Ankles and Dirt

I've looked at low ball swingers in the past.

Most Likely to Swing Low (>250 total pitches)
Geoff Jenkins .569
Alex Cintron .541
Tony Pena .529
I-Rod .524
Alfonso Soriano .521

Now I want to look really low. Ankles and Dirt. Without regard to release point, pitch type (spin/speed etc), only location down. First filter ("Ankles") was all pitches < 1/2 the average bottom zone for a hitter, based on PITCHf/x operator settings. To pass the filter, a hitter had to have at least 10 pitches seen that met the criteria.

The average bottom for hitters who passed this filter was 19.2 inches, so the average cut-off was 9.6 inches. The average of the hitters' average for actual pz (vertical location) ended up as 4.32 inches. There were 361 hitters and 11,292 pitches in this group.

The second filter ("Dirt") was for pitches with a pz of 0 or less. The average zone ended up the same for hitters/pitches in this set, with an average pz of of -5.16 inches. In other words, the ground got in the way. There were 38 hitters and 490 pitches in this group. There are pitch events in the data that specify "in the dirt", but I chose this approach (perhaps I could compare, or not).

Starting in the Dirt group, we find some of the usual suspects.

Swing Rate - Pitches in Dirt
Alfonso Soriano 40.0%
Ichiro Suzuki   20.8
Luke Scott      20.0
Mark Teahen     20.0
group average    7.1

There were just a total of 35 swings in this set. Alfonso and Ichiro combine for almost a third of them. Ichiro and Raul Ibanez were the only to put a ball into play (1 each) and four guys, including Soriano, managed to foul one off.

Moving on to the Ankles

Swing Rate - Pitch at Ankles
Alfonso Soriano 44.9%
Alex Cintron    44.0
Garret Anderson 40.2
Jay Gibbons     40.0
Kendry Morales  36.8
Ichiro Suzuki   36.5
Geoff Jenkins   36.4
Matt Diaz       35.7
Jason LaRue     35.7
Delmon Young    35.4
Felix Pie       35.3
group average   13.0

Hmm, three Cubs in the top 11.

Does anyone actually hit this stuff? Must have at least 10 swings

Contact Rate - Pitch at Ankles
Ichiro Suzuki   55.3
Alex Cintron    54.5
Ivan Rodriguez  45.5
Alfonso Soriano 41.9
Aaron Miles     40.0
group average   21.2

At least Soriano and Cintron make some contact here, but that's not too helpful. Out of 1469 swings in this group, the pesky Jeremy Hermida has the only homer.

Here are the Ankle numbers for the Cubs. Click and sort.

last	first	thresh.	zone	B	CS	SS	F	X	HR	pz	count	swings	swrt	contact	crate
Soriano	Alfonso	0.76	1.52	38	0	18	8	5	0	0.30	69	31	44.9%	13	41.9%
Cintron	Alex	0.79	1.58	14	0	5	5	1	0	0.40	25	11	44.0%	6	54.5%
Pie	Felix	0.81	1.62	11	0	2	2	2	0	0.26	17	6	35.3%	4	66.7%
Ramirez	Aramis	0.84	1.68	32	0	3	3	0	0	0.35	38	6	15.8%	3	50.0%
Theriot	Ryan	0.73	1.45	26	0	2	0	1	0	0.24	29	3	10.3%	1	33.3%
Lee	Derrek	0.88	1.75	76	1	7	1	0	0	0.42	85	8	9.4%	1	12.5%
Fontenot	Mike	0.73	1.46	25	0	4	0	0	0	0.30	29	4	13.8%	0	0.0%
Murton	Matt	0.74	1.47	19	0	0	0	0	0	0.43	19	0	0.0%	0	0.0%