Compatiblity matching
by Paul SingmanAugust 04, 2009
The baseball statistics available freely online have advanced greatly over the past few years. As fantasy players, it is important to keep up with the research going on in the "real" aspect of baseball and continually try to apply it to fantasy baseball.
One of the leaders of the movement, FanGraphs, now has Pitch Type Linear Weights that show the pitches individual pitchers are better at throwing, and which pitches individual batters are better at hitting. (Click here for the accompanying explanation article by Dave Allen.) Taking at quick glance at Mark Teixeira's FanGraphs player page shows the following information:
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mark Teixeira Pitch Type Values | +--------+----------------+------+------+------+-----++-------+-------+-------+-------+ | Season | Team | wFB | wSL | wCB | wCH || wFB/C | wSL/C | wCB/C | wCH/C | +--------+----------------+------+------+------+-----++-------+-------+-------+-------+ | 2006 | Rangers | 20.8 | -0.7 | 0.8 | 5.6 || 1.24 | -0.36 | 0.32 | 1.05 | | 2007 | Rangers/Braves | 31 | 4.5 | 0.9 | 0.4 || 2.43 | 2.36 | 0.48 | 0.1 | | 2008 | Braves/Angels | 39 | 1.3 | 3.1 | 5.3 || 2.46 | 0.43 | 1.54 | 1.49 | | 2009 | Yankees | 24.3 | -1.5 | -1.1 | 0 || 2.5 | -1.02 | -0.63 | -0.01 | +--------+----------------+------+------+------+-----++-------+-------+-------+-------+
The numbers on the left of the divide show in total how many runs Teixeira has earned hitting fastballs, which for 2009 has been 24.3 runs. On the right side, where the column headers have a "/C" after them, the numbers show how many runs a player earns on a certain pitch per 100 pitches. For Mark Teixeira in 2009, that number is 2.5 runs per 100 fastballs.
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| Casey Blake connecting for a home run on what was most likely either a fastball or change-up. (Icon/SMI) |
For these stats I believe 0 is average, positive means a player is good at hitting that pitch, and negative means the batter struggles with the pitch. Messing around with the leaderboards will help give you a relative context of how good a 2.5 wFB/C is.
Although extremely interesting, keep in mind the numbers are not perfect. The pitch classifications FanGraphs uses are not manually adjusted and no tests have been done to my knowledge on the stability of the pitch value numbers. Also the methodology behind the values is still somewhat of a work in progress, but nevertheless they can still used for fantasy purposes.
Most simply, when deciding which batter to start of two, besides looking just at the skill and handedness of the opposing pitchers, you can also check out the pitches they are better at throwing and the pitches your batters hit better.
For example, let's say you own Cody Ross who has pretty consistently hit change-ups well throughout his career. Some nights he starts for your team and other nights he sits one out. Let's say tonight the Marlins are playing the Astros and Wandy Rodriguez is pitching. Taking a look at his Pitch Value numbers, he historically has a below-average change-up and still throws it somewhat often at 10 percent of the time.
Tonight, then, would be a time to make sure Ross is in your starting lineup because of the increased possibility of him pounding one of Wandy's change-ups out of the yard, or at least what FanGraphs—as provided by BIS—is classifying as a change-up.
In terms of importance, I would rank this below matching up handedness and skill of the opposing pitcher, simply because I do not really know how effective mixing and matching batters to pitchers by individual pitch is. Unfortunately, I did not invest the time yet to find out, so for today that question will be left unanswered.
Instead I'll leave you with what is possibly new idea and if it's not new, feel free to tell me in the comments how you have been using it.
Paul has been managing fantasy baseball teams for many seasons and writing for THT Fantasy over the past three years. He is currently a student at UPenn welcomes readers' thoughts at his email here or in the comments below.
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