THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Peter, compare your wOBA to my wOBA:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/hitting_by_count/

I only looked at the 3-0, but you made a mistake.  I didn’t look at your other numbers.

Two sources of errors possible:
1. IBB is not in the denominator of wOBA
2. be careful how to handle two-strike fouls

I tweaked the charts to exclude IBB’s—http://i51.tinypic.com/3308d9d.png

With my new chart I’ve got .699 for at 3-0, you’ve got .700. The IBB’s were the problem.

Great stuff, Peter.

You know what’s interesting?  If you are at 3-0, and you give an automatic ball, the wOBA becomes .720.  But, if you are at 3-0 and you pitch as you normally would (and as a hitter you swing/take as you normally would), by the time the at bat is over, the wOBA is .700.

Basically, it’s virtually the same thing!

Batters put the ball in play very, very infrequently on 3-0 counts. Of the 39,708 PA’s that ended at 3-0 (including IBB), only 2,421 were official AB’s. When they do, they rake, slugging .775 with a BABIP of .315 in my sample. There’s probably some selection bias, usually managers only let really good hitters swing away in 3-0 counts. I do think it’s partially explained by the fact that even those allowed to swing at a 3-0 pitch are going to have a tiny zone. In other words, if a hitter is swinging at a 3-0 pitch, it’s *his* pitch.

Most of the 3-0 action pitches are walks, either intentional or not: 37,154 BB’s, 11,0763 IBB’s.

If I were a hitting coach or manager I’d want to let all of my batters with good plate discipline/pitch recognition swing in 3-0 counts, with the caveat that they’re only allowed to swing if they get a pitch they can drive. Next time you’re watching baseball note any 3-0 counts you see. If there’s a non-elite hitter at the plate, you’ll almost never see him swing. Yet, I’d wager that often he’ll see the best pitch he will throughout the PA 3-0, a fastball down the middle.

I screwed up the through count chart in #2, had the wOBA column sorted incorrectly. Fixed now—http://i56.tinypic.com/16rw35.jpg

What I’d love to see is thru and at numbers that exclude BB and K’s