Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor
Cyclone, this is truly a great piece of work. I'd like to see RedsZone set up a second Archives-like forum called something like "The Baseball Academy" where posts like this can be preserved and quickly accessed by fans who want to get smarter about the game.
Your data indicates that, as baseball conventional wisdom teaches, the quickest way to neuter a hitter is to get him into a pitchers count. The best hitters are the ones most adept at working the strike zone in their favor. While this is relevant to showing why the Reds are so successful offensively, perhaps the inverse could aslo be revealing as to why the Reds are so poor on the mound. I'd be curious to see how often Reds pitchers placed opposing batters in hitters counts vs. pitchers counts -- and I'd be willing to wager that Aaron Harang saw way more pitchers counts than Eric Milton did last year.
Thanks, Caveat. What you mention about applying the same count data for pitchers is also something I've been thinking about, and I'm going to try to look into it a bit. I've been browsing around some pitching splits and most of the data should be available so I'll see what I can find.
Just a quick glance at 2005 and I noticed Milton was behind in the count for 253 plate appearances (out of 855 total), which was 29.6 percent of all his plate appearances against. Harang was behind in the count for 253 plate appearances (out of 887 total), which was 28.5 percent of all his plate appearances against. Slight edge to Harang, but nothing too significant.
Getting ahead of hitters was an entirely different story between those two. Harang was ahead in the count 40.0 percent of the time, compared to only 34.7 percent for Milton. This is a rather significant edge for Harang.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
I'm bumping a couple of threads here in light of all the recent Dunn bashing. this is one of my favorite threads ever.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor
Cyclone, this is truly a great piece of work. I'd like to see RedsZone set up a second Archives-like forum called something like "The Baseball Academy" where posts like this can be preserved and quickly accessed by fans who want to get smarter about the game.
Your data indicates that, as baseball conventional wisdom teaches, the quickest way to neuter a hitter is to get him into a pitchers count. The best hitters are the ones most adept at working the strike zone in their favor. While this is relevant to showing why the Reds are so successful offensively, perhaps the inverse could aslo be revealing as to why the Reds are so poor on the mound. I'd be curious to see how often Reds pitchers placed opposing batters in hitters counts vs. pitchers counts -- and I'd be willing to wager that Aaron Harang saw way more pitchers counts than Eric Milton did last year.
I agree and think that maybe a sub-forum archive of SABR-related posts like these would be great way to educate the masses on some of the principals rooted in deep statistical analysis.
When someone makes a subjective knee-jerk post saying something like, "Adam Dunn can't can't hit......blah blah blah", just direct them to a link that takes them into the archive of that particular topic.
Good bump, vaticanplum.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Well, I finally got around to updating this plate discipline and batting count information with all the 2006 season stats included. I'm not going to bother going through the entire methodology again so if you're a bit confused by this post, check out the original post on the very first page and that should help clear up some confusion. But, as a reminder ...
- TPA = Total Plate Appearances (all counts)
- HCPA = Hitter's Count Plate Appearances (i.e. 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, etc.)
- HCPA% = Percentage of total plate appearances that were hitter's counts
- PCPA = Pitcher's Count Plate Appearances (i.e. 0-1, 0-2, and 1-2)
- PCPA% = Percentage of total plate appearances that were pitcher's counts
First, here's how each team fared in 2006 ...
Code:
Team HCPA OBP SLG OPS TPA HCPA %
New York Yankees 2503 0.508 0.576 1.084 6455 38.776%
Oakland Athletics 2378 0.489 0.496 0.985 6281 37.860%
Boston Red Sox 2434 0.504 0.534 1.038 6435 37.824%
Los Angeles Dodgers 2409 0.491 0.539 1.030 6394 37.676%
San Diego Padres 2329 0.475 0.492 0.967 6287 37.045%
Cincinnati Reds 2332 0.489 0.546 1.035 6296 37.039%
Arizona Diamondbacks 2317 0.455 0.499 0.954 6330 36.603%
Washington Nationals 2289 0.492 0.540 1.032 6283 36.432%
Philadelphia Phillies 2367 0.494 0.543 1.037 6509 36.365%
Houston Astros 2289 0.481 0.511 0.992 6326 36.184%
Texas Rangers 2257 0.476 0.544 1.020 6273 35.980%
Cleveland Indians 2251 0.509 0.587 1.096 6303 35.713%
Atlanta Braves 2239 0.469 0.554 1.023 6284 35.630%
Minnesota Twins 2210 0.473 0.506 0.979 6228 35.485%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Toronto Blue Jays 2204 0.478 0.554 1.031 6241 35.315%
New York Mets 2211 0.489 0.559 1.048 6291 35.145%
St. Louis Cardinals 2187 0.476 0.527 1.003 6225 35.133%
Chicago White Sox 2215 0.473 0.536 1.009 6318 35.059%
Colorado Rockies 2220 0.493 0.533 1.026 6348 34.972%
Los Angeles Angels 2160 0.469 0.524 0.994 6221 34.721%
San Francisco Giants 2109 0.461 0.514 0.974 6136 34.371%
Seattle Mariners 2131 0.434 0.498 0.932 6213 34.299%
Milwaukee Brewers 2089 0.474 0.513 0.987 6130 34.078%
Baltimore Orioles 2120 0.472 0.500 0.972 6240 33.974%
Detroit Tigers 2086 0.452 0.510 0.963 6198 33.656%
Chicago Cubs 2068 0.427 0.491 0.918 6147 33.642%
Kansas City Royals 2094 0.479 0.519 0.998 6229 33.617%
Florida Marlins 2035 0.482 0.521 1.003 6191 32.870%
Tampa Bay Devil Rays 1958 0.460 0.529 0.988 6041 32.412%
Pittsburgh Pirates 1987 0.465 0.493 0.959 6218 31.956%
League 66478 0.477 0.527 1.004 188071 35.347%
Code:
Team PCPA OBP SLG OPS TPA PCPA %
New York Yankees 1776 0.242 0.352 0.594 6455 27.514%
San Diego Padres 1808 0.220 0.325 0.545 6287 28.758%
Atlanta Braves 1814 0.219 0.338 0.557 6284 28.867%
Oakland Athletics 1814 0.218 0.308 0.526 6281 28.881%
Houston Astros 1829 0.220 0.318 0.538 6326 28.912%
Los Angeles Dodgers 1850 0.230 0.332 0.562 6394 28.933%
Cincinnati Reds 1825 0.205 0.314 0.519 6296 28.987%
Arizona Diamondbacks 1855 0.219 0.294 0.513 6330 29.305%
Boston Red Sox 1894 0.226 0.320 0.546 6435 29.433%
San Francisco Giants 1828 0.214 0.308 0.521 6136 29.791%
Philadelphia Phillies 1969 0.233 0.344 0.577 6509 30.250%
Chicago White Sox 1919 0.239 0.356 0.595 6318 30.374%
Texas Rangers 1912 0.222 0.342 0.564 6273 30.480%
Kansas City Royals 1901 0.217 0.295 0.512 6229 30.519%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Louis Cardinals 1916 0.231 0.336 0.567 6225 30.779%
Cleveland Indians 1957 0.220 0.324 0.544 6303 31.049%
Minnesota Twins 1936 0.253 0.357 0.610 6228 31.085%
Baltimore Orioles 1959 0.250 0.346 0.596 6240 31.394%
Washington Nationals 1973 0.216 0.307 0.523 6283 31.402%
Colorado Rockies 2010 0.236 0.348 0.584 6348 31.664%
Detroit Tigers 1966 0.235 0.377 0.612 6198 31.720%
Tampa Bay Devil Rays 1919 0.210 0.313 0.523 6041 31.766%
Chicago Cubs 1958 0.240 0.335 0.575 6147 31.853%
Toronto Blue Jays 1995 0.249 0.377 0.626 6241 31.966%
Florida Marlins 1983 0.218 0.322 0.540 6191 32.030%
Los Angeles Angels 1993 0.241 0.351 0.592 6221 32.037%
New York Mets 2028 0.235 0.363 0.598 6291 32.237%
Seattle Mariners 2018 0.243 0.355 0.597 6213 32.480%
Milwaukee Brewers 2037 0.222 0.331 0.553 6130 33.230%
Pittsburgh Pirates 2124 0.219 0.280 0.499 6218 34.159%
League 57766 0.228 0.332 0.561 188071 30.715%
In 2005, the Cincinnati Reds had a Hitter's Count Plate Appearance Percentage (HCPA%) of 37.083 percent, which means their 2006 mark of 37.039 percent was a neglible drop ... and that's a very, very good thing considering the Reds were once again among the best teams at getting themselves into hitting counts. For HCPA%, the higher the figure, the better.
Also, the Reds had a neglible improvement in Pitcher's Count Plate Appearance Percentage (PCPA%) in 2006 compared to the previous season. In 2005, Reds batters got stuck in pitcher's counts in 29.774 percent of all plate appearances, and in 2006 that figure improved to 28.987 percent. For PCPA%, the lower the figure, the better.
League figures for both HCPA% and PCPA% were virtually identical in 2005 and 2006, which leads me to believe that on a league-wide level these numbers should remain very stable. Teams will obviously fluctuate on a season-by-season basis as their offensive personnel turns over.
- In 2005, the MLB HCPA% was 34.834 percent, and in 2006 the MLB HCPA% was 35.347 percent.
- In 2005, the MLB PCPA% was 30.993 percent, and in 2006 the MLB PCPA% was 30.715 percent.
For individual players, sample sizes may become a slight problem as even full seasons of data may still be a somewhat small sample size so I've merely updated the total career numbers of each player. Since the Reds have had a bit of player turnover since I posted this thread originally, there's actually quite a few new faces on here. First, the hitting counts ...
Code:
Player HCPA SLG OPS Total PA HCPA % HCPA+
Adam Dunn 1552 .633 1.184 3464 44.804% 128
Scott Hatteberg 1926 .504 .999 4384 43.932% 125
Chris Denorfia 68 .490 1.005 162 41.975% 120
Edwin Encarnacion 281 .628 1.108 697 40.316% 115
Ken Griffey, Jr. 3768 .643 1.127 9525 39.559% 113
Ryan Freel 644 .388 .876 1707 37.727% 108
Jeff Conine 2654 .560 1.046 7482 35.472% 101
Javier Valentin 426 .526 .989 1250 34.080% 97
David Ross 257 .657 1.148 771 33.333% 95
Juan Castro 669 .400 .786 2255 29.667% 85
Brandon Phillips 286 .384 .755 1039 27.526% 79
Alex Gonzalez 931 .521 .955 3886 23.958% 68
Dunn, Hatteberg, Griffey, and Freel all remain largely unchanged from the 2005 data, and all of them continued to do very well in getting into hitter's counts.
Edwin Encarnacion had a very small sample size last season, but after the 2006 season we're starting to get a feel for how well he's able to work the count to his advantage, and the early numbers are very promising. Encarnacion has been able to work himself into a hitter's count over 40 percent of his total plate appearances, which is significantly better than the league average and also one of the best marks on the team. Combine this with his age, improving walk rate, and fantastic doubles rate, and it's easy to see why everybody is high on him as a hitter. His batting count data is just one more piece of positive evidence in Encarnacion's favor.
Chris Denorfia has a tiny sample size, but what I'm seeing even in his tiny sample size is terrific. In his first 162 career MLB plate appearances, Denorfia has shown an excellent ability to get himself into hitting counts. Given his solid walk rate and on-base percentages in the minor leagues, this bodes well for a transition to the major leagues.
Jeff Conine is right around league average, as is Javier Valentin, and David Ross is slightly below league average.
The last three names on this list are terrifying, however. Juan Castro, Brandon Phillips, and Alex Gonzalez have done a terrible job at working themselves into hitting counts throughout their career. We know Castro's a lousy hitter so his name isn't at all surprising. However, Phillips and Gonzalez are specifically a problem considering they'll be pencilled in as regular players in 2007. Both have historically poor walk rates, historically poor on-base percentages, and as we can see, an historically poor ability at getting into hitter's counts. If one or both could do a better job at learning the strike zone, I'd feel a bit more comfortable with them at the plate.
Now, the pitching counts ...
Code:
Player PCPA SLG OPS Total PA PCPA % PCPA+
Adam Dunn 826 .300 .473 3464 23.845% 129
Scott Hatteberg 1095 .294 .528 4384 24.977% 124
Ken Griffey, Jr. 2402 .436 .681 9525 25.218% 122
Jeff Conine 1920 .334 .562 7482 25.662% 120
Chris Denorfia 43 .186 .302 162 26.543% 116
Ryan Freel 470 .334 .602 1707 27.534% 112
Edwin Encarnacion 196 .349 .594 697 28.121% 110
Javier Valentin 363 .262 .427 1250 29.040% 106
David Ross 231 .392 .578 771 29.961% 103
Juan Castro 745 .290 .491 2255 33.038% 93
Brandon Phillips 378 .286 .489 1039 36.381% 85
Alex Gonzalez 1630 .297 .502 3886 41.945% 74
Many of the same comments on each player in regards to getting into hitting counts also applies to avoiding pitcher counts. Dunn, Hatteberg, Griffey, Denorfia, Freel, and Encarnacion all do a very good job at getting into hitting counts and avoiding pitcher counts. For our young hitters in Encarnacion and Denorfia, this is an excellent sign.
Jeff Conine, while roughly league average in getting into hitting counts, has shown a history of doing a very good job of avoiding pitcher counts. Javier Valentin and David Ross are both above average.
Unfortunately, the same bottom trio strikes again, however, in Castro, Phillips, and Gonzalez. Once again, if one or both of our double-play combination of Phillips and Gonzalez could figure out the strike zone, it'd be a major asset to the team's offensive punch altogether.
Finally, in terms of overall plate discipline as a whole, David Appelman recently posted an outstanding article on Fan Graphs where he takes a look factors such as contact percentage, zone percentage, and outside swing percentage.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Dunn, Hatteberg, Griffey, and Freel all remain largely unchanged from the 2005 data, and all of them continued to do very well in getting into hitter's counts.
Very interesting...but one quick question. If, as you stated, that Griffey continued to do very well in getting himself into hitters counts, what would account for his sub-par 2006 performance?
Thanks for the knowledge.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
edabbs44
Very interesting...but one quick question. If, as you stated, that Griffey continued to do very well in getting himself into hitters counts, what would account for his sub-par 2006 performance?
Thanks for the knowledge.
Loss of bat speed?
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
edabbs44
Very interesting...but one quick question. If, as you stated, that Griffey continued to do very well in getting himself into hitters counts, what would account for his sub-par 2006 performance?
Thanks for the knowledge.
A very quick look shows Jr. at a BABIP of .251 coupled with a big spike in his GB% and a corresponding dip in his LD%. Basically he's topping the ball instead of squaring it up. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's a sign of real decline. Given the state of his legs, Junior needs to keep the ball off the ground.
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx...ge=0&type=full
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
edabbs44
Very interesting...but one quick question. If, as you stated, that Griffey continued to do very well in getting himself into hitters counts, what would account for his sub-par 2006 performance?
Thanks for the knowledge.
I believe that data shows Griffey's career information. In other words, 2006's numbers weren't bad enough to pull Griffey's career numbers down.
I'm not sure what Griffey's 2006 numbers looked like, as far as these stats are concerned, but if Griffey was getting into hitter's counts at a near 40% rate and into pitchers counts at a near 25% rate, then yeah, why were his numbers down in 2006? Specifically, why was his OBP% down so much considering his career numbers in hitter's counts. Is age really catching up to him that fast that he was unable to do much with pitches even when he was in a hitters count in 2006?
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
2 things:
Both Griffey and Dunn had achieved lower stats than expected (bad luck). I wonder if an extreme shift cancels out a hitter squaring up on the ball. You can have a great line drive percentage, but if ya got to hit it through 19 fielders bunched all on the one side of the field where you hit the ball a high percentage of time -LD % may be impacted.
Lastly, there's a good article by a guy name Sal Buxamusa at hardballtimes.com....it's about pitch sequencing and how perceptions change for the batter and the pitcher based on the most recent outcome.
Gladwell or Levitt (can't remember which) talk about how people's perceptions change in major ways based on the most frequent outcome--they refer to a very painful surgery completed while a patient was awake -if the doctor did nothing for the last couple of minutes (vs a doc who hurried to get things done so as to allieviate the pain quicker)--well, most folks felt better about the doctor who just did nothing for a couple of minutes and then quit. Point being, people tend to look positively on the most recent event.
What does that mean for a baseball player--i think it could mean a lot to a coach who is trying to engage how a player might feel about certain things and thus compensating for the players most recent outcome.
I do know this, if the Bengals had won their last 3 games instead of losing the last 3 -we may feel a little better about their season.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
edabbs44
Very interesting...but one quick question. If, as you stated, that Griffey continued to do very well in getting himself into hitters counts, what would account for his sub-par 2006 performance?
Thanks for the knowledge.
It's most likely a nasty combination of decline due to age with some bad luck mixed in. The fan graphs data that Rick posted is excellent, and it suggests quite a few possibilities. Loss of bat speed would screw up a batter's timing, result in fewer hard hit balls, and likely result in less solid contact being made (or failing to square pitches as often). Griffey could have suffered from one or all of those problems, and age is the ugly factor playing into all of them.
Griffey's batting count data actually improved slightly in 2006.
Code:
Griffey Career 2006
Hitter Counts 39.56% 41.31%
Pitcher Counts 25.22% 23.31%
3-0 count 3.52% 3.81%
3-1 count 5.48% 5.51%
3-2 count 12.80% 11.86%
non-IBB rate 3-0* 1.70 1.50
non-IBB rate 3-1* 1.92 1.86
non-IBB rate 3-2* 3.31 5.09
Hitter Count OPS 1.127 1.050
Pitcher Count OPS .681 .455
Even Count OPS .911 .770
*Intentional walks and how they've been scored per count make it difficult to get non-IBB walk rates for some of the counts. It seems that some years they've been recorded as 0-0 counts and other years as 3-0 counts (unless the intentional walk starts on a different count when a team elects to walk a batter midway through a PA, which happens occasionally).
One thing that I'm very certain did occur is that Griffey's walk rate faded a bit in 3-2 counts, which means he was chasing more pitches in 3-2 counts than he used to chase. If his walk rate in 3-2 counts and intentional walk rate remained at his career averages, then he'd have walked ~15 more times in 2006 with the same amount of playing time, and his 2006 on-base percentage would have been 20-30 points higher. His walk rate in 3-0 counts and 3-1 counts appears to have remained pretty consistent with his career averages.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
This has probably been mentioned somewhere, but I am struck by Dunn's poor OPS when in a pitcher's count. In comparison to the league he is solidly below average, and when you compare him to Griffey, Pujols, Bonds, and the like, his OPS is 200 points lower. Ouch. His OPS in comparison to the "big five" is on par when in a hitter's count, however, and above average.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
PickOff
This has probably been mentioned somewhere, but I am struck by Dunn's poor OPS when in a pitcher's count. In comparison to the league he is solidly below average, and when you compare him to Griffey, Pujols, Bonds, and the like, his OPS is 200 points lower. Ouch. His OPS in comparison to the "big five" is on par when in a hitter's count, however, and above average.
I would assume most players have better numbers when the count is in their favor...the pitcher has to throw strikes.
The difference between Dunn and the elite, IMO, is exactly what you bring out. When he is behind in the count he looks clueless most of the time. That why I personally HATE when he watches a fastball or two for strikes. Sure he may walk sometimes as a result of his patience, but I think he burns himself a lot more than he should with that approach.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Cyclone...it appears that this team will be in trouble in 2007 when they face pitchers who pound the strike zone.
I guess the difference in Griffey's numbers comes down to when he is behind in the count. It looks like he is becoming more of a guess hitter as he gets older, as his bat speed cannot catch up to a fastball if he is thinking curveball and vice versa.
Remember when he hit the GS off of Zumaya? I made a comment on the game thread that he was about to get blown away by a heater. Thinking about it more, he was all fastball on that pitch and he would have looked foolish on anything else.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
Not to be accused of beating a dead horse, but might this not be where preparation comes in to play. Knowing how a pitcher is going to try and get you out can go a long way towards keeping you from looking clueless.
Re: Digging Deep into Plate Discipline and Unlocking a Secret to Hitting
The only factoring that I would like to see is what kind of an impact the umpire has on these scenarios and what pitching staffs are the best at keeping the HCPA lowest over a 3-4 year period. Then I'd like to see what the numbers are with all of those factors in place. Kind of like a 7 degrees but it would be fun. Great work as usual.