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Saturday, June 30, 2007

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Hopefully, other challenges will ensue and the law will get repealed.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, June 29, 2007

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.
  • Thursday, June 28, 2007

    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.

    Tuesday, June 26, 2007

    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, June 22, 2007

    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.
  • Thursday, June 21, 2007

    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.

    Monday, June 18, 2007

    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.

    Sunday, June 17, 2007

    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.
  • Saturday, June 16, 2007

    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%

    Friday, June 15, 2007

    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.

    Thursday, June 14, 2007

    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!

    Wednesday, June 13, 2007

    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
  • Sunday, June 10, 2007

    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.

    Saturday, June 09, 2007

    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):



















    Thursday, June 07, 2007

    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.

    Wednesday, June 06, 2007

    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.

    Tuesday, June 05, 2007

    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, June 01, 2007

    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."
  •