Atlanta Braves Plate Discipline
by 17843 on Jul 3, 2009 9:30 PM EDT
25 comments
Much has been said about the Braves' inability to score runs this season to back up what has been one of the best pitching staffs in baseball this season; The Braves rank 23rd in baseball in runs scored, but a stellar 5th in runs allowed and the best FIP of any staff in baseball. Much of the blame for their offensive troubles can be placed on an inability to hit for power (6th worst isolated power in baseball).Lost in this doom and gloom about the offense has been a surprisingly good season for the Braves in the plate discipline department; they are doing a very solid job at walking and avoiding strikeouts with the major's 7th best BB/K ratio, right behind offensive powerhouses like the Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays.
Below is a graph showing a breakdown of each batter's performance in the batter's box this season by breaking data down based on whether a pitch was in or out of the strike zone, swung on or watched, and hit or missed. Hopefully we can discover what has made certain hitters contribute positively or negatively towards the Braves's solid plate discipline this season. (click picture to see a larger view)
Z-Contact: Contact made on balls in the strike zone
Z-Whiff: Swinging strikes on balls in the strike zone
Called Strikes/Balls: Nothing complicated here
O-Whiff: Swinging strikes on balls outside the zone
O-Contact: Contact made on balls outside the strike zone
These six categories can be split into two groups - positive and negative - based on what the hitter should've done; ie, balls outside the zone should be taken, balls in the zone should be swung at, etc. Obviously this is not air tight, for example a hitter will take a pitch if the pitcher has shown wildness, or as the lead-off man, or if a runner on is stealing, but in a general sense it works. Z-Contact, Balls, and Z-Whiff can be classed as positive decisions, despite Z-Whiff being a negative outcome, and O-Contact, O-Whiff, and Called Strikes can be classed as negative decisions.
Below is a chart showing the data, with the addition of columns for overall Whiff (swinging strike percentage), Ball/Called Strike ratio, Quality of Swing ratio (Z-Contact+Z-Whiff/O-Contact+O-Whiff), and "Positive" and "Negative" decisions.
(Click to see a larger view)
A sortable spreadsheet is available.
We can take a number of observations from the data presented.
1. Jeff Francoeur sees the fewest number of balls on the team with less than a third of the pitches he sees resulting in balls. Chipper is unsurprisingly the team leader in balls seen with 45%.
2. Using ball/called strike ratio to see what hitters make the best decisions on pitches to take, we find strange bedfellows at the top in Chipper and Francoeur. The worst in this regard are our backup infielders, Prado and Infante who take an awful lot of called strikes. To their credit, they whiff less than anyone else on the team.
3. Your whiff leaders are unsurprising - Schafer, Diaz, Ross, and Francoeur all have a reputation for swinging and missing.
4. Using Quality of Swing we can find out which batters are swinging at the best pitches, assuming that balls are more difficult to hit than strikes. Greg Norton comes out looking the best here, swinging at nearly 5 strikes for every ball he swings at. The presence of Chipper at the top is unsurprising. At the bottom of the list is "professional hitter" Garret Anderson and free-swingers Diaz, Francoeur, and Schafer.
5. Using the "positive" and "negative" categories that I created, Chipper and Norton come out looking very good, as neither swings much outside the zone nor do they take many called strikes. Prado comes out at the bottom, which is a product of his taking a lot of called strikes. There are two explanations for this; either his high contact rate is a product of him only swinging at pitches he can hit, which means he will take a lot of pitches in the zone, or he is simply not swinging enough at balls in the zone because he isn't recognizing that they are strikes. His poor Quality of Swing ratio may hint towards the latter explanation as he is below average at swinging at good pitches.
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by scstrato on Jul 4, 2009 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Actually, your second point isn’t that surprising. Francoeur can’t possibly have a high % of called strikes because, generally, he’ll swing if he can reach the ball. He has by far the lowest % of called strikes, but he’s also got the lowest % of balls as well.
However, I would have assumed his whiff rates would be higher, on pitches both inside and out of the zone. He actually doesn’t hold a candle to Matt Diaz or Schafer in the swinging and missing department. Of course, both of those guys coax walks at a much higher rate.
Is it at all possible to extrapolate batting average from the plate discipline numbers? Just out of curiosity, I’d like to see if Matt Diaz is able to turn a disproportionate amount of pitches out of the strike zone into base hits. I think he’s a bit like Guerrerro in that regard but have no numbers to back it up.
And good job, thanks for posting.
by Bronn on Jul 3, 2009 10:42 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
That’d be really interesting to find out; sort of a out of zone batting average? Harry Pavlidis would have the data in one of his databases I’d imagine. You’d only need pitch location data from Gameday. I’ll see if I can’t email him and find out.
Francoeur was probably the player that had the most interesting results. Same as you I expected higher whiff rates, but swinging and missing really isn’t his problem. It’s more swinging at a lot of bad pitches. I mean, he sees roughly the same amount of out of zone pitches as anyone else on the team (49%). It’s just that he swings at over a third of them, depths not even approached by anyone on the team. Prado is another peculiar case.
by 17843 on Jul 3, 2009 11:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Harry got back to me with a spreadsheet. I’ll post some thoughts when I get a chance to digest it.
In the mean time, everyone should check out his work – a lot at his site Cubs F/x, more at SBNs own Beyond the Boxscore, and at The Hardball Times.He’s putting out basically the best analysis on the web right now.
by 17843 on Jul 4, 2009 1:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Alright, Harry uses a Wide Zone (24 inches) and the average batter height inputed by Pitch f/x to determine his strike zone.
Whiff rate – swinging strikes divided by swings
Swing rate – rate of swings on out of zone pitches
BABIP – batting average on the balls in play
SLG CON – slugging percentage on contact
Averages for our batters:
Whiff – 0.342
Swing – 0.267
BABIP – 0.283
SLG CON – 0.394
Diaz – 0.395 Whiff, 0.388 Swing, 0.378 BABIP, 0.469 SLG CON
He swings more, misses more, but gets a lot better results when he does hit
I’ll get standard deviations and stuff to figure how much better Diaz has been.
by 17843 on Jul 4, 2009 3:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Your magic statistics frighten me
Rec’d
by yondaime4 on Jul 3, 2009 11:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Pitch recognition
I’ve noticed that the Braves are far better at working the count than in recent years. I saw Prado as one of the worst, but he takes called strikes, looking for the pitch he wants. Diaz is like that too. Even Frenchy has been better. The worst, frankly, are McLouth and the other center fielders and most obviously, KJ.
Prado and Frenchy might be the best two-strike hitters we have. Prado seems to actively like having two strikes. Frenchy, notsomuch. But he delivers more than he did last year. And he is hitting the other way with power when runners are on. The last few weeks, it seems to be right at someone. He’s making far better contact.
by Mekons1 on Jul 3, 2009 11:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Baseball geekiness!
Which isn’t a bad thing…
I’m sure this took a LOT of work to put together, but it’s not really telling us much of anything we didn’t already know.
Tigers love pepper; they hate cinnamon.
by Jareth Cutestory on Jul 4, 2009 12:58 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
One more thing sticks out
It might be a small matter of concern for Martin Prado-he’s taking a lot of called strikes and not taking a lot of balls, relative to the rest of the team. His sample sizes are still smallish, but you’ve got to wonder about his command of the strike zone.
Then again, it appears as though he’s just seeing a higher percentage of strikes at this point than most of the team. So it might be interesting to revisit this in a month to see if his numbers start normalizing.
by Bronn on Jul 4, 2009 1:09 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Good work.
2009 Atlanta Braves Motto: We ♥ leaving RISP.
by mvhsbball on Jul 4, 2009 1:49 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
hahaha
Chipper is unsurprisingly the team leader in balls seen
by acie4mvp on Jul 4, 2009 1:55 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
A man walks into a meat shoppe and goes to the counter. The cashier asks, "Thinking about buying some meat?". The man replied, "No, I'm going to buy meat, I was thinking about punanny."
by bwellnjonesco on Jul 4, 2009 5:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
This is way to deep for me, but for those that are into this, enjoy!
I love watching the game of baseball for the Fun of it, but in the end all that really matters is a W or L.!
Go Braves!
by HEYJUDE on Jul 4, 2009 2:42 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Nice break-down. It makes Frenchy look better than he is though, because although he is pretty good at making contact with the ball, it’s usually a soft grounder to the second baseman.
As for Prado looking bad, I believe he is seeing more strikes than the average Braves’ hitter. He’s hitting in front of Chipper and no one wants to walk him. He also doesn’t come off as huge offensive threat to most pitchers just yet, so they’re willing to throw strikes early on in the count. That was the same with Infante when he was in the lineup.
by pancanbra on Jul 4, 2009 3:15 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Jeff is just good at swinging. He’s able to make contact on a lot of pitches out of the zone that are horrible pitches to swing at because he can’t do anything with them. Those end up just bouncing in the dirt, or being pop-ups. But he’s always had the ability to make solid contact-his problem is that he can’t lay off anything.
His ability to make contact on almost any pitch is actually a good skill for a hitter to have. If he had a bit more power, and the ability to not swing at balls in the dirt/3 feet outside/climbing up his backside/in the adjacent batting cage, he’d be a good hitter. His problems are almost entirely in the mental aspect: recognition and patience. Which we already knew.
by Bronn on Jul 4, 2009 11:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Very ineresting.
However now I have a headache. LOL
Simple question:
A lot of times, when a batter has 2 strikes and behind in the count, we often see them forced into more of a “defensive” mode and fight off pitch after pitch (lots of them balls) to try and stay alive at the plate until they can get a pitch they can hit.
How would this affect these ratios?
"Well behaved women rarely make history" ~ Laurel Ulrich
by NCChopper on Jul 4, 2009 9:29 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I think that’s actually very reflective in Chipper’s (and to a less extent, McCann’s) numbers on this chart-his ability to foul off pitches when he’s waiting for something he can actually hit. He’s got a very high contact rate on pitches in the strike zone, and doesn’t take a lot of called strikes. Only the real free swingers take fewer strikes than he does. So his numbers end up skewed a bit because he’s got good recognition and the ability to make contact on those pitches.
One other thing that can skew the numbers-though not very significantly-are taking strike 1 in a 3-0 count. You almost always take a 3-0 pitch, and pitchers are often throwing just a “get over” fastball in those cases, which inflates the called strike percentage.
Also interesting (in the obvious sort of way) is the fact that pitches thrown to Chipper are out of the strike zone 53.5% of the time. Only Schafer sees fewer pitches in the strike zone.
by Bronn on Jul 4, 2009 11:09 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
this is slightly off topic… but isnt taking the 3-0 fastball down the pipe like one of the dumber things a hitter can do. Now i realize, on balls in play you still make an out 70% of the time (on average). But I would be willing to bet that number (BABIP) is higher on fastball than any other pitch. If you take theres a good chance of getting a walk, and your on base. But if u allow the “get me over” fastball you allow the pitcher to get back in the count, with a “free” pitch.
Im not saying all hitters should go green light on 3-0. Jeff Francouer should never swing 3-0 (this rule may be unnecessary as the odds of Jeff seeing 3 pitches and not swinging at one of them are extraordinarily low). But shouldn’t Chipper have the green light all the time (i think Chipper may be a bad example because I doubt anyone is ever giving Chipper signs for anything…Chipper will tell u the sign he wants)
Maybe Im off base or maybe this is old news…but w/e
Heyward,Hanson,and Shaffer r ready now!! Why do you think they havent signed the "right handed bat"?
by fatazfoot on Jan 7, 2009 8:59 PM EST
by Swo12bv on Jul 4, 2009 11:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I agree that we don’t give the green light enough, however I see two problems with green lighting all the time. 1. Pitchers with good control will pick up on it and mix it up (fastballs on the outside edge, slider down, change, etc.). 2. Hitters might swing at junk from pitchers without very good control. There’s definitely a break-even point where hitters are green lighted a lot more than now though.
by 17843 on Jul 4, 2009 11:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I can see the taking a 3—0 pitch a lot easier than taking 2 in a row. That makes me scream at my TV. I’ve always thought you’re likely to get a pretty decent pitch 3-1, but I don’t know if stats back up my impression.
"Well behaved women rarely make history" ~ Laurel Ulrich
by NCChopper on Jul 5, 2009 10:42 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Perhaps batters should be green-lighted more in those counts, but only if you trust the batter to be very selective. They need to be looking for a fastball in a very specific spot and refuse to swing at anything else. You can’t be a free-swinger with a 3-0 count because if the pitcher is having control issues, you don’t want to do him any favors.
There’s a lot of good reasons you should take the 3-0 pitch. The first is that the most important thing to do as a hitter is to avoid making outs, and it’s very easy to avoid making outs if you just let the pitcher walk you when he’s missing. Also you need to consider that umpires are people too, and if a pitcher is struggling, borderline calls are less likely to go in his favor. And it can also be disruptive for a hitter if the pitcher is just all over the place with his location-you have a littler tougher time recognizing where pitches are if the ball is just missing all over.
I’d like to see Chipper and McCann take some more of those fat in 3-0 counts up into the seats, but I also know they’re much less likely to make outs if they’re not swinging when a pitcher is having control issues.
by Bronn on Jul 5, 2009 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
My head asploded. Nice work…now get back to work!
by Sparhawk on Jul 6, 2009 4:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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