsh did in an excellent article at THT and builds on the work that Joe P. Sheehan did over at Baseball Analysts. The result is the following table of the top 30 pitchers (pitchers who throw from the side excepted since their vertical movement is actually negative in many cases as John discussed).

Name               Throws  Pitches   AvgVel    Vert   Horiz  MaxVel
Felix Hernandez    R             69    89.7     2.2    -3.5    92.9
Kameron Loe        R            529    89.6     3.7    -7.7    93.0
Derek Lowe         R            575    90.2     3.8   -10.7    93.0
Roy Halladay       R            481    90.7     3.8    -7.5    93.0
Brandon Webb       R            111    89.7     3.9    -9.4    92.9
Julian Tavarez     R            296    90.6     3.9   -10.2    92.9
Aaron Cook         R             82    91.0     4.2    -7.2    93.0
Tim Hudson         R            465    90.8     4.5    -6.8    93.0
Jamey Wright       R             72    89.5     4.7    -8.0    93.0
Jeff Weaver        R            202    89.1     5.5   -10.8    92.8
Scott Downs        L            128    89.3     5.6    11.0    92.2
Jose Contreras     R            321    90.2     6.0    -7.7    93.0
Sergio Mitre       R            107    90.0     6.0    -9.2    92.6
Chad Paronto       R            142    90.0     6.1    -5.8    92.8
Jimmy Speigner     R             61    89.5     6.3    -6.0    92.6
Brad Thompson      R             56    90.0     6.5   -10.2    92.0
Miguel Batista     R            319    91.1     6.5    -6.7    93.0
Paul Maholm        L             50    88.5     6.6     6.5    90.6
Zach Duke          L             55    88.9     6.7    10.0    91.4
Gil Meche          R             60    91.2     6.8    -4.9    93.0
J.J. Putz          R             53    89.7     7.0    -6.2    93.0
Oscar Villarreal   R             93    90.0     7.0    -6.8    92.9
Chad Gaudin        R            437    90.6     7.1    -6.8    93.0
Carlos Zambrano    R            113    90.6     7.1    -5.8    93.0
Sean White         R            175    91.1     7.2    -8.2    92.9
Eric O'Flaherty    L            120    90.2     7.2     6.3    92.8
Jesse Litsch       R             62    89.1     7.2    -5.1    92.8
Kip Wells          R             82    90.6     7.3    -7.1    93.0
Vicente Padilla    R            397    90.9     7.4    -6.9    93.0
Robert Janssen     R            102    90.8     7.4    -3.3    93.0

You'll notice that the vertical movement column is still positive for all these pitchers. That's the case because the value is calculated relative to the movement of a theoretical reference pitch that is spinless but thrown in the same way as the pitch in question.

So then to get a feel for what these vertical measurements mean, we can compare them to some pitchers who do not throw a sinking fastball but who do throw their fastballs in the same velocity range. For example, Brad Penny has thrown 230 pitches in this velocity range with an average vertical movement of 12.1 inches. Brandon McCarthy has thrown 264 with a value of 12.1, Randy Wolf has thrown 456 at 11.1, and John Garland has 585 at 10.7. What this indicates is that a four-seamer thrown in the same range drops 10 to 12 inches less than the theoretical reference pitch and so our sinkerballers throw pitches that sink 6 to 9 inches more than that. This seems realistic and of course the list of pitchers near the top (Hernandez, Lowe, Halladay, Webb, Cook) are all the usual suspects.

It's also interesting to note which pitchers have more tail on their sinkers (a negative horizontal movement indicates tailing into a right-handed hitter). Derek Lowe, with his combination of sink and movement, makes it very difficult on opposing hitters.

Friday Links

A few things from this week:

Datacaster - A little article on MLBAM datacaster on Chris Johnson who scores for the Dodgers and Angels.

State of the BABIP - A great overview and state of the research on batting average on balls in play by Derek Jacques.

Changing Course - Joe Sheehan takes a look at the practice of firing managers midseason. I wrote a little about this awhile back in wondering why midseason changes have declined in recent years.

Be that as it may, thirteen times beginning with the 1932 Cubs, teams have changed managers and gone on to post season play. The last time being the 2004 Astros who replaced Jimmy Williams as team stodd at 44-44. Under Phil Garner they went 48-26 the rest of the way. For Williams it was the second time he had been replaced as the skipper of an eventual postseason team. The first, and the largest difference in terms of winning percentage, was the 1989 Blue Jays. After enduring a 12-24 (.333) start under Jimmy Williams, General Manager Pat Gillick hired Cito Gaston on May 31st as the interim manager. That interim title was quickly forgotten as the Jays reeled off a 77-49 (.611) record with the help of acquisitions Lee Mazzilli and Mookie Wilson from the Mets leading to a 20-9 August that saw them pull into a first place tie with the surprising Orioles as the month closed. After holding a slim lead most of the month of September, the Jays hooked up with the Orioles in a three game series at the new Sky Dome on the season's final weekend with the Orioles one game back. The Blue Jays took the first two games of the series 2-1 and 4-3 to seal the deal.

The Dance of the Knuckler

This week in my column on Baseball Prospectus after rehashing some history of the pitch thanks to Rob Neyer and Peter Morris, I take a look at the knuckleball of Tim Wakefield from the perspective of PITCHf/x and Gameday. The system has tracked his starts from April 6th at Texas, April 18th and May 10th at Toronto, May 26th back in Arlington, and June 6th at Oakland, a sample which includes 461 pitches.

As you might expect a plot of the horizontal and vertical breaks aren't very informative since the pitch is all over the place and therefore doesn't form the tighter clusters you can see with more traditional pitchers. Still, his three pitches (the fastball and curve) are able to be detected when you add velocity to the mix as his knuckers are very consistently thrown with a release velocity between 65 and 70 miles per hour. His fastballs are in the mid 70s and his curve in the low 60s. After discussing classification the article goes on to answer the questions when he throws his various pitches, where he throws them, and what the results are.

An Eye on the Game

In the fall of 2006 the Giants installed some new technology at the ballpark dealing with optimizing their data storage as necessitated by their adoption of digital video. A nice overview of the system was written up in eWeek in April. A case study from their vendor Data Domain is also available. The article mentions that the Giants use Sydex Sports Software, out of Grand Rapids Michigan, for their "baseball analysis software" and that "half of baseball" are now their clients.

Father's Day Links

Here's a few interesting things on a Father's Day.

Dialing Long Distance - In the Rockies/Devil Rays game here at Coors Field today Carlos Pena his a 452 foot homerun into the third deck in right field (only the right field section has a second or third deck of course). It was the 27th time a homerun had been hit into the 3rd deck and the first time since July 7, 2005 when Todd Helton performed the feat. Johnny Gomes hit two homeruns in the game, the first of which came in the second inning and was a 442 foot shot to left-center. His homerun in the sixth was 415 feet and was a line drive. For the Rockies Matt Holliday hit a 428 foot homerun to into the Rockies bullpen in right-center and Kaz Matsui lofted a 386 foot fly ball down the left field line as well but the longest hit of the afternoon belonged to Brad Hawpe. Hawpe, who hit a grand in last night's ballgame and now has 12 homeruns in his last 27 games putting him in the company of Prince Fielder, Alex Rodriguez, and Gary Sheffield, his a ball of the facing of the third deck in the 8th inning. The blast was 452 feet.

That makes 14 homeruns hit by the two teams in a three-game series that saw the Rockies go unbeaten in their 8th straight series (7-0-1). Does this mean Coors is back to being the homer haven it once was? Here is a graph of the runs scored and homeruns per out at Coors Field historically and up through yesterday's game.



Overall, run scoring is right at the 2005 level while homeruns are closer to 2004. Still, however, we're seeing levels of run scoring in the humidor era reduced from those prior to 2002.

Credentials - This is an interesting article from Tim Marchman in the New York Sun calling for internet writers to be granted credentials. This is certainly a trend that is likely not to be reversed. In the short term, however, it's ironic that overall anyway, blogs probably make it more difficult for baseball writers whose work is published on the internet to obtain the access because the sheer number of nodes make it difficult for teams to determine who is serious and who isn't. The fluid nature of the internet also means there is not a clear line of demarcation sometimes between serious and longer term sites and blogs. Right now teams use the fact that you can print a paper as a proxy for your seriousness and your promise not to abuse the access. Note that readership or quality of the content produced are not criteria, which in large part is what Marchman is arguing. I've always argued that the outsider's perspective is valuable and in one sense getting access would change that. But on balance there is no doubt that with access comes more information and more nuanced writing and that can never be a bad thing.

Defense - David Gassko at THT posts defensive metrics derived from Baseball Info Solution's Zone Rating data. Is it just me or do these numbers look really high (and low)? There's little doubt that the leaders and trailers he lists are the best and worst fielders but the magnitude of the numbers (+20 at first base for Albert Pujols and +24 at third base for David Wright particularly) seem a little excessive. Perhaps I'm not understanding what these are based on and someone can correct me :) Update: See David's comments to this post for an explanation.

Where They Aint Redux

Responding to Tango's comments, here is the new table with a column added, totals at the bottom, and excluding bunts.

Year    Type         BIP       H  Non-HR      TB      %H %Non-HR    SLUG  %Non-HR2
2003    Fly        36744    9898    5390   27314   26.9%   14.7%   0.743     16.7%
2004    Fly        37052   10494    5786   28619   28.3%   15.6%   0.772     17.9%
2005    Fly        37268   10442    5913   28207   28.0%   15.9%   0.757     18.1%
2006    Fly        37712   10863    6034   29557   28.8%   16.0%   0.784     18.3%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Ground     60783   14355   14353   15687   23.6%   23.6%   0.258     23.6%
2004    Ground     60212   14267   14267   15623   23.7%   23.7%   0.259     23.7%
2005    Ground     60373   14092   14092   15388   23.3%   23.3%   0.255     23.3%
2006    Ground     59912   14367   14367   15690   24.0%   24.0%   0.262     24.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Line       25846   18985   18289   26505   73.5%   70.8%   1.025     72.7%
2004    Line       25663   18951   18208   26495   73.8%   71.0%   1.032     73.1%
2005    Line       25425   18649   18162   25240   73.3%   71.4%   0.993     72.8%
2006    Line       25902   19012   18456   26072   73.4%   71.3%   1.007     72.8%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Pop        10853     168     168     207    1.5%    1.5%   0.019      1.5%
2004    Pop        11007     226     226     268    2.1%    2.1%   0.024      2.1%
2005    Pop        11123     223     223     258    2.0%    2.0%   0.023      2.0%
2006    Pop        10656     238     238     309    2.2%    2.2%   0.029      2.2%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003               30639      15      14      18    0.0%    0.0%   0.001      0.0%
2004               31657       0       0       0    0.0%    0.0%   0.000      0.0%
2005               30463       1       0       4    0.0%    0.0%   0.000      0.0%
2006               31558      47      47      93    0.1%    0.1%   0.003      0.1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals            660848  175293  154233  281554   26.5%   23.3%   0.426     24.1%

Chat Transcript 06/15

Here's the link to the transcript. Thanks to everyone who participated. Great questions as always.

Hit 'em Where They Aint

I was running a few numbers for a colleague and so I thought I'd post them. Below is a table going back to 2003 that shows the number of balls put into play by vector and the numbers and percentages that went for hits and non-homerun hits. Finally we have the slugging percentage earned on those batted balls.

Year    Type         BIP       H  Non-HR      TB      %H %Non-HR    SLUG
2003    Fly        36870    9898    5390   27314   26.8%   14.6%   0.741
2004    Fly        37168   10494    5786   28619   28.2%   15.6%   0.770
2005    Fly        37268   10442    5913   28207   28.0%   15.9%   0.757
2006    Fly        37856   10863    6034   29557   28.7%   15.9%   0.781
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Ground     62253   14979   14977   16312   24.1%   24.1%   0.262
2004    Ground     61577   14841   14841   16198   24.1%   24.1%   0.263
2005    Ground     61809   14669   14669   15965   23.7%   23.7%   0.258
2006    Ground     61131   14910   14910   16233   24.4%   24.4%   0.266
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Line       25852   18986   18290   26506   73.4%   70.7%   1.025
2004    Line       25666   18951   18208   26495   73.8%   70.9%   1.032
2005    Line       25425   18649   18162   25240   73.3%   71.4%   0.993
2006    Line       25909   19013   18457   26073   73.4%   71.2%   1.006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Pop        11124     173     173     212    1.6%    1.6%   0.019
2004    Pop        11285     236     236     278    2.1%    2.1%   0.025
2005    Pop        11370     230     230     265    2.0%    2.0%   0.023
2006    Pop        10886     239     239     310    2.2%    2.2%   0.028
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003               30639      15      14      18    0.0%    0.0%   0.001
2004               31657       0       0       0    0.0%    0.0%   0.000
2005               30463       1       0       4    0.0%    0.0%   0.000
2006               31558      47      47      93    0.1%    0.1%   0.003

So from this you can see that just under 30% of fly balls go for hits although only 16% of non-homerun flyballs. About a quarter of ground balls and three quarters of fly balls fall in and 1 in 50 popups are hits. The remainder are not actually balls in place but rather strikeouts and unclassified plays in the data.

Long Live the King

My column today focuses on creating pitcher profiles using the Gameday data with a case study on Felix Hernandez. It turns out that 415 of Hernandez's approximately 800 pitches in 2007 have been captured by PITCHf/x and so it's interesting to explore generating pitch profiles and various tables and graphs breaking down his pitches every which way from Sunday. For me, it was mostly an exercise in seeing how easy it would be to manipulate the data in various ways but it did quantify Felix's loss of movement and velocity following injury, his reluctance to throw the changeup against right-handed hitters, as well as his tendency to focus on the fastball in the first inning. Of course these are things that have been observed but it's nice to see the supporting evidence as well.

What I find most interesting (and piggy-backing off of the work of others) is that it shows the pitches can be identified and classified using the data (my algorithm was able to hit 95% agreement on his June 10th start based on David Cameron's charting). What I did was exceedingly simple, however, and requires customization for each pitcher. It'll be interesting to see if a system can be devised that classifies the pitches more broadly across a set of pitchers. Still, it seems human interaction will be required but hopefully it can be minimized.

Don't forget about the chat tomorrow!

Chat This Friday!

I'll be chatting on Baseball Prospectus on Friday morning/afternoon. Here are the transcripts from previous chats:

4/27/2007

3/16/2007

2/06/2007

11/21/2006

Squaring It Up

In the comments on my post about plate discipline the question of "holes" was brought up. Specifically the idea is whether or not there are hitters who more consistently swing and miss on pitches that are in the strike zone. Well, with the data now becoming available we can add that to our list of things to look at.

The metric is called Square and is defined as the percentage of balls made contact with that were swung at in the strike zone. So if Brian Giles swung at 105 pitches in the strike zone and made contact with 101 of them his Square would be .962. Now perhaps "Square" isn't the best term since I've also included foul balls here but you get the idea. In any case here are here are the percentages for all hitters (and keep in mind we don't have all hitters but only those who've batted in the nine parks in which the PITCHf/x system is running).

Name                   Stand    Pitches    SinZ  Square
Derek Jeter            R            188      52   1.000
Chone Figgins          L            144      42   1.000
Placido Polanco        R            117      31   1.000
Esteban German         R            126      27   1.000
David Dejesus          L            209      55   0.982
David Ortiz            L            224      50   0.980
Dan Johnson            L            411      75   0.973
Jay Payton             R            105      37   0.973
Maicer Izturis         L            179      32   0.969
Coco Crisp             L            168      31   0.968
Rafael Furcal          L            406      90   0.967
Juan Pierre            L            462     118   0.966
Reggie Willits         R            135      28   0.964
Ichiro Suzuki          L            552     109   0.963
Trot Nixon             L            111      27   0.963
Brian Giles            L            381     105   0.962
Kevin Millar           R            108      25   0.960
Mark Grudzielanek      R            186      48   0.958
Barry Bonds            L            122      24   0.958
Ryan Sweeney           L            126      22   0.955
Casey Kotchman         L            466     106   0.953
Matt Murton            R            101      21   0.952
Kenny Lofton           L            569     144   0.951
Mike Lowell            R            200      60   0.950
Albert Pujols          R            108      20   0.950
John McDonald          R            170      39   0.949
Mark Ellis             R            472     114   0.947
Darin Erstad           L            372      74   0.946
Frank Thomas           R            517     108   0.944
Pablo Ozuna            R            129      36   0.944
Miguel Tejada          R            148      36   0.944
Ben Broussard          L            126      36   0.944
Ramon Martinez         R            124      35   0.943
David Dellucci         L            111      34   0.941
Johnny Damon           L            190      49   0.939
Lyle Overbay           L            381      96   0.938
Frank Catalanotto      L            330      78   0.936
Ramon Hernandez        R            115      31   0.935
Yuniesky Betancourt    R            376     106   0.934
Geoff Blum             L            148      29   0.931
Andre Ethier           L            413     128   0.930
Shannon Stewart        R            464     126   0.929
Jason Kendall          R            423     112   0.929
Ryan Zimmerman         R            114      28   0.929
Mike Sweeney           R            131      41   0.927
Alexis Rios            R            467     108   0.926
Brian Mccann           L            280      53   0.925
Hideki Matsui          L            186      53   0.925
Nick Markakis          L            168      52   0.923
Luis Gonzalez          L            462     116   0.922
Erick Aybar            L            235      64   0.922
Kevin Youkilis         R            219      51   0.922
Raul Ibanez            L            514     126   0.921
Melvin Mora            R            189      50   0.920
Orlando Cabrera        R            518     137   0.920
Mike Cuddyer           R            155      37   0.919
Brian Roberts          L            134      37   0.919
Jerry Hairston         R            124      37   0.919
Robinson Cano          L            171      36   0.917
Brendan Harris         R            165      48   0.917
Nick Swisher           R            149      24   0.917
Reggie Willits         L            280      59   0.915
Ramon Vazquez          L            184      47   0.915
Mark Derosa            R            113      35   0.914
Ian Kinsler            R            630     163   0.914
J.D. Drew              L            184      46   0.913
Jamie Burke            R            107      23   0.913
Jose Lopez             R            382     102   0.912
Dustin Pedroia         R            158      45   0.911
Ken Griffey Jr.        L            109      22   0.909
Jose Vidro             L            349      87   0.908
Julio Lugo             R            226      65   0.908
Gary Sheffield         R            168      32   0.906
Kenji Jojima           R            284      95   0.905
Sean Casey             L            101      21   0.905
Victor Martinez        L            100      21   0.905
A.J. Pierzynski        L            376     115   0.904
Marco Scutaro          R            192      52   0.904
Grady Sizemore         L            143      31   0.903
Bengie Molina          R            106      31   0.903
Jorge Posada           L            136      41   0.902
Gary Matthews Jr.      L            449     102   0.902
Jeff Kent              R            453     142   0.901
Garret Anderson        L            262      50   0.900
Luis Castillo          L            121      30   0.900
Tadahito Iguchi        R            490     146   0.897
Michael Young          R            628     193   0.896
Kelly Johnson          L            427      85   0.894
Jermaine Dye           R            467     119   0.891
Josh Bard              L            308      91   0.890
Adrian Beltre          R            441     126   0.889
Howie Kendrick         R            165      45   0.889
Curtis Granderson      L            147      35   0.886
Aaron Hill             R            461     129   0.884
Magglio Ordonez        R            150      43   0.884
Doug Mientkiewicz      L            113      17   0.882
Paul Konerko           R            489     116   0.879
Shea Hillenbrand       R            330      91   0.879
Justin Morneau         L            137      33   0.879
Edgar Renteria         R            379      82   0.878
Willie Harris          L            208      49   0.878
Nomar Garciaparra      R            470     152   0.875
Carlos Guillen         L            112      24   0.875
Scott Thorman          L            230      47   0.872
Hank Blalock           L            332      78   0.872
Brady Clark            R            160      39   0.872
Ivan Rodriguez         R            118      31   0.871
Matt Diaz              R            191      53   0.868
Alfonso Soriano        R            127      30   0.867
Jason Giambi           L            130      30   0.867
Marlon Byrd            R            174      44   0.864
Gerald Laird           R            504     138   0.862
Andy Laroche           R            127      29   0.862
Mark Teixeira          R            169      43   0.860
Derrek Lee             R            146      43   0.860
Chris Woodward         R            154      49   0.857
Joe Crede              R            376     104   0.856
Vladimir Guerrero      R            408      97   0.856
Adam Lind              L            374     110   0.855
Khalil Greene          R            419     136   0.853
Alex Cintron           L            119      34   0.853
Adrian Gonzalez        L            641     163   0.853
Juan Uribe             R            353     101   0.851
Jose Guillen           R            423     121   0.851
Joshua Barfield        R            115      40   0.850
Willie Bloomquist      R            156      46   0.848
Royce Clayton          R            264      78   0.846
Alex Gordon            L            163      39   0.846
Aubrey Huff            L            123      39   0.846
Robb Quinlan           R            135      45   0.844
Bobby Crosby           R            489     127   0.843
Chris Stewart          R            103      38   0.842
Jose Cruz Jr.          L            303      82   0.841
Russell Martin         R            543     145   0.841
Travis Buck            L            393      88   0.841
Marcus Giles           R            504     156   0.840
Vernon Wells           R            461     124   0.839
Wilson Betemit         L            224      49   0.837
Manny Ramirez          R            227      61   0.836
Brad Wilkerson         L            263      60   0.833
Bobby Abreu            L            225      60   0.833
Emil Brown             R            153      36   0.833
Elijah Dukes           R            208      47   0.830
Richie Sexson          R            485     123   0.829
Kevin Kouzmanoff       R            393     117   0.829
Ty Wigginton           R            221      64   0.828
Mike Cameron           R            589     157   0.828
Eric Chavez            L            542     136   0.824
Tony Pena              R            130      34   0.824
Jose Molina            R            157      45   0.822
Casey Blake            R            167      42   0.810
Delmon Young           R            232      68   0.809
Jason Phillips         R            236      67   0.806
Mark Teixeira          L            517     102   0.804
Jeffrey Francoeur      R            381      98   0.796
Jim Thome              L            359      78   0.795
Gary Matthews Jr.      R            118      24   0.792
Jose Cruz Jr.          R            108      28   0.786
Milton Bradley         L            135      46   0.783
Nick Swisher           L            410      86   0.779
Michael Napoli         R            349      85   0.776
Rob Mackowiak          L            313      76   0.776
Troy Glaus             R            353      76   0.776
Mark Teahen            L            213      49   0.776
Victor Diaz            R            159      49   0.776
Mike Piazza            R            186      40   0.775
Carl Crawford          L            242      62   0.774
Brandon Inge           R            143      35   0.771
Matt Stairs            L            202      51   0.765
Alex Rodriguez         R            205      55   0.764
Hiram Bocachica        R            118      25   0.760
Terrmel Sledge         L            301      88   0.750
Rocco Baldelli         R            135      32   0.750
Craig Monroe           R            139      30   0.733
Craig Wilson           R            105      26   0.731
Travis Hafner          L            138      22   0.727
Sammy Sosa             R            588     164   0.726
Andruw Jones           R            433     112   0.723
B.J. Upton             R            263      75   0.720
Chipper Jones          L            194      39   0.718
Olmedo Saenz           R            149      39   0.718
Carlos Pena            L            184      46   0.717
Nelson Cruz            R            374     100   0.700
Jack Cust              L            318      66   0.697
Jason Smith            L            103      28   0.679
Rob Bowen              L            114      26   0.654
Russ Branyan           L            164      49   0.612

Generally speaking the top of the list is populated with contact hitters while the bottom has more power hitters and free swingers as you might expect. A couple surprises to me anyway are David Ortiz and Dan Johnson so high in the list and Chipper Jones (batting left-handed) so low. The average is 87.2% which validates the feeling I always get, especially when attending a game in person, that when a pitch is in the strike zone a major league hitter usually takes advantage.

A Soriano Trifecta

Last night in Atlanta Alfonso Soriano homered in each of his first three plate appearances before being intentionally walked, grounding out, and then singling in the ninth inning. His four for five day led the Cubs to a 9-1 victory over the Braves. After a fairly slow start (.270/.392/.308 in April) he hit .302/.500/.362 in May and is 19 for 37 in June a double, 2 triples, and 6 homeruns giving him 10 homeruns for the season. This season he's as aggressive as ever seeing 3.69 pitches per plate appearance and in the metrics on plate discipline I discussed the other day he swings at the highest percentage of pitches (54.8%) that are out of the strike zone of anyone not named Ivan Rodriguez. However, he's just about average in terms of the percentage of strikes he lets by (23%). In any case everything is working for him at the moment and on Friday night he jumped on the first pitch three times. Here are his five plate appearances from Friday night along with a chart of all the pitches he saw.

The number in the upper right hand corner indicate the pitch number along with the starting velocity, ending velocity, and break of the pitch. The pitches are color-coded and their shapes follow this key (you can click on any of the images to make them bigger):

Quantifying Plate Discipline

In my column this morning on Baseball Prospectus (subscription required but well worth it) among other things I take another crack at the PITCHf/x Gameday data. In part, inspired by this fascinating article, I created a couple of metrics to quantify plate discipline. They are:

Swing (S) defined as the percentage of pitches the batter swung at and also available in many other places. Obviously high values here are indicative of aggressive hitters or hitters who see a greater percentage of pitches out of the strike zone.

Fish (F) defined as the percentage of pitches out of the strike zone that the hitter swung at. A higher percentage here indicates that the hitter may have trouble recognizing pitches since he is offering at pitches that would likely otherwise be called balls. It should be noted that the strike zone as defined for this analysis is 17 inches wide (the standard) and uses the actual height customized for the player. No buffer room was added as was done in the previous articles since here we're not concerned with giving the umpire the benefit of the doubt.

Bad Ball (BB) defined as the percentage of pitches out of the strike zone that were swung at and made contact with (including foul balls although there is an argument to be made that a foul ball is not the intended outcome and so should be discounted in some way). A higher value in this category indicates that the hitter, when swinging at bad pitches, is at least able to get the bat on the ball.

Eye (E) defined as the percentage of pitches in the strike zone on non-three and zero counts that were taken for strikes. A smaller value in this metric indicates a player who recognizes strikes and aggressively offers at them. Non three and zero counts were excluded since obviously a hitter is much more likely to let a strike go by in this situation and so we don’t want to penalize them for that behavior. Some readers will see, however, where this idea could be extended to each of the eight possible counts and a system devised where less penalty is credited to hitters who take at 3-1 than those that do so at 0-2.

Without further ado here's the list (with the big caveat that only 24% of all pitches in 2007 have been tracked in the system and there is a heavy bias to the AL West because of the parks that the system is installed in) of all players who have 200 or more pitches tracked this season sorted by "Fish".

Name              Stand    Pitches   Swing    Fish BadBall     Eye
A.J. Pierzynski   L            357   0.602   0.469   0.813   0.117
Garret Anderson   L            260   0.515   0.467   0.750   0.350
Delmon Young      R            200   0.550   0.454   0.630   0.228
Rob Mackowiak     L            297   0.525   0.438   0.738   0.240
Hank Blalock      L            332   0.521   0.430   0.632   0.183
Erick Aybar       L            235   0.532   0.430   0.869   0.217
Carl Crawford     L            216   0.519   0.427   0.738   0.171
Jeffrey Francoeur R            337   0.546   0.425   0.775   0.094
Vladimir Guerrero R            403   0.524   0.421   0.771   0.142
Adrian Beltre     R            430   0.512   0.403   0.694   0.234
Michael Young     R            585   0.523   0.403   0.766   0.284
Eric Chavez       L            519   0.503   0.394   0.736   0.225
Kenji Jojima      R            270   0.522   0.389   0.878   0.217
Nomar Garciaparra R            436   0.557   0.388   0.800   0.132
Juan Pierre       L            431   0.480   0.385   0.916   0.302
Yuniesky BetancourR            345   0.496   0.383   0.806   0.279
Joe Crede         R            376   0.503   0.381   0.729   0.238
Jason Phillips    R            203   0.493   0.381   0.721   0.303
Vernon Wells      R            417   0.501   0.380   0.713   0.216
Jose Lopez        R            347   0.478   0.375   0.853   0.288
Ichiro Suzuki     L            515   0.435   0.369   0.862   0.326
Khalil Greene     R            407   0.514   0.367   0.595   0.247
Orlando Cabrera   R            517   0.468   0.362   0.838   0.279
Brian Mccann      L            267   0.434   0.358   0.783   0.282
Kevin Kouzmanoff  R            363   0.499   0.350   0.724   0.167
Lyle Overbay      L            381   0.465   0.349   0.704   0.230
Sammy Sosa        R            532   0.492   0.349   0.625   0.205
Royce Clayton     R            227   0.515   0.348   0.457   0.194
Adam Lind         L            336   0.482   0.348   0.719   0.253
Andruw Jones      R            389   0.478   0.344   0.686   0.232
Jose Guillen      R            394   0.475   0.344   0.636   0.232
Alexis Rios       R            413   0.426   0.343   0.735   0.351
Marcus Giles      R            452   0.511   0.341   0.674   0.211
Bobby Crosby      R            474   0.451   0.338   0.652   0.327
Casey Kotchman    L            463   0.434   0.338   0.814   0.285
Gary Matthews Jr. L            449   0.441   0.334   0.781   0.223
David Dejesus     L            209   0.445   0.333   0.816   0.340
Nelson Cruz       R            374   0.457   0.330   0.690   0.268
Andre Ethier      L            376   0.500   0.329   0.803   0.200
Jose Vidro        L            336   0.461   0.329   0.870   0.200
Juan Uribe        R            334   0.476   0.328   0.651   0.232
Raul Ibanez       L            474   0.456   0.328   0.760   0.229
Gerald Laird      R            484   0.459   0.326   0.698   0.290
Jason Kendall     R            405   0.432   0.325   0.870   0.373
Jermaine Dye      R            452   0.442   0.324   0.753   0.267
Mark Teahen       L            213   0.437   0.324   0.636   0.307
Adrian Gonzalez   L            590   0.453   0.322   0.767   0.225
Darin Erstad      L            372   0.398   0.318   0.797   0.413
Shea Hillenbrand  R            330   0.445   0.308   0.821   0.297
Brad Wilkerson    L            263   0.414   0.306   0.755   0.303
Paul Konerko      R            457   0.420   0.303   0.765   0.290
Richie Sexson     R            448   0.446   0.303   0.732   0.211
Mark Ellis        R            440   0.409   0.302   0.851   0.380
Mark Teixeira     L            501   0.399   0.302   0.657   0.276
Kenny Lofton      L            514   0.434   0.300   0.818   0.239
Travis Buck       L            377   0.416   0.300   0.662   0.255
Michael Napoli    R            346   0.419   0.299   0.683   0.322
Kelly Johnson     L            384   0.393   0.292   0.787   0.315
Josh Bard         L            283   0.470   0.292   0.878   0.177
Edgar Renteria    R            346   0.405   0.290   0.688   0.275
Jeff Kent         R            420   0.476   0.285   0.611   0.176
Ian Kinsler       R            591   0.423   0.280   0.784   0.268
Terrmel Sledge    L            285   0.446   0.272   0.609   0.217
Rafael Furcal     L            371   0.391   0.270   0.857   0.353
Shannon Stewart   R            437   0.410   0.269   0.810   0.327
B.J. Upton        R            225   0.431   0.269   0.528   0.227
Frank Thomas      R            478   0.377   0.267   0.838   0.335
Troy Glaus        R            306   0.376   0.264   0.706   0.330
Jose Cruz Jr.     L            285   0.428   0.262   0.591   0.216
Aaron Hill        R            417   0.415   0.253   0.729   0.302
Willie Harris     L            205   0.400   0.248   0.765   0.239
Russell Martin    R            506   0.401   0.241   0.757   0.290
Luis Gonzalez     L            428   0.395   0.236   0.889   0.256
Nick Swisher      L            384   0.365   0.232   0.559   0.307
Tadahito Iguchi   R            462   0.422   0.230   0.678   0.243
Frank Catalanotto L            309   0.372   0.228   0.821   0.319
Mike Cameron      R            539   0.399   0.224   0.569   0.237
Reggie Willits    L            274   0.328   0.219   0.818   0.455
Brian Giles       L            381   0.396   0.218   0.804   0.269
Jim Thome         L            330   0.358   0.203   0.545   0.239
Bobby Abreu       L            203   0.374   0.185   0.545   0.274
Jack Cust         L            294   0.310   0.175   0.563   0.342
Wilson Betemit    L            208   0.327   0.155   0.700   0.282
Dan Johnson       L            387   0.282   0.148   0.737   0.346

Of course the interesting thing is that you can then plot the Fish and Eye metrics on a graph and then split the graph into four quadrants. Each quadrant creates a little profile that can be used to characterize a hitter's plate discipline. Note that the bottom left is the sweet spot.

Fun at the Old Ballpark

Last Sunday afternoon my daughter and I headed to Coors Field to see the Rockies take on the Reds in the rubber game of their three-game set. We arrived plenty early and had a good time watching batting practice and chatting about the routine the players perform before the game and how the two teams were doing this season. I was also able to throw in some physics in as we discussed the topic of my recent columns on Baseball Prospectus. She still had three more days of school to go at the time and so the "lecture" was received amiably but not deeply.


My daughter isn't really a very big fan but does enjoy the experience and so I wanted her to be able to see Ken Griffey Jr. play.

The conversation of course turned to his career and accomplishments and she was wowed when she learned he was eighth on the all-time list with 575. So she had to snap a few pictures and caught him coming in after BP and joking around with some folks on the sidelines.








After a colossal lunch that included garlic fries and all manner of fried food we settled down for the game and were rewarded with a 10-9 Rockies victory in 10-innings complete with a six-run comeback by the Rox capped by a three-run triple by Kaz Matsui in the bottom of the eighth inning. Garrett Atkins drove home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th on a line-drive single to left. There were also several interesting baserunning plays in the game, interspersed with dippin' dots of course, that were fodder for discussion. As countless fathers can no doubt attest, most of all it was just a great time spent with my daughter.

The Nats and VORP

I was tipped to this article by Will Carroll. The fascinating paragraph follows:

The Nationals, too, are deploying more tools and ideas. Over the weekend, a group of the club's statistical analysts -- "I'll call them our 'Mod Squad,' " Kasten said -- made a presentation to scouts detailing trends in the draft, using such modern stats as "VORP" (Value Over Replacement Player), the kind of analysis that can make old-school scouts shudder.

It would be interesting to see just how they're applying VORP to amateur players... In any case this is just the kind of thing I was thinking about when I wrote the following in an interview with Baseball Digest Daily last year.

It seems to me that one of the ways in which a team could gain an advantage is to more tightly marry their statistical analysis to their scouting departments in a kind of Hegelian Synthesis. It's just my sense of things (being an outsider after all), but I would guess that most scouts still have little understanding of some of the core sabermetric principles and conclusions. For example, in a roundtable discussion Alan Schwarz had with Eddie Bane (Angels) and Gary Hughes (Cubs) published in 2005, it was clear that Hughes had never even heard of Defense Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS). While I know that everybody can't know everything, and I'm not throwing Hughes under the bus, I can't imagine that it wouldn't help any team to have their staffs educated on the big picture items like this.

Legos to the Rescue

A couple of interesting tidbits this morning.

A co-worker sent me this link from the local Colorado Springs paper. Teenager Cameron Kruse, who works as a Sky Sox ball boy, built a machine to rub down baseballs in a uniform way. There's also a nice video on YouTube and although it doesn't mention it in the article, he might have used Lego Mindstorms for the programming.

Clay Davenport looks a little deeper into the number of minor league innings rookie pitchers have logged over time. The analysis is still incomplete but is suggestive that perhaps the number of innings accumulated in the minor leagues hasn't declined as has recently been discussed.

Friday Night Links

Well, the Rockies lost for the third straight night, this time to the Reds at Coors Field falling 4-2. Ken Griffey Jr. hit the 575th homerun of his career and Alex Gonzalez hit a three-run homer down the left field line. Those were the two big blows that Taylor Buchholz gave up - otherwise he pitched a pretty good game and was very efficient with his pitches.

A couple of interesting links:

Bad Interview - An interview with Buzz Bissinger regarding an article that will come out this weekend in the New York Times magazine (update: the link is now active and the article is excellent with the caveat mentioned below) on pitching featuring Kerry Wood. In the interview Bissinger says that pitchers have been coming to the big leagues younger and younger. Turns out that's not true although in Bissinger's defense his underlying point was really more about the number of minor league innings today's pitchers throw which as far I know has not been studied. The questioning of the "younger and younger" statement then takes the interview on a bad turn (hat tip to Will Carroll). While I certainly agree with the interviewer's primary point that we needn't take someone's word for what is in the end an objective question for which there is data to definitively answer, it could have and should have been handled better. Bissinger seemed to lose control himself a little which hastened the badness.

Singular - A really well done article by Steve Treder on Steve Dalkowski on THT and one that befits the fact that "His performance profile is beyond question the most singular in the sport's long and meticulously detailed accounting."