Over on Facebook, TJ asked me what Soriano's plate discipline was looking like so far this season. The question comes up since he's been drawing walks and raking the ball. The former being an oddity in Fonzie's case.
Using the as-played 24 inch plate and Alfonso's average zone top/bottom #'s from all of his PITCHf/x plate appearances, I find that the early returns confirm what we've seen - he's chasing less garbage.
| Year | # | Swing | Whiff | IWZ | Chase | Watch | nkSLG | TBP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 1012 | 0.5751 | 0.2612 | 0.4279 | 0.4249 | 0.2240 | 0.8877 | 0.1640 |
| 2008 | 1795 | 0.5281 | 0.2669 | 0.4279 | 0.4070 | 0.3099 | 0.6968 | 0.1331 |
| 2009 | 149 | 0.5101 | 0.2237 | 0.4228 | 0.3605 | 0.2857 | 0.8333 | 0.1678 |
Swing is swings/pitches
Whiff is misses/swings
IWZ means pitch In Wide Zone
Chase is swing rate out of the zone
Watch is take rate in the zone (inverse of swing rate in the zone)
nkSLG is total bases divided by balls in play (including home runs)
TBP is total bases divided by pitches
So, Sori is hitting the ball as well as he did in 2007, based on the last two columns, is seeing a few less strikes, but is laying off balls better than he has in the past. He's also swinging at more of those strikes.
When I have some more time, I'll break-out pitch type, like I've been doing for Fukudome. And, more importantly, see how these numbers move as the sample size increases.
4 comments:
Can we get the number on D-Lee's watch rate? I sure feel like he lets a whole lot of good strikes go and ends up swinging at worse (harder to hit strikes or even balls) to end his at bats.
Here you go
year # Chase Watch
2007 1302 .2169 .4264
2008 2683 .2091 .3677
2009 127 .2281 .4286
It might be able to slice up the strike zone and look at trends there.
So if I am reading this correctly it looks like Sori swings at as many bad pitches as D-lee lets good pitches go? Which is worse?
Chase Watch
0.2169 0.2240
0.2091 0.3099
0.2281 0.2857
If you combined them as I did above (use D-lee's control and Sori's eye on good pitches) do you end up with a much better hitter?
Watch is in the inverse of swing rate.
So, for 2008, Sori swung at 41% of the pitches he saw out of the zone. That's a lot. The same year, Lee 63% of strikes (1-watch=swing rate in zone).
The key to using metrics like those are to understand their relationship. The best hitting eye should have a low chase and a low watch, an overly aggressive hitter will have a high chase and a low watch. An overly conservative hitter will have a high watch and a low chase.
Also keep in mind, guys like Sori, and, more so, Vlad Guerrero, can swing at pitches out of the zone because they are such exceptionally gifted athletes. They can actually reach the barrel to the outer limits of their exaggerated zone and square the ball.
So, in short, not all chasers are created equal.
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