The Mets are hitting the wrong way
by John WalshMarch 01, 2010
This morning I read in the Daily News that the Mets in 2009 had fallen under the spell of Tony Bernazard and this opposite-field hitting philosophy. "This is nuts," I thought as I sipped my cappuccino. "I'll post a THT Live on this later." As it happens, as it always happens, somebody beat me to the punch. Rob Neyer was right on it. Rob explains why an over-emphasis on opposite-field hitting doesn't make sense in today's game. But, then he throws us numbers guys a bone:
Well, here's where maybe I can contribute. What follows is a list of teams and their "pull fraction" in 2009. I consider a ball pulled if it was ultimately fielded by the third baseman, shortstop or left fielder for right-handed batters, and first or second baseman or right fielder for lefty swingers. This is only an approximation, but it's good enough for a THT Live post. Here's the list:
Of course, we're missing a key piece of information here. We know the Mets were last in the majors in home runs, but were they last in the majors in pulling the ball, too? And did individual players pull the ball significantly less in 2009 than they had in 2008?
+------+--------------+---------------+-----------+ | Team | pulled_balls | balls_in_play | pull_frac | +------+--------------+---------------+-----------+ | PHI | 2016 | 4286 | 0.4704 | | SEA | 2052 | 4377 | 0.4688 | | CLE | 1980 | 4277 | 0.4629 | | BOS | 1959 | 4260 | 0.4599 | | TBA | 1874 | 4093 | 0.4579 | | SDN | 1907 | 4198 | 0.4543 | | DET | 1950 | 4323 | 0.4511 | | SLN | 1961 | 4352 | 0.4506 | | TOR | 2034 | 4518 | 0.4502 | | WAS | 1895 | 4224 | 0.4486 | | PIT | 1891 | 4225 | 0.4476 | | CHA | 1927 | 4316 | 0.4465 | | TEX | 1843 | 4129 | 0.4464 | | BAL | 1996 | 4484 | 0.4451 | | MIL | 1849 | 4175 | 0.4429 | | CHN | 1875 | 4235 | 0.4427 | | ATL | 1969 | 4449 | 0.4426 | | FLO | 1887 | 4289 | 0.4400 | | HOU | 1929 | 4395 | 0.4389 | | COL | 1775 | 4060 | 0.4372 | | NYA | 1937 | 4446 | 0.4357 | | ANA | 1943 | 4475 | 0.4342 | | CIN | 1858 | 4295 | 0.4326 | | SFN | 1852 | 4317 | 0.4290 | | MIN | 1903 | 4493 | 0.4235 | | KCA | 1838 | 4357 | 0.4218 | | NYN | 1899 | 4560 | 0.4164 | | OAK | 1861 | 4477 | 0.4157 | | LAN | 1865 | 4488 | 0.4156 | | ARI | 1722 | 4167 | 0.4132 | +------+--------------+---------------+-----------+
So, you can see that the Mets are indeed near the bottom, #26 out of 30 teams. What about the individual players? With all their injuries last season, the Mets only had five players with at least 150 balls in play in both 2008 and 2009. Here are the pull fractions for those players.
+-----------------+----------+----------------+----------+----------------+---------+ | Name | BIP_2008 | PULL_FRAC_2008 | BIP_2009 | PULL_FRAC_2009 | DIFF | +-----------------+----------+----------------+----------+----------------+---------+ | Tatis, Fernando | 202 | 0.4802 | 285 | 0.4526 | -0.0276 | | Castillo, Luis | 269 | 0.2788 | 449 | 0.2984 | 0.0196 | | Beltran, Carlos | 489 | 0.5767 | 256 | 0.4688 | -0.1079 | | Church, Ryan | 228 | 0.5000 | 197 | 0.4112 | -0.0888 | | Wright, David | 483 | 0.4617 | 389 | 0.4087 | -0.0530 | +-----------------+----------+----------------+----------+----------------+---------+
As you can see, 4 out of 5 saw a significant decrease in the fraction of balls pulled. And the other guy (Castillo) rarely pulls the ball anyway. So, maybe the Mets really were drinking Bernazard's Kool Aid. Weird.
John Walsh dabbles in baseball analysis in his spare time. He welcomes questions and comments via e-mail.
Good stuff, John. Using MLBAM’s data and classifying pull/center/push by launch angle, I actually have the Mets as leading the league in Pull% at 22.75% (Lg. Avg: 19.8%). In 2008, they were on the opposite end of the spectrum at 17.7% (5th lowest in MLB).