THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Once a Galarraga…

By Tangotiger, 03:34 PM

As an Expos fan, there was so greater bothersome sight than seeing Galarraga with an 0-2 count. Why? Because everyone knew what would happen: the pitcher would throw a low breaking ball away in the dirt, and Galarraga would swing, lunge, and miss. It may sound like I’m exaggerating when I say he has probably struck out in 75% of such occasions, but I’m probably close. I’d also be disappointed if there was anyone else who struck out more often in that situation. And, what was alarming is how good a hitter he was otherwise!

David Appelman shows us the year-to-year correlation on players swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. And the correlation is an astounding r=.87. That is HIGH. It’s like, players don’t learn. They have their approach, and they will stick to their approach, because their approach is what made them get there in the first place.

And, when you see former Expo Vladimir Guerrero as the “HR hitter who has swung the most at an outside pitch”, maybe the players are right. Who is anyone to tell such an elite hitter how to hit? And, this guy hardly ever strikes out! Perhaps if David did an additional category, which only includes balls that were swung and missed, or swings that resulted in an out, Vlad would not be in this list at all. Galarraga though definitely would.

• Sabermetrics • Data

#1 Jim Dickie (see all posts) 2006/12/29 (Fri) @ 09:08

Just wondering, why do you guys always have the “read more” link when there’s nothing more to read?

#2 tangotiger (see all posts) 2006/12/29 (Fri) @ 11:09

I haven’t looked at the software manual on how to make the “read more” conditional.

#3 (see all posts) 2006/12/29 (Fri) @ 13:22

I know that Galarraga pain. For Brewers’ fans it has been Geoff Jenkins. 0-2 count, low inside breaking ball, huge uppercut that doesn’t come close to making contact and the long walk back to the dugout. The last few years it seems as though Jenkins has playing with one fewer strike than other hitters. With the “patient” hitting philosophy the Brewers have championed so much, and Jenkins, an organizational soldier taking the first strike (to his detriment), it’s been a painful to watch this decline for our guy.

Just looked up his career stats after 0-2, 840 ABs, 18 BBs, 441 Ks, .163/.194/.276

Worse than the average when comparing to your 11/29 post ("hitting by count") but not way worse. Wonder how that over 50% K rate compares though.

The complaint here, and the one i think that matches yours, is not the poor performace at and after 0-2, it’s that it is always the same pitch and same result. You want to climb on to the hitters should and whisper “next is an inside breaking ball, don’t swing at it.”

But you can’t, and that .87 correlation suggests that it wouldn’t do much good anyway.