The Hardball Times -- Jonathan Hale

Into the next dimension with HIT f/x

Jonathan Hale — 2009-09-02T05:04:15+00:00

Note: Last week I wrote an article on hit f/x, and within 15 minutes a number of astute and informed readers pointed out that I was wrong about where the point of contact was being measured from, which led to some incorrect conclusions. Mea culpa, but it did start an interesting discussion which you can still find in the comments below, although the numbers and conclusions in the following article have been corrected:

Warren Spahn once said: "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing." And for all that PITCHf/x has told us about who has the nastiest pitches and what locations hitters feast off of, it has had very little to say about such a critical aspect of the hitter-pitcher duel as timing. As a result, while PITCHf/x can easily tell where in the strike zone batters are succeeding or struggling to make solid contact, for the most part why that is the case is just guesswork.

Further complicating saying anything useful about hitters is that the normal PITCHf/x data gives the location of each pitch as it crosses the very front of the plate. That's fine for pitchers, since that's where balls and strikes are decided. But with breaking balls moving wildly as they pass the plate and a full six feet of batter's box in which the hitter could theoretically be standing as he reaches for the ball, where the pitch crossed the front of the plate and where the batter actually made contact with it could be far apart.

Enter HITf/x to save the day on both counts. Along with the horizontal and vertical location at which the bat struck the ball, it measures how far along its flight path the ball was when it was struck. This will be especially useful once we have enough data to compare a hitter's normal contact point to where it is when he is in a slump or on a streak to see if anything has changed. But for now, here are the average travel distances for each type of pitch using the available April data. I have converted the values hit f/x provides to where the ball is in relation to the front of the plate (as pitch f/x measures things), with positive numbers how far out front of the plate the ball was struck, and negative numbers for when a ball was hit after crossing the front of the plate.

Pitch Type	       Average Distance           Average Velocity (mph)
                  in front of Home Plate (ft) 
Fastball             	    1.06	               91.2
Slider	                    0.84	               83.1
Changeup	            0.79	               82.4
Curve	                    0.71	               76.5
Total 	                    0.95	               87.0

So on average, batters make contact with the ball about a foot in front of the plate, with fastballs hit sooner than offspeed pitches by about four inches. Here's a look at the distribution of contact for every batted balls in April (hat tip to Alan Nathan in the comments):

There isn't much variation between hitters, with batters at the extremes (of earliest and latest contact) in the league taking their cuts at balls within a foot of each other. Here are the top five of each through April—for the full list, you can download this Excel file .

Earliest contact (at least 25 balls in play)

Player Name	    Average Distance
                   In front of plate (ft)
Alexei Ramirez	          1.44	         
Mike Lowell	          1.42	        
Hank Blalock	          1.35	          
Justin Morneau	          1.32	         
Garrett Atkins	          1.30

Latest contact (at least 25 balls in play)

Player Name	       Average Distance
                      In front of plate (ft)  
Anderson Hernandez	  0.40	         
Emmanuel Burriss          0.46	        
Nick Johnson	          0.51	         
Kazuo Matsui	          0.53	         
Chipper Jones 	          0.55

One player on this list who demands attention is Alexei Ramirez: he hit .214 in April but has hit .288 since, suggesting that he may have been jumping at pitches too soon in April. But it's really too early to know if these are typical numbers for these hitters, let alone what this might all mean about their swings and approaches at the plate.

But in general, should different pitches be hit at different depths? We saw above that offspeed pitches on average travel about an extra four inches before they are hit. But should batters actually try to let certain pitches travel further, and contact others aggressively before they cross the plate, or is that just a result of the type of pitch? The following two graphs show how batting averages are affected on balls hit into play by how far in front of the plate contact is made. Zero is the very front of the plate, which extends 1.417 feet past that (picture a pitcher throwing from the right hand side of the following graphs, with 0 being the front edge of the plate).

Fastball distance

Offspeed Distance

As both groups of pitches (I lumped all the offspeed pitches together because they were essentially identical) peak at about the same point, there seems to be no difference in where hitters should try to make contact with the ball for maximum results. However, while offspeed pitches are equally hittable where they are contacted, batting average against fastballs rises steadily the later they are contacted, to a difference of almost 200 points between hitters when they make relatively early to late contact.

Once all the data are available, that will open up a new area of study—not just for hitters, in terms of little tidbits like who has the best timing on each pitch, or who can still get a hit when they're fooled, but for the whole art of pitching that is disrupting timing, and how they do it as well. For now, here's a rundown we've learned during our preview of the third dimension:

— Hitters tend to hit the ball about a foot before it crosses the front edge of the plate.
— Batters hit fastballs earlier, and let offspeed pitches travel further before making contact.
— However, if hitters are able to stay back and contact fastballs later, they get better results.
— On the other hand, it doesn't matter when a player makes contact with offspeed pitches.
— Fastballs and offspeed pitches are equally bad with which to make very late contact.

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The defensive shift: pitch by pitch

Jonathan Hale — 2009-08-05T07:37:15+00:00

With the recent trend of using a massive infield shift against some power hitters, modern baseball strategy has clearly embraced the fact that who is at the plate can have a huge difference on where the ball is going to go. But what about the pitch the man on the mound is throwing? Sometimes you will see an middle infielder join a mound conference to find out what is coming, or relay information to his double-play partner once he sees the signs. But should he be more interested in location, or the type of pitch that is coming? Would outfielders be more effective defensively if they repositioned themselves based on the incoming pitch as well?

Using HITf/x, we can look at the horizontal angle of the ball leaves the bat, broken down by both what type of pitch is coming and where it is located. As with everything written about HITf/x so far, this is an extremely advance peek behind the scenes, with all the problems associated with only having one month of data to play with. The sample sizes get ever trickier because we have to split up grounders and fly balls, as they can be completely different. (i.e. for the famous "Ortiz shift", the outfield usually plays straight up or even slightly to the opposite field because despite being a dead-pull power hitter when the ball stays on the ground, that type of hitter is able to lift the ball when going the other way).

As a result, for the following analysis I have had to leave out several groups of hitters, the first being left-handed hitters. What a tease, I know—but everything I've seen so far from PITCHf/x so far suggests that their spray patterns are a mirror image of right handed batters' (and that the baseball lore such as that lefties as a group are all "good low ball hitters" is a myth). If there is a significant difference, it is not detectable with what we've got so far, and we're looking for incredibly broad trends, anyway, as obviously all hitters on both sides have unique swings. So let's get started looking at what the majority of the league does with four-seam fastballs:

Fastballs

What you’re looking at here is the average angle that a (four seam) fastball is put in play, based where it was thrown (as seen from behind the plate). I have adjusted the data so that 0 degrees (in yellow) is a ball hit right back up the middle, blue (-45 degrees) is down the first base line, and red (+45 degrees) is right down the third base line. You'll notice that the average angle never gets all the way to blue, because of the natural tendency for hitters to pull the ball (see Dave Allen's article on this tendency). Each contour line represents five degrees of difference in the average horizontal angle that the ball is hit, and going by Harry Pavlidis' introduction to HITf/x, I have used 7 degrees of elevation as the cutoff between a grounder and a fly ball.

Hitters clearly don't pull inside fastballs on the ground when facing left-handed pitchers as often as they do against right-handed pitchers. I would suggest this is because the pitch starts on the other side of the mound, and travels across the plate at an angle their hands to get there, so they are getting jammed, or having to "fight it off" the other way (an effect that will come up with other pitches as well). Only when it is down and in do they get around on the ball and drive it towards the third base line. I wrote an article ages ago that suggested that throwing a rising fastball down and in was never a good idea, which this speaks to.

However, they are more likely to pull a ball in the air against opposite-handed pitchers, especially when pitches are left up in the zone. As Mike Fast showed, pulled fly balls are more likely to go for home runs, and so we are almost certainly looking at one cause of the platoon advantage. If a lefty is going to come inside with a fastball, he has to keep it low and go for one of those ground balls.

But back to the task at hand, if a fastball (that has any chance of being middle-in) is on its way, the defense should pay attention to who is on the mound. If the pitcher is right handed, the infield should play the hitter to pull, and the outfield the other way; vice versa if the pitcher is a lefty. If a pitcher is painting the outside corner, the difference is nowhere near as great, although lefties have the advantage on balls pulled in the air if they can pick out the outer edge of the zone.

Time for another compromise, and a somewhat uncomfortable one: lumping breaking balls in together. Trust me, I know there's a big difference in trying to hit a slider and a curveball, but for the sake of this investigation, it isn't enough to split them (both for the sake of sample size and blinding you with identical graphs). I look forward to the day when we can examine more subtle differences like this (or between other even more similar pitches like cutters and sliders), but they have very similar horizontal spray patterns as they both move in the same direction and come in slower than a fastball.

Breaking Balls

As expected, we see a lot more pulled pitches, but the difference when facing right- and left-anded pitchers is even more pronounced, as almost all right handed curves hit for grounders are pulled (likely "rolled over"), with the exact opposite when hitting off a lefty. In defensive terms, this leads to the same general rule as before: With a right handed pitcher on the mound, the infield should be set more to the third base line when a breaking pitch is coming, and the outfield straight up or slightly away; but the exact reverse with a lefty on the mound.

Other Pitches

Along with the knuckleball, I've glossed over different kinds of fastballs because they're too hard for PITCHf/x to distinguish from each other, or even sliders at this point. But extreme sinkerballers are of particular interest due to their apparent ability to limit a hitter's BABIP. Defining a true sinking fastball as one that has more than three inches of drop (a PITCHf/x value of 6) compared to a normal fastball, we can see that they are very rarely pulled when thrown by right-handed pitchers (the sample size is too small to evaluate left-handed pitchers). The first graph shows right-handed batters' results when hitting sinkers in the air, the second shows their results when sinkers on the ground.

On the ground, the average ground ball off a sinker goes straight back up the middle, even when the pitch is on the very inside edge of the plate (a pitch that is breaking into the hands of batters like a slider from a lefty) . And almost no matter where they are thrown, fly balls hit off of sinkers tend to go to the opposite field, the only pitch for which this is the case.

In a previous article on what makes a home run pitch, I showed that the sinker is the only pitch whose home-run rate is almost the same from one side of the plate to the other. Now we know that part of this effect sinker is due to hitters having difficulty pulling the sinker, even when they do manage to get it in the air. It seems that unlike other pitchers, sinkerballers do not have to worry as much about keeping the ball down and away.

The results for changeups are too ugly and inconclusive for me to show here, but take a look if you like. All I can tell from that mess is that the only time anyone ever hits a changeup to the opposite field is when it is thrown by a left-handed pitcher to the outer edge of the strike zone (likely due to changeups typically having tailing action away from the batter than due to them being behind it).

In review

{exp:list_maker}In general, play the infield more to pull and the outfield away with a like-handed hitter pitcher matchup.
Do the exact opposite with opposite-handed pitchers and hitters.
Right-handed batters pull almost every grounder when facing breaking balls from the right side, and vice-versa from the left.
Don't play hitters to pull, either in the the infield or outfield, with a sinkerballer on the mound.
Part of what keeps sinkers in the park is likely their tailing action as well as their drop.
If a pitcher is paints the outside corner with a changeup, batters are likely to take it the other way. {/exp:list_maker}

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Getting under it

Jonathan Hale — 2009-07-22T05:20:15+00:00

Of all the new baseball insights that HITf/x will bring, both the simplest and most exciting to me is being able to tell between a fluke hit and quality contact. One of the great leaps in modern baseball analysis has been trying to look past the wild short-term fluctuations in results to look how a player is really performing at in areas they can control. Until now, as soon as a ball leaves the bat, we have to use huge generalizations like fly ball, line drive, and ground ball rates to guess at how well a batter has succeeded in making solid contact. Soon we should be able not only to distinguish between batters making quality contact and batters getting lucky, but also to diagnose what has changed when something goes wrong with a hitter. Is your favorite slumping slugger because he's just not hitting the ball as hard due to injury, or is he not squaring up the ball because his eyes are going?

Unfortunately that time is still some way off, as there is only data from this April to play with so far. We can look at who hit the ball the hardest as Mike Fast has done for that month, but we can't say anything about individuals without previous seasons (or even months) to compare with, and it's hard to break down the different kinds of balls in play any further than fly ball/line drive/grounder with such a small sample.

One thing we can do, however, is look at what makes for absolutely terrible contact. THT's own Colin Wyers has been working on how loft time and distance affects how likely a play is to be made on a batted ball, but what I want to look at is what happens when a batter puts absolutely no pressure on the defense at all by hitting an infield pop-up.

Why on earth would you be interested in that, the reader asks? The infield fly is probably the least interesting play to watch, a guaranteed out with no possibility of any action on the field (Luis Castillo on game-ending plays vs. the Yankees being a possible exception). But exactly that makes them the ultimate accomplishment for a pitcher, and the worst fate for a batter - they are like a one-pitch strikeout, with no chance of finding a hole or being beaten out like even the weakest of grounders. If there are pitchers who have a repeatable ability to induce them, that’s a major part of their effectiveness that doesn’t show up on the box score. Similarly, if a batter starts racking them up, then there’s an obvious reason other than just luck why so few of his balls are falling for hits. So let's look at what angle a batted ball becomes one of these automatic outs:

Angle              DER
0 -> 5            .515
5 -> 10           .378
10 -> 15          .205
15 -> 20          .369
20 -> 25          .564
25 -> 30          .747
30 -> 35          .833
35 -> 40          .916
40 -> 45          .927
45 -> 50          .945
50 -> 55          .976
55 -> 60          .981
60 -> 65          .987

Since we're just going to focus in on popups, I have ignored how hard the ball left the bat (let alone the spin on it). That shouldn't help balls hit straight up anyway, but it makes the results for the lower angles unreliable. Still, clearly fewer balls drop in for the batter as the loft increases from about 11 degrees, and batted balls hit at higher than 50 degrees become as automatic an out as there is in baseball. It's a reasonably common result: Of all batted balls in April, 9.2 percent of them were hit for harmless flies. How harmless? Of the 1309 balls hit at an angle of more than 50 degrees, there were just 16 hits (for a BABIP of .012) along with six errors. As for runners advancing, there were three attempts to advance on a sac fly, and two were caught—truly an unproductive out.

Now that we have a precise definition of kind of hit makes an automatic air out, let's go back to PITCHf/x and see what kinds of pitches tend to make that kind of hit happen. Breaking things down by pitch type, here's the chance of contact with each pitch resulting in a pop out:

Pitch Type     Popout %
Fastball       10.5
Change         9.6
Slider         9.4
Curve          5.5
Sinker         4.8

This meshes with previous studies (such as this one by John Walsh) that have shown fastballs get the most fly balls, but it is also interesting to see the changeup not far behind in terms of harmless flies. That would seem to make sense, as in general they are better at inducing poor contact than missing bats.

There are problems with lumping all pitches of the same type together, however, as different pitches are thrown more frequently to different locations. Obviously it's going to be easier to get under a pitch thrown at the top of the strike zone, and both by design and the nature of the pitch, fewer curves end up there. How much of the fastball's ability to get a pop up is due to its "rise" (to be technically correct, its lack of sink), and how much is just based on how high it was thrown in the zone? In PITCHf/x terms, a vertical movement value (pfz) of nine is about average. The following chart shows the chance of a pop out coming on a fastball from a diving sinker to an exploding ball.

Pfz        Popout %
<0          4.9
1           3.4
2           3.2
3           4.9
4           6.0
5           4.6
6           7.2
7           9.6
8           9.6
9           11.6
10          13.5
11          14.3
12          16.8
13          14.4
14<         14.0

This is almost certainly the reason that one of the recent exceptions to DIPS theory is that dominant closers seem to be able to maintain consistently lower BABIP's, unlike the majority of average pitchers. They tend to be fireballers who will get more backspin and (usually) more rise on their pitches, leading to more harmless pop outs.

However, the vertical location of the fastball does not have as much of an effect; while low pitches typically lead to fewer balls hit in the air, there is an insignificant difference in the number of pop flies between a pitch in the middle third of the strike zone and those above that (even out of the zone). Getting a big league hitter to pop up a pitch is more about getting your fastball to rise than throwing it high.

Fastball Location   Popout %
Up                  13.2
Middle              12.9
Down                9.9

In contrast, you can clearly see the effect of hitters getting jammed on inside fastballs and popping them up. After dividing the plate into horizontal thirds this time, you can see that a player is more than twice as likely to pop up an inside fastball than he is one that he has to reach across the plate for:

Fastball Location    Popout %
Inside               13.8
Middle               10.8
Away                  6.2

April results

I've already walked a fine line with sample sizes throughout this article, so I'm not even going to attempt to draw any conclusions about individual players and their pop out rates through the first month of the season. But for the curious, here are the five hitters and pitchers (at least 30 balls in play) who were involved in the most harmless flies through the month of April. (For hitters, you can find a similar stat in THT's statistics section: infield flies per fly ball. Chris Young (struggling through a terrible season with a groin injury) is currently way out front (suggesting he has kept up his pop out pace), while David Ortiz has plunged to 9.9 percent as he has turned his season around.

Top 5 Hitters

Name            Popup %
Carlos Pena     27.3
Chris Young	25.0
Rick Ankiel		25.0
David Ortiz	24.4
Eric Byrnes	23.5

Top 5 Pitchers

Name               Popup %
Johan Santana       28.6
Kevin Slowey        26.8
Koji Uehara         23.7
Carlos Villanueva   23.3
Tim Wakefield       22.2

So what have we learned from all this?

{exp:list_maker}Unlike most balls in play, balls hit at a greater angle than 50 degrees are essentially guaranteed outs.
Rising, or inside fastballs are much more likely to induce those types of pop ups.
Pitching up in the zone is not as important as having a rising fastball and working inside.
We really, really, need more HITf/x data and then things are going to get very fun. {/exp:list_maker}

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Mike Pelfrey’s Sinker

Jonathan Hale — 2009-06-10T05:06:15+00:00

Of types of pitchers I find a certain fascination in the sinkerballer, who can somehow throw a large part of pitching strategy and deception out the window and just throw the pitch one after the other. Not an overpowering pitch like a fastball, devastating like a big curve or slider, or deceptive like a changeup, the sinker is just an annoying pitch that leads to grounders and the ball staying in the park. With former sinkerballer kings Brandon Webb in the NL only just now coming back from shoulder surgery and Chien-Ming Wang's collapse the subject of another article, Mike Pelfrey has been the new poster boy for the sinker, putting together a nice little season (or at least he was when I started writing this, having allowed three runs or fewer in three starts before being shelled by Pittsburgh his last time out) despite having struck out just 26 batters in 59 1/3 innings. Let's put him under the microscope and see how he uses what is essentially his only pitch and what makes it effective:

Pitch Selection

First, here's a summary of all the pitches Pelfrey has thrown over his career, although they have come and gone over that time. Coming in to 2008, Pelfrey ditched his curveball in favor of the slider that has become his only real secondary pitch. His curve has made the occasional reappearance, but he is not throwing it at the moment:

Pitch          % Thrown       Movement  (Horiz/Vert)       MPH
Fastball        80.1            (-7.84, 7.31)              92.6
Slider          13.2            (0.62, 3.72)               84.7
Curve            1.4            (3.21, -3.00)              75.2
Changeup         4.7            (-8.82,4.87)               83.8

The movement values are calibrated in inches, with (0,0) as a (mythical) pitch not affected by spinn—the easiest way to think about it is that (-5, 10) is about average for a four-seam fastball coming from a right handed pitcher. For a look at the average values for each pitch, check out John Walsh's article summary of different pitch types.

When he has been able to control them the movement on Pelfrey's secondary pitches has been reasonable, but let's focus on his sinker. With an average sink of just three inches and tail of just over two compared to a normal two-seam fastball, it hardly sounds impressive. However, I think one of the keys to the pitch is how much difference there is between one sinker and another. Here's the same data in graph form:

Note how large the group of sinkers is, spreading from normal four-seam fastball movement to about a foot away, much more than you would see for any other pitch. But it doesn't look like Pelfrey is throwing two different kinds of fastballs, because there aren't multiple groups of pitch movement, just a gradual and even variation in the movement on them up to a foot both horizontally and vertically. It's kind of hard to see with all the little dots, so here's a heat map to show how far his fastballs range in terms of movement:

And while there is some relation between the speed that he throws his slider at and the movement on it, there's still a huge spread at every speed. Pelfrey's sinker has ranged from below 88 mph to above 95 (although on a year to year basis is has been consistent), and there is some negative correlation to how fast he throws his sinker and the amount it drops (i.e. the harder the throws it, the less chance it gets to drop on the way to the plate).

However, while one of Pelfrey's mid 90's sinkers is going to have more drop in the long run, the amount on any individual pitch could range between 10-12 inches. That kind of unpredictable and large variation has to be difficult to deal with, and maybe makes up for not changing speeds or pitches as often as other pitchers—Pelfrey's sinker acts like several pitches in one.

Location

Moving on from what it does, here's where Pelfrey's sinker goes. Because it tails, or moves in the opposite direction as a breaking ball, Pelfrey uses his sinker differently to right and left-handed batters. Against Lefties, he throws it to the very outside corner away from them, even usually off the plate. This graph is looking from the catcher's perspective and shows Pelfrey's sinkers to LHB (the yellow box is the league's average strike zone):

Against right-handed batters, he spreads his sinker around much more and is willing to throw them to both sides of the plate. Note the dead zone on the outside corner to righties though—his sinker has so much movement he very rarely is able to back door them by hitting that corner.

Vs Lefties:

Heights

You would expect sinkers to more effective and usually thrown lower in the zone, but the above graphs show how many of Pelfrey's end up at the belt or above. In a previous article I showed that sinkers just lose their home run preventing abilities when thrown at the top of the zone, they aren't actually any more likely to be hit hard.

To see how this plays out for all results, we can use linear weights to see how effective his sinker has been at different heights, with more negative values indicating a better pitch. Dividing the vertical location of all the sinkers that Pelfrey has thrown into half-foot increments we can see that there was no real difference in performance against them within the strike zone, which ranges from an average of about 1.5 to 3.5 feet above the plate—and actually his low sinkers were slightly less effective as they resulted in more balls:

I'm sure that there are plenty of different sinkers out there, and Pelfrey is only known for his because he doesn't have anything else. But because of that we can see how one-trick ponies like him can get away with what they do—not necessarily with overpowering drop to their fastballs, but with a lot of variety both in terms of velocity and movement—and not as many worries about leaving a pitch up in the zone as a normal pitcher.

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Inside the change-up

Jonathan Hale — 2009-05-28T05:02:15+00:00

One of the things that PITCHf/x taught me off the bat was that while change-ups may be all about disrupting timing, they are not just about changing speeds. For an offspeed pitch, the change-up is merely average velocity, with the average slider a couple mph faster, and curveballs about five miles an hour slower. But far from being just a "slowball," most change-ups sink significantly compared to a fastball (due to less backspin, not just velocity), making them hard to do much with even if the batter knows one is coming. So how important is the difference in speeds, or are other factors like drop and control just as important for the effectiveness of a change-up?

To begin, here's a look at the pitchers who are at the extreme ends in changing speeds. I decided to compare the change-ups only to four-seam fastballs, because although some pitchers throw more two-seamers or sinkers than straight fastballs, it's the maximum velocity pitch that a hitter has to be prepared for that is really getting him out ahead of the change-up. And so, a guy like Chad Bradford, who PITCHf/x thinks has never thrown a fastball in his life, get overlooked here despite his 69 mph changeup. Fortunately, we can look at more than 400 other pitchers with more than 100 change-ups thrown since PITCHf/x started in 2007.

Greatest difference between change-up and fastball:

Name              Fastball velocity  Change-up difference   Change-up LW
Brian Fuentes   91.5                  -18.7                         0.035
Danny Herrera  88.4                  -16.3                         -0.040
Brian Stokes     95.0                  -15.3                        0.023
Clay Buchholz   92.6                  -14.9                        -0.011
Dallas Braden   87.5                  -13.0                        -0.028

Least difference between change-up and fastball:

Name              Fastball velocity  Change-up difference   Changeup LW
Chris Sampson  88.1                 2.8                           -0.008
David Weathers 87.9                 4.19                          0.023
Nelson Figueroa 87.3                 4.34                          -0.029
Mark DiFelice     85.8                 4.54                          -0.014
Brian Bannister   89.0                4.59                          -0.010

The last column is the average linear weight value for each pitcher's change-up, using the average value for each ball and strike as well as balls in play. The average linear weight value for a change-up is -.006.

Nobody at the extremes stands out as being a master of the craft (Johan Santana has a 10.1 mph difference with a 93.0 mph fastball and a 83.1 mph change-up), so let's take a broader look at the entire league:

In general, the more change of speed the better, although the benefit is marginal at the lower levels and starts to take off only once you get above the average, which is 8 miles per hour.

Note that the five pitchers with the least difference between the two pitches also have below 90 mph fastballs. That's not a coincidence—as you might expect, pitchers with a higher mph ceiling can have more of a gap between their fastballs and change-ups. And that is true at all speeds, meaning it's not simply that pitchers with very little can't go any lower without getting into trouble, it is just easier for a fireballer to take something off his fastball. Here's a graph for the entire league showing the correlation between fastball velocity and how much slower a pitcher throws his change-up.

Now to look at movement. Using the same method as above, here's the effect of drop, in inches, on the change-up (compared to the drop on each pitcher's normal four-seam fastball):

Of course it's no surprise that more downward movement is going to work in the pitcher's favor, but the effect is much less than the change in speeds, and has diminishing returns once they really start hitting the dirt. And now for horizontal movement, with positive numbers being away from the batter and negative being toward him:

I suspect that the very pitcher-friendly results for the pitches moving more than two inches toward the batter are actually cut fastballs, but otherwise it seems that unlike drop or a change of speeds, horizontal movement isn't very important except for more than five inches, at which point the pitch is moving almost as much (in the opposite direction) as a normal slider.

Much of the above is either confirming traditional wisdom or common sense; despite impressive movement on some change-ups, the most important thing is disrupting a hitter's timing. But we've also learned that:

—In addition to hitters having to start earlier against a power pitcher to get around on his fastball, they are also going to have to make more of an adjustment to his change-up, which is the most important part of the pitch.

—The average change of speeds on a change is just 8 mph. Almost no pitchers have more than a 15 mph difference between their change-up and four-seam fastball, and the ones that do don't get any particular advantage from it.

—Movement helps, but only if you can get above-average action on the ball, and not as much as the change in speeds. The average pitcher would benefit more from throwing his change-up slower (with the same arm speed) than improving either the tail or drop on it.

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The Bigger They Come

Jonathan Hale — 2009-05-06T05:05:15+00:00

I recently fired up the career mode of a certain baseball video game and created Jon Hale, the 6-foot-10, 265-pound slugging left-handed shortstop. Unfortunately, besides all the other things wrong with that concept, I found it completely impossible to hit, as Hale’s strike zone was almost the height of my television. And that got me to thinking about how baseball is one of the few sports where there is a potential disadvantage to being huge. In the real world, is it a drawback to be a taller hitter with a larger zone, or can the bigger players compensate for their larger zones with longer arms and bigger, stronger, bodies that get to the ball wherever it is pitched?

Pitch f/x tracks the top and bottom of each player’s strike zone, and while there is a fair amount of variance (and some plain garbage) in the measurements from one day to the next, we also have over two full seasons of data by this point that we can average out. So here are the top five active players who stand the tallest in the batters box:

Tallest Batting Stances
Name
Top of Strike Zone (ft)
Height of Player
Jayson Werth
3.90
6’ 5’’
Troy Glaus
3.86
6’ 5’’
Jerry Owens
3.82
6’ 3’’
Pat Burrell
3.76
6’ 4’’
Ken Griffey Jr.
3.75
6’ 3’’

Currently sitting on the sidelines are two monsters who would have made the top five, Richie Sexson (3.90 feet) and Frank Thomas (3.84 feet). Despite small sample sizes, it is Interesting that most of the tallest players are pitchers (e.g. Randy Johnson, Mark Buehrle and Barry Zito). I am willing to bet that not only are they on average taller, but pitchers stand straight as a board.

Now for the guys who hit from the lowest positions:

Shortest Batting Stances
Name
Pitch f/x height
Height
Erick Aybar
3.08
5’ 10’’
Placido Polanco
3.08
5’ 10’’
Vernon Wells
3.09
6’ 1’’
Augie Ojeda
3.11
5’9’’
Alexi Casilla
3.11
5’9

Vernon Wells stands out in that list—but if you’ve watched him hit, he stands in a deep crouch that could easily shave three inches off his height.
In general, the size of a player’s strike zone corresponds to his overall height. Jayson Werth has the biggest strike zone in the majors, a whopping 2.14 feet high, from 1.70 feet high at the knees to 3.90 at the letters (The league average is 1.58 feet high at the bottom of the strike zone and 3.44 at the top.)

However, the smallest strike zone in the majors is Jose Reyes. Despite a listed height of 6’ 1’’, and the bottom of his strike zone being just under average at 1.52 feet above the ground, he bends down until the top of his zone (at 3.15 feet) is just half an inch above the shortest strike zones in the league.

Effects of Height on Hitting

To take a look at broad look at how where a hitter hits from affects his results, I divided the league up into the top, middle and third tier of height. Obviously the very largest players in the league are also going to be the most powerful, but interestingly there is almost no difference in the home run rate of average players and the shortest third of players:

Results by Height
Height
HR%
Short
3.30
Medium
3.29
Tall
4.00

As you would expect, taller players get slightly more called strikes and fewer balls (despite likely being pitched around as power hitters). They also foul off fewer pitches, and therefore make less contact overall, meaning their potential added reach is outweighed by the greater area they have to cover.

Strike Zone Control by Height
Height
Called Strike
Ball
Foul
Short
16.8
39.0
17.0
Medium
17.5
38.3
16.7
Tall
17.1
37.1
16.3

Balls in Play

In addition to more home runs, being tall also translates into slightly more fly balls instead of line drives. But once again, it is interesting that there is very little difference except for the top third. Shorter players hit more ground balls but hit for the same average and slugging as the average player (possibly due to greater speed). But the tallest third are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the league in terms of their slugging ability:

Balls in Play Results by Height
Stat
GB/LO/FB
BABIP
SLG
Short
51.8/9.7/38.6
.318
.496
Medium
51.2/9.8/38.9
.320
.497
Tall
51.3/9.5/39.1
.324
.521

Larger players do have a tougher job of controlling the strike zone and end up taking more strikes, having fewer balls thrown to them, and making less contact on their swings. However, they also hit for a higher average, with more fly balls, home runs, and therefore much more power than the rest of the league. It’s a tradeoff, but at the end of the day, big hitters more than make up for the extra strikes that find their big zones with harder hits when they do make contact.

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What makes a home run pitch

Jonathan Hale — 2009-04-23T06:17:15+00:00

It’s the bottom of the ninth, and the healthy lead you’ve been holding all game starts to come into jeopardy as you load the bases with an arm that is growing increasingly numb. The pitching coach makes his excruciatingly slow walk to the mound and grunts: "This is your last batter. Closer's almost ready. I don't care how you do it, but find a way to keep the ball in the park against this guy and we'll get you the win."

So what do you throw? As John Walsh pointed out in a previous article, fastballs generally leave the yard at the highest rate, but is that true for all locations? We often hear about the high “hanging” curveball, or slider, that is supposedly a snap to hit out of the park, and that really high heat is impossible to do anything but pop out. Well just how high is enough to make a difference, and what about throwing an outside pitch that will be harder to pull? This article is going to use PITCHf/x to take a close look at what makes each kind of pitch more likely leave the yard.

First, here’s a look at how home rate is related to height, regardless of the type of pitch. The following graph shows how the percentage of balls in play that went for home runs relates to how high above the ground they were.

According to PITCHf/x, the average vertical strike zone is about 1.6 to 3.5 feet above the ground. Notice that the first bottom six inches of the strike zone are crucial. Every inch lower that a pitcher can keep the ball at the bottom of the zone makes a big difference, as opposed to the gradual increase through the heart of the vertical zone.

Now we already knew that keeping the ball down was important for just about everything pitching related, but somewhat unexpected is that the most likely place to hit a home run is not right down the middle, but at the extreme upper limit of the zone. However, go just a couple of inches above that and the home run rate drops sharply as players are suddenly unable to get on top of the ball (and then fluctuates wildly because so few balls are put in play).

Now let's break things down by pitch type:

One thing to note is that this graph just shows the percentage of each pitch that is hit for a home run at each particular height. That is why the home run rate for curveballs is sometimes higher than that of fastballs, despite more fastballs being hit for home runs overall; relatively few curveballs are thrown up in the zone, but when they are, they are more likely to be hit for a homer than a fastball in the same spot.

I used John Walsh's method of classifying sinking fastballs (anything less than 6 inches of vertical movement is classified a sinker) because I’m not convinced that even modern technology can tell cut fastballs from sliders and moving-four seamers from sinkers—or that there’s even a clear difference between them. But clearly, fast and sinking is far and away the best way to prevent home runs, at least until the top of the zone where there is very little difference between pitches, anyway. The fastball graph follows almost the same path as the first graph, which makes sense, as about 65 percent of all pitches are fastballs.

The slider clearly is the pitch most dependent on height. If a pitcher can locate a slider right at the knees, even if it is in the strike zone, there is essentially no chance of it leaving the park. But the chance of a home run increases quickly as pitchers leave them higher until just above the belt, where it becomes the easiest pitch to hit out, but then surprisingly falls off towards the top of the zone. I’m don't know if anyone ever intentionally throws a high slider, but it would be one way to keep the ball in the park (perhaps on shock value alone?).

All in all, we’ve probably confirmed more than we’ve learned in looking at how height affects home runs. Sinkers are very hard to lift, hanging sliders are a pitcher's nightmare, and keeping the ball down as far as possible pays huge dividends. But very high offspeed pitches aren’t the guaranteed home runs they are usually made out to be, and in fact the low curveball slightly more likely to be driven out of the park despite its huge downward drop on the way to the plate.

Now, let's see how the horizontal location of a pitch relates to its probability of leaving the yard. Here it is important to split up the handedness of the pitcher and batter, as a slider that ends up low and away follows a completely different trajectory when coming from a lefty than a righty (although it turns out the final results are not as different as you might think).

The following two charts are the same as the previous ones, but looking across the plate from side to side from the catcher's perspective. They show results for right-handed batters against right-handed and left-handed pitchers, respectively. I've only shown the results for right handers because it turns out that, as a group, their results don't differ significantly from those of lefties.

And for different handed matchups:

As you would expect, the matchups that favor the batter result in a higher home rate across the board, but it seems much important where the ball ends up than which side of the mound it was released from. Hitters prefer a pitch slightly inside, which they can pull. They get jammed by pitches too far inside, and then see a steady decrease in their home run power as the ball gets further and further away from them, to the point that a pitch on the very outside corner has almost no chance of being hit out of the yard.

Now here are the same graphs for each pitch type.

Again, they're very similar, with only one or two minor differences: While inside changeups and curveballs leave the yard at an extremely high rate when left in the sweet spot (slightly inside), curveballs thrown inside by a lefty to a righty are not hit as well, perhaps resulting in the cliche of the lefty with a big breaking ball.

Also, sinkers don't seem to be as dangerous when left inside by right-handed pitchers to right-handed hitters situations, but when coming from the other side, they must be kept away to prevent home runs. One possible explanation for this is that since sinkers also tend to tail, they break into the hands when thrown from a right-handed pitcher to a right-handed batter, while from a lefty that pitch will start inside and then come back over the plate.

So what have we learnt from all this?
{exp:list_maker}That if you can spot a pitch on the very corner, be it the very bottom of the zone or right on the outside corner, then there is a miniscule chance that it's going to leave the yard.
That all pitches left high are home run pitches, not just offspeed ones.
That down and away isn't many a pitchers bread and butter for no reason, as both are very important to sap home run power. {/exp:list_maker}

But otherwise, there isn't that much difference between where each type of pitch has to be thrown to avoid disaster, or any secret locations where hitters plain can't handle them. No matter what a pitcher throws, or from which side, the most important factor to preventing the home run is location, location, location.

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A zone of their own

Jonathan Hale — 2007-11-28T04:10:15+00:00

Even though baseball’s general managers voted last week overwhelmingly in favor of instant replay, the human element is still alive and well in baseball officiating. Home plate umpires make about 150 decisions a game, about which no argument is even allowed. They do a pretty good job—according to Mike Port, the vice president of umpiring, 95.4 of all balls and strikes this season were called correctly. However, the zone they call is significantly different from the rulebook definition and therefore open to interpretation. Which raises the question: Is there a big difference between one umpire and the next, and how much of an effect can that have on a game?

To look into this, I used Pitch f/x data to call every pitch (about half of the pitches thrown in 2007 were tracked) over the season either a ball or a strike, using the strike zone as calculated by John Walsh in his articles, The Strike Zone: Fact vs. Fiction and The Eye of the Umpire. I then compared these calls to the actual calls made by each umpire. I’m not trying to determine how many "mistakes" umpires are making because having a different strike zone isn’t necessarily a problem as long as it’s called consistently.

Instead, we can compare each umpire to the league average to get an idea of his tendencies. This also has the advantage of eliminating any errors the pitch f/x might be making, because it’s just comparing umpires to each other rather than assuming that the system is perfect. Over the thousands of calls measured last season, any errors the system made will be evenly distributed and drop out.

"Extra" Strikes/Balls

I define an extra strike as when an umpire calls a strike that the Pitch f/x system would have called a ball, and vice-versa for an extra ball. Subtract the extra balls from the extra strikes that an umpire makes, divide by the total number of calls he made over the season, and the result is how much (and which way) each umpire is weighted.

Then to put the number in a form that is easily digestible, I’ve expressed each umpires score in terms of the league average and multiplied by 150 (calls/game). The result is a +/- value for how many more strikes a particular umpire would call compared over a complete game as compared to the league average (strikes above average or SAA). Negative numbers mean that the umpire would call that many more balls than strikes.

Enough definitions—here are the 10 largest and smallest zones in baseball: (minimum of 1000 pitches)

Smallest Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Gerry    Davis           -5.20
Paul     Schrieber       -5.02
Dana     DeMuth          -4.03
Randy    Marsh           -3.57
Chuck    Meriwether      -3.25
Sam      Holbrook        -3.10
Chad     Fairchild       -2.89
Larry    Poncino         -2.79
Greg     Gibson          -2.73
Larry    Young           -2.69

Largest Strike Zone

Name                      SAA
Jeff     Nelson           4.81
Doug     Eddings          4.70
Charlie  Reliford         4.05
Phil     Cuzzi            3.98
Paul     Nauert           3.59
Jim      Wolf             3.36
Bill     Welke            2.86
Mark     Wegner           2.77
Brian    Runge            2.70
Tom      Hallion          2.64

Note that there is a big difference between the two extremes: Jeff Nelson calls about 10 more strikes than Gerry Davis in an average game. That’s even taking into account that hitters are no doubt aware of this (or figure it out during the game) and adjust by hacking away or being more selective, as the case may be.

But are these numbers relatively consistent from one game to the next or just caused by random fluctuations? Here’s a graph of five umpires from the largest and smallest 10 zones showing their SAA’s in each quarter of the season (anything smaller than 4-5 games is too small of a sample).

There is a fair amount of fluctuation in each umpire from one period to the next (over a relatively small sample size). However, there is absolutely no crossover between the two groups, implying that the difference between both sides of the spectrum is consistent. Don’t count on catching Gerry Davis on a good day!

OK, big deal. We already could look at strikeout and walk rates to get a reasonable idea of which umpires have generous or stingy strike zones. But now we can also use this method to break things down based on the four directions of the strike zone, and figure out who calls the high/low/left/right strike.

For the directional breakdown that follows, I’m only considering pitches that are not within four inches of the edge of the strike zone in each direction, because there’s no real way of knowing if something is being called “high” or “outside” if it’s on a corner. So the numbers for the high strike consider all pitches that are on the upper half of the plate and that no umpire in their right mind would call a ball wide. Again, this is the number of extra strikes over 150 pitches, not the number of pitches that will be called in that particular location per game (which of course will differ greatly from pitcher to pitcher).

Right Side of Plate (From Catcher’s perspective)

Smallest Right Side Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Chad     Fairchild       -3.87
Mike     Everitt         -3.44
Paul     Schrieber       -3.05
Bill     Miller          -2.78
Ron      Kulpa           -2.22
Gerry    Davis           -2.17
Jerry    Meals           -2.09
Marty    Foster          -2.08
Angel    Hernandez       -2.04
Hunter   Wendelstedt     -1.98

Largest Right Side Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Jeff     Nelson           4.01
Rob      Drake            3.61
Mike     Winters          2.98
James    Hoye             2.94
Tim      Tschida          2.82
Bruce    Dreckman         2.77
Brian    Runge            2.55
Wally    Bell             2.20
Ed       Hickox           2.04
Rick     Reed             2.00

Left off the list due to a small sample size is a number over 10 for Travis Reininger on the right side. There was only data collected this season for about 4 of his games this season. Still, over that time, he gave twice as many extra strikes to the right side than any other umpire, while he was average on the other side of the plate.

Left Side of Plate (From Catcher’s Perspective)

Smallest Left Side Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Larry    Vanover         -5.86
Randy    Marsh           -5.57
Greg     Gibson          -5.36
Fieldin  Culbreth        -4.83
Dana     DeMuth          -3.78
Angel    Hernandez       -3.69
Alfonso  Marquez         -3.20
Bruce    Froemming       -2.98
Tim      McClelland      -2.90
Sam      Holbrook        -2.83

Largest Left Side Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Ed       Hickox           4.09
Doug     Eddings          3.97
Laz      Diaz             3.86
Bill     Miller           3.84
Bill     Welke            3.66
Lance    Barksdale        3.56
Paul     Nauert           3.00
Tom      Hallion          2.85
Mark     Carlson          2.84
Wally    Bell             2.74

Note that for both small and large strike zones, there is a greater spread in the numbers to the left side, which means there is a greater range in how umpires call that edge of the plate. Considering the nature of the real strike zone as calculated by Walsh (the zone is larger on the outside half side by several inches for lefties, but symmetrical for righties), it would make sense that umpires disagree a lot over whether or not to give the extra outside calls to lefties (and looking at the splits confirms this).

One reason for this could be that most umpires today set up in the “slot” position between the batter and the catcher. The only weakness of this position is that it is hard to see a pitch low and away. One of the things that can help an umpire when he can’t see a pitch is how much the catcher’s arm moves, or his elbow pops out to catch a pitch. But since catchers are almost universally right-handed, with a left-handed hitter up the umpire is set-up on the other side of the catcher’s body, which would eliminate that cue for the outside pitch for umpires that rely on it.

Bottom Edge

Smallest Low Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Larry    Young           -8.88
Chuck    Meriwether      -8.08
Sam      Holbrook        -7.83
Larry    Poncino         -7.26
Dana     DeMuth          -6.79
Dan      Iassogna        -6.23
James    Hoye            -6.05
Wally    Bell            -4.61
Mike     Winters         -4.52
Derryl   Cousins         -4.35

Largest Low Strike Zone

Name of Umpire            SAA
Charlie  Reliford         8.73
Phil     Cuzzi            7.05
Paul     Nauert           6.63
Tim      McClelland       5.66
Lance    Barksdale        5.39
Gary     Darling          5.17
Jeff     Nelson           5.08
Jim      Wolf             4.89
Jim      Reynolds         4.46
CB       Bucknor          4.43

Upper Edge

Smallest High Strike Zone

Name of Umpire          SAA
Chuck  Meriwether      -8.53
Ed     Rapuano         -7.05
Tim    Timmons         -7.02
Jerry  Layne           -6.79
Larry  Vanover         -6.35
Brian  Runge           -5.68
Marty  Foster          -5.21
Chad   Fairchild       -5.04
Ed     Montague        -4.53
Mark   Carlson         -4.52

Largest High Strike Zone

Name of Umpire          SAA
Gary   Darling          8.34
Dan    Iassogna         8.22
Eric   Cooper           7.52
Jeff   Nelson           7.44
Sam    Holbrook         5.61
Jim    Wolf             3.72
Gary   Cederstrom       3.64
Brian  Knight           3.51
John   Hirschbeck       3.42
Ted    Barrett          3.33

Again, the higher numbers show that there’s a lot more disagreement in the vertical strike zone among umpires than there is horizontally. That could be because it’s a lot harder to be consistent when the vertical height of the strike zone is always changing, as opposed to the edges of the plate. However, some of this effect could also be due to the inconsistency of the measurements the pitch f/x operators are taking when measuring the top and bottom of the batter’s strike zone.

Highlights

Jeff Nelson: The most pitcher-friendly umpire in 2007. He calls the vertical strike zone much closer to the rulebook definition. He also is willing to give the outside corner against right-handed hitters, the classic “Glavine” call a couple inches off the plate.

Paul Schrieber: Favors hitters second-most in the league, but has a normal sized zone on the left side of the plate. Right-handed hitters must love him—he is very stingy on both the high or low strike (under -3 for both) and doesn’t call the outer half of the plate on them. When he’s behind the plate, pitchers are going to have to come inside and keep it closer to the belt.

Gerry Davis: Had the smallest zone in the league. His strike zone is universally small, although more normal when calling the high strike.

Charlie Reliford: Has one of the largest strike zones in the league because he calls the left hand side of the plate extremely generously, but is average on the right side of the plate. Also calls the low strike.

Chuck Meriwether: Is known for a tight zone. That’s because it’s incredibly small from top to bottom—even further than the couple of inches that most umpires take off the rulebook definition. Although he is similar to Reliford from side-to-side (he very slightly prefers the left side of the plate), he has the smallest high zone and the second-smallest low zone in the league.

Ed Hickox: Has the largest horizontal strike zone in the league. He compensates by having a small upper zone and a normal lower one. This favors control pitchers if they can spot the ball on the outside corner, but any pitcher that needs to throw high heat is in trouble.

Joe West: Although I’ve tried to avoid casting judgment on the quality of umpires for now, Joe gets my top vote. He is very close to the league average in every direction, but doesn’t give the pitch off the left side like most of the league. He also had the fewest number of extra balls and strikes (as opposed to having a bunch that cancel out), which is a sign of consistency.

Final Thoughts

Roger Clemens was well known for taking rigorous notes and studying umpires—when they can differ as much as this, you’d think that every pitcher would. Umpires don’t just have big or small zones, they have very specific preferences for the four edges of the strike zone and are rarely simply “big” or “small”. Often an ump expands the zone one way but plays it by the book in the other directions.

As I was watching the playoffs and tinkering with this data, I was amazed at how consistent each umpire’s tendencies were. Remember when Victor Martinez started yelling at the home plate umpire over calls to Fausto Carmona? No wonder: Dana Demuth has the fourth smallest zone in the league where those pitches were called, on the left side of the plate.

I used to think that an umpire’s zone was largely negotiated by the pitcher during the game and could differ greatly from one day to the next. Now I’m sure there are some very consistent tendencies that each umpire sticks to (although they may not come up in every game). The next step is to look at is which umps are the most consistent and if they are affected when dealing with particular situations, teams, or players.

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