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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Does Greg Maddux get the outside of the plate?
This seems to show that he does. Take one part fantastic resource (Gameday) and one part dedicated researcher (Dan Fox), and you get a fascinating chart. This benefit seems to apply to LHH (click on the LHH chart for the blowup).
Remember that the strike zone would be 8.5 inches (0.7 feet) from the center point (0), and the ball itself is 2.9 inches in diameter, so 11.4 inches (0.95 feet) on either side is the strike zone, which is why Dan has it laid out as he does. His strike zone includes the extra space outside the plate itself. So, even given that, Maddux is going beyond that point. He’s getting an extra 2 to 6 inches beyond that! (He doesn’t get the benefit against RHH.)
However, I have my doubts. There are plenty of foul balls and balls put in play that are in the supposed outside of the strike zone. Is it that the batter himself is expanding the strike zone because he figures that the umpire is as well? So he might as well go for it? The whole chart looks skewed.
Look at the -0.3 feet point, right in the center. That filled-in diamond is a called ball! There are also plenty of called balls at the +0.6 feet point (though that might mean that some umps are not giving him those outside pitches, not even the extra space beyond the plate).
I understand that Cory at MLB.com says they take great care in the entire calibration process. But, I’m still on the fence here. I think we need to look at these things game-by-game, park-by-park, pitcher-by-pitcher, and ump-by-ump. I’d like to see researchers present the results of pitches at the +0.60 to +1.05 feet and the -0.60 to -1.05 feet ranges (i.e., the potential questionable calls). What percentages of the pitches there are called balls v called strikes? What percentage are swining-and-miss, foul, or in-play?
UPDATE:
Then again, when I look at Maddux’s splits:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=maddugr01&year=2007
He’s killing LHH: .188/.217/.247
So, maybe LHH are expanding their strike zones against Maddux, and MLB.com has it marked just right?