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September 07, 2009

Ichiro’s 2000th hit

Ichiro Suzuki recently gained his 2000th hit. According to this story, (hat tip, BTF he achieved that distinction in the second fastest time ever, 1,402 games - whereas Al Simmons did it in 1,390 games.

That's nice to know, but it leaves me with a question. As I'm sure everyone out there in reader-land knows, Ichiro came to MLB a fully formed player in his prime. Usually, guys have to spend a couple years growing into the game and for the best players that's usually in their early 20s. Thus Ichiro should have an advantage in reaching 2000 hits if one measures it purely by games.

Let's look at age instead. Ichiro was 27 in his rookie season and is age 35 now. Using, Baseball-Reference's Play Index let's see where Ichiro stacks up. I should note in advance doing it right now is actually a tad unfair to Ichiro, as his age 35 season isn't completed, but we can account for that after seeing the results. My own hunch is that if he's 2nd fastest to 2,000 hits in terms of games, he'll do worse when comparing him to others from ages 27-35.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw the results. Ichiro, even though he hasn't even finished his age 35 season is in first place, and not by a small amount. Not only is he the only guy to tally 2,000 hits in that time, he's the only one over 1,900 hits as well. Assuming he stays healthy and doesn't trail off too badly (both fair assumptions), only Pete Rose will achieve 90% of Ichiro's hits in these ages.

I suppose that makes sense. The man is averaging over 220 hits a season and will probably end up averaging 225 when 2009 is all said and done. There's only been 62 times in all baseball history someone got that many hits in a single season, let alone averaged it for almost a decade. While I was right to note Ichiro missed the early warm up period, I forgot to account for the decline most players experience by age 35. Ichiro keeps on a-chooglin'.

What I also find interesting in that list is that only 5 of the top 19 currently have 3,000 hits in their careers - I have to say currently because both Ichiro and Derek Jeter are legitimate shots to reach that plateau.

All this leads to a new question: is this the most hits anyone has ever had in any 9-year period? Well, let's see:

Most hits by the following ages:

Ages 20 to 28: Ty Cobb 1,786 hits
Ages 21 to 29: Joe Medwick 1,801 hits
Ages 22 to 30: Willie Keeler 1,905 hits
Ages 23 to 31: Paul Waner 1,860 hits
Ages 24 to 32: Jesse Burkett 1,891 hits
Ages 25 to 33: Jesse Burkett 1,882 hits
Ages 26 to 34: Jesse Burkett 1,846 hits
Ages 27 to 35: Ichiro Suzuki 2,000 hits
Ages 28 to 36: Bill Terry 1,861 hits
Ages 29 to 37: Pete Rose 1,837 hits
Ages 30 to 38: Pete Rose 1,840 hits
Ages 31 to 39: Pete Rose 1,833 hits
Ages 32 to 40: Sam Rice 1,821 hits
Ages 33 to 41: Sam Rice 1,762

I guess I could go further, but the point is clear: no one has ever had such a hit-terific 9-year stretch as Ichiro. No one has even come close.

Well, one last question then: what may the future hold? He was Japan's annual hit-king and has lashed out base hits like no one else in the history of MLB since his arrival year. As an added bonus: he does a great job staying in shape. Barring an unexpected injury (which is always a possibility regardless of conditioning, especially as one ages), Ichiro has a good bet to get more hits from age 36 onward as anyone in history.

With that in mind, here is the list of most hits by anyone from their age 36 season onward. Seven guys topped 1,000 hits, so I really like Ichiro's odds to crack 3,000. If two guys approached 1,500 hits, then I think Ichiro is a serious contender for 3,500 hits - provided again that he doesn't suffer from an injury (which is far from a given). After all, he should end this season over 2,030 hits.

Posted by: Chris Jaffe

August 24, 2009

“He was over the bleeping plate!”

Jered Weaver to Tim Welke tonight after Welke awarded first base to Ramon Santiago, who had just leaned into an 89-mph cut fastball from Weaver. Did Weaver have a point?

According to the PITCHf/x system at the Big A, the pitch was five inches from the middle of the plate, so Weaver was correct that Santiago was hanging his elbow over the plate when he was hit. However, the pitch was also up, four feet three inches off the ground, and thus out of the strike zone.

6.08 The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when—
(b) He is touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit unless (1) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (2) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball;
If the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a strike, whether or not the batter tries to avoid the ball. If the ball is outside the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a ball if he makes no attempt to avoid being touched.

Since the umpire awarded the batter first base, he must have credited Santiago's torso turn as he was struck as an attempt to avoid being touched by the ball.



Perhaps Rule 6.06 could come to Weaver's aid?

6.06 A batter is out for illegal action when—
(a) He hits a ball with one or both feet on the ground entirely outside the batter’s box.

The rules state that the batter's box starts six inches from the edge of home plate:



Where in the world was Ramon Santiago? I made my best estimate from the video of where the edge of the batter's box should be (indicated by the red arrow). Of course, the actual chalk line has long since been erased by the fourth inning. It looks like Santiago is hanging his toe over the line, but with his heel firmly ensconced inside the batter's box, his stance was legal.

I'll admit that before tonight, I didn't know that the batter could legally lean out over the plate like that as long as he wasn't touched by a pitch inside the strike zone. It's a good thing Tim Welke is more educated on the rules than I was. I also can't blame Jered Weaver for wanting to own home plate. That's a pitcher's territory, and he has to be able to come inside every now and then. If he'd just gotten the pitch down a little bit, he likely would have missed Santiago's elbow and gotten a strike call.


Posted by: Mike Fast

June 09, 2009

Which batters hit the hardest balls in April?

With the release of Sportvision's HITf/x data for April 2009, we can look at who hit the ball the hardest in April. Since batted ball speed does not decrease much even when the batter hits the ball off center, it is more instructive to look at batted ball speed in the horizontal plane. In other words, hitting the ball very hard straight up is likely to turn into an out, while hitting the ball very hard straight toward the outfield is likely to turn into a hit. In fact, we find that batting average is maximized at an elevation of 11 degrees, so we'll look at the average batted ball speed for batters in that plane. We should also remove bunt attempts since they purposefully attempt a low batted ball speed.

Here are the results for the 303 batters with 20 or more non-bunt batted balls recorded by HITf/x. Average batted ball speed for a non-pitcher was 75.1 mph. When pitchers were batting, their average batted ball speed was 66.1 mph.
Click for more...

Posted by: Mike Fast

David Ortiz and HITf/x

There is a discussion at The Book Blog which began with a link Tango made to a post by John Dewan regarding the declining length of David Ortiz's air balls and has evolved into a discussion of batted ball speeds as measured by HITf/x. It's worth your time if you're interested in the new HITf/x data. I posted a couple graphs in post #18 regarding how batting average is affected by the speed of the batted ball and the vertical launch angle.
Posted by: Mike Fast

March 24, 2009

Incredibly, more on double plays

I didn't think it was possible, but after writing more than most people would ever want to know about batters hitting into double plays, a few intrepid readers asked for more. Specifically, they wanted to see the all-time best and worst batters at avoiding the GDP, ranked not by total double plays avoided, but by the rate at which they hit into GDPs, based on opportunities.
Click for more...

Posted by: John Walsh


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