THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Monday, June 16, 2008

Welcome to the PITCHf/x world: Scott Lucas

We’ve bagged us another.

First off, I applaud the use of zones-inside-zones.  Secondly, we need to come up with LWTS by pitch in zone, per count.  Just as we (Fast, Walsh, Hale, me, others) have come up with LWTS by pitch count, we now need to come up with LWTS by pitch count by zone.  (Has someone done this already.  Too much information to process at the moment.) A pitch down the middle of a 3-0 count is not the same as an 0-2 count.  It doesn’t have the same run value.  At 0-2, the batter is going there ready to swing.  Not at 3-0.  So, offering a pitch down the middle will have a higher offensive run value at 0-2 than 3-0.

By coming up with LWTS by count by zones, we’ll know who is throwing good pitches and who is not.