Red Sox F/X

Linear Weights by Hit Speed - Hit F/X

2009-06-16T21:52:00.003-04:00

Posted this over at Tom Tango's blog, but here it is again:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/linear_weights_by_batted_ball_speed/

Hit Speed	Avg of LW	Count of Events
<50	-0.24	372
55-60	-0.207	456
60-65	-0.096	643
65-70	-0.062	783
70-75	-0.08	961
75-80	-0.116	1097
80-85	-0.094	1509
85-90	-0.056	1787
90-95	0.047	2115
95-100	0.208	2086
100-105	0.473	1420
>105	0.535	457
Total	0.03	15044

David Ortiz is struggling

2009-04-20T18:16:00.002-04:00

It has been a long time since I have posted, but this caught my eye so I figured I would post it. We all know about Ortiz's struggles so far in 2009 (wOBA of .206 and a K% of almost 30%), but his pitch f/x data paints an even bleaker picture.

Coming into today's game, Ortiz had swung and missed on 36 pitches so far this season. That puts him second in the majors behind Josh Hamilton's 43. Here is the top 5:

Hitter	Misses
Josh Hamilton	43
David Ortiz	36
Adrian Gonzalez	34
Chris Davis	34
Jordan Schafer	32

When digging deeper, we can see fastballs are giving Ortiz problems. He is leading the majors in misses against fastballs with 19.

Hitter	FB Misses	Avg. FB Speed
David Ortiz	19	90.4
Jordan Schafer	18	91.9
Bengie Molina	18	93.6
Carl Crawford	17	89.7
Chris Davis	16	93.8
Adrian Gonzalez	15	91.1
Nelson Cruz	15	93.3
Emilio Bonifacio	14	91.0
Josh Hamilton	14	92.2
Pablo Sandoval	14	92.4

Also, the average fastball speed on his misses is only 90.4 mph. This would rank as 130th out of 152 hitters with at least 5 swings and misses.

To recap, not only is Ortiz swinging and missing often but he is also missing on fastballs with a low average velocity. Hopefully he can pick it up, or else the Sox will be looking to add a bat in the coming months.

Rays vs Sox

2008-06-30T15:34:00.004-04:00

A big game tonight as the Rays and Sox start their mid-week series. James Shields faces off against Justin Masterson in what should be a good battle.

I have previewed both Shields and Masterson before so here is Shields and here is all the Masterson previews.

Using FIP, which is fielding independent ERA, Shields shows up at 3.48 while Masterson comes in at 5.02. That paints a different picture than just looking at ERA, which has Shields at 3.76 and Masterson at 3.43.

I was looking forward to Shields last start vs Boston, but unfortunately that didn't last long because of the brawl.

Lastly, Keith Law mentioned in a chat the other day that he sees Justin Masterson as a better fit in the bullpen than the rotation, so I'll be taking a look at that to see if I notice anything. If Masterson did move to the pen this year, it would probably be to allow Clay Buchholz back into the rotation.

Red Sox vs Dan Haren

2008-06-23T16:55:00.006-04:00

The Sox face Dan Haren tonight, one night after a dramatic walk off home run by Kevin Youkilis.

Let us take a look at Dan Haren.

Haren throws a fastball, slider, changeup and splitter. His money pitch is the splitter, which one of the best in the game. It has great late bite on it and hitters have trouble making contact on it.

Here is his horizontal vs vertical movement chart. As always, it is taken from the catcher's point of view.

You can see the great movement on the splitter here. It has as much downward break as his slider, and moves to the pitchers glove side. Normally, splitters don't move horizontally like this, but that just goes to show you how nice the pitch is.

Here are his stats:

RHB
	CH	FB	SL	SF	Grand Total
Strike %	43.5%	68.4%	68.8%	69.4%	67.8%
Contact %	75.0%	95.6%	79.4%	56.7%	80.0%
LHB
	CH	FB	SL	SF	Grand Total
Strike %	62.9%	61.8%	69.7%	63.2%	63.4%
Contact %	76.5%	88.8%	82.9%	68.7%	82.3%

Looking at RHB, not only is his splitter impossible to hit, it also has the highest strike percentage. Combine the two and you have one filthy pitch.

One last thing I noticed when going over Haren. His pitch mix varies by start. It is almost as if he knows early on what pitches are working and then just abandons the rest. Check it out:

Example, start 5 was all fastball/splitter while start 12 he went mostly fastball/slider. His changeup is thrown a good amount in some games such as 2, 6, and 11, while the rest of the time he barely uses it. I wonder why that is.

Should be a good game tonight. Haren is one of my favorite pitchers to watch so I'll be looking closely. Hopefully the Sox can lay off the splitter and get some fastballs, as Haren can be homer prone at times.

Dice K Still Injured?

2008-06-22T15:40:00.006-04:00

Well Dice K came off the DL last night after his shoulder injury and got rocked in just over one inning of work. He is still hurt, just trying to regain form or was last night just unfortunate luck?

Looking at pitch f/x data from last night compared to his other 6 home starts, we can see some obvious things. I am only using starts at Fenway so that we can be sure the data is fairly stable.

Here is his horizontal vs vertical movement from all of his home starts before last night compared to last night:
That chart is showing some unfortunate news for Red Sox fans. Let us break down the clusters first. We will go left to right. The small cluster in the lower left is his changeup and splitter. The next cluster over, the biggest cluster on the graph, is his fastballs. The cluster right on the 0 for horizontal movement is his slider and cutter, and finally the cluster in the far right is his curveball.

Now let us break each cluster down. First, he barely threw a changeup or splitter last night. In fact, it looks like he threw 3 total. Because that is such a small amount, we can't really make any conclusions from that. In the fastball cluster, we can see both the horizontal and vertical movement from last night's start was much less than his other home starts. One reason for this is because his speed was significantly down. This chart will show that:

The next cluster, his slider, looks normal. So if Dice K still has any injury, it does not seem to be affecting his slider. Unfortunately, we can't say the same about his curveball. His curveball barely had any bite on it. An average curveball from Dice K has more horizontal movement than vertical anyways. In fact, it would be described as a sweeping curve. Last night, he threw 3 good curves and the rest were terrible.

So after looking at his pitch movement last night, something is wrong with Dice K. His fastball did not have any life and his curveball was severely affected by the injury.

If he does have a shoulder injury, we should expect a change in release point. Here is that chart:
OK well that looks fine. No issues there. I don't have enough knowledge about how shoulder pain affects release points according to pitch f/x, but I would have to assume that he would drop his arm slot down if he was feeling pain. So if we can assume that, we can say he wasn't feeling pain. How about this theory: He is continuing to have shoulder fatigue, which causes less velocity and prevents him from getting much movement on his curveball, but it is not a painful injury that causes his arm slot to drop.

The only definitive conclusion we can make from last night's data is that there is still something bothering Dice K.

Justin Masterson Starts Tonight

2008-06-18T08:42:00.002-04:00

Justin Masterson gets his 6th career start tonight for Boston.

Here is his pitch f/x data from past starts .

Masterson has been effective up to this point, but also very lucky. He is 3-1 with an era of 2.90. Unfortunately, he hasn't been as good as those numbers show.

His FIP, which is a fielding independent era, sits at 4.99. That is not a good sign and combined with a .177 BABIP, we are guaranteed to see his ERA rise quickly.

The most impressive part of Masterson's game has been his ability to get strikeouts. He has a 7.84 K/9 which is fairly high for a sinker ball pitcher. As I noted in the past Masterson articles, the biggest reason for this is his devastating slider. Left handed batters only hit the pitch 57.9% of the time while righties aren't fairing much better with a 61.5% contact rate.

If Masterson wants to stay successful as his BABIP and ERA normalize, he will need to cut down on his walk rate. Currently walking 4.35 batters per 9 innings, Masterson will need to command his pitches going forward.

Been Busy

2008-06-14T23:31:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted much over the past week and a half and I apologize. I have been busy with work and some other things.

Once the summer slows down I will start to pick it up again.

Thanks guys.

Boston Hosts Baltimore

2008-06-11T14:44:00.006-04:00

Tonight's start features Garrett Olson vs Bartolo Colon.

We previewed Olson 12 days ago here.

Here is his pitch types:

Colon throws 4 pitches. A two seam fastball, a four seam fastball, a slider and an occasional changeup. Here is his pitches using K-Means Cluster:

Same type of graph as we used for Olson. Colon is right handed, Olson is left handed so that is why they look opposite. These graphs are horizontal vs vertical movement and seen from the catcher's view.

The red is his four seamer, the orange is the two seamer, the green is the slider and the blue is the changeup.

None of his pitches stand out. He really is a shell of himself from his Cy Young days. A big shell at that. Fat jokes aside, he has given the Red Sox some nice starts at the back end of the rotation. While his stuff isn't what it used to be, he is keeping the ball down and showing decent control. His HR/9 rate is less than half of his career average currently and his ground ball percentage is the highest of his career at 43.6. Expect the Sox to cut bait as soon as they see him struggle as we head to the summer.

Red Sox Hitters: Pitch Data

2008-06-09T16:55:00.004-04:00

Since the Sox don't play tonight, I figured I would take a look at most of the Red Sox hitters by pitch result and other stats. Below is the data, including last night's game:

OK so that is a lot of numbers for you to digest. Let us go through it.

The first table is the results for every pitch the Red Sox hitters have seen this year. The second table are some various calculations to give us a better understanding of what we are looking at.

Here is what each stat means:

Ball %: Simply the percent of total pitches that are called ball. Obviously a higher percentage is better.

Called Strike %: Percent of total pitches that are called strike. A lower number would be better.

Strike Swinging %: Percent of total pitches that are swung on and missed. This includes bunts. A higher percentage would mean the hitter is not making as much contact as he would like.

Foul %: Percent of total pitches that are fouled off. This includes bunts. Without knowing the hitters intent, we can't determine if they are fighting off pitches or missing pitches they should hit.

Strike %: Percent of total pitches that end up as a strike. If a ball is put in play, that is considered a strike.

Swing %: Percent of total pitches that the batter swung at. Aggressive hitters will have a higher number than patient ones.

In Play %: Percent of total pitches swung at that are put in play.

Ball: Called Strike: This helps us measure batting eye. The higher the better.

Contact %: Total pitches that the hitter makes contact with divided by total pitches swung at. Notice the difference between this and In Play %.

So now that we understand each category, let's take a look.

Ball %: Moss, Drew and Ortiz rank 1,2,3 in this category. Moss has a small sample size issue for all of his data since he has only seen a total of 81 pitches, so we won't include him in the rankings. There should be no surprise that Drew, Ortiz and Ramirez lead the team in this category. All three are known for their eye, but one surprise for me is to see how low Youkilis is. Youks is a guy I would have expected to have a higher ball percentage, but note his walk rate is down this year from 12.7% last year to 8.7% this year.

Called Strike %: The leaders here are the same from ball %. These two categories go hand in hand, so it is good to see them match. Once again we see Youkilis is struggling recognizing location, tied for the team lead at 21%.

Strike Swinging %: Pedroia and Casey swing and miss the least while Cash and Ramirez are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Pedroia is known as a contact guy with only 10.7% of his PA's ending in a strikeout. Cash is no surprise but Ramirez is. Ramirez's strike out percentage has jumped from 19% last year to 24% this year, even while having a better overall year in 2008. His strikeout rate is the highest of his career since 2001 and this number helps reflect that. I wonder how much of this is due to his pressing while trying to hit his 500th HR. It would be good to keep on eye on this number as the season goes.

Foul %: Like I said above, you don't know if this number is a reflection of a hitter fighting off pitches so that he can get "his" pitch or if it is because he is missing hittable pitches. Either way, there is very little difference between the best and worst of the bunch.

Strike %: Crisp has the highest while Ortiz and Drew are the lowest. I don't think this stat works as good for hitters as it does for pitchers.

Swing %: Most aggressive: Crisp and Ramirez. Least aggressive: Drew. Crisp is a free swinger so this is to be expected. Seeing Ramirez on both this list and the ball% list goes to show how dynamic Manny is. He has a very good eye and is looking to swing when he gets a hittable pitch. Combine these two categories and you have a lethal hitter.

In Play %: Take a look at all the hitters. It seems that the higher power guys such as Ramirez, Ortiz, Drew and Varitek have a lower percentage of balls in play while some of the slap hitters and high batting average guys have higher numbers. This second group includes Pedroia, Casey, Crisp and Ellsbury.

Ball/CS: Ramirez and Ortiz top this list while Youkilis is the lowest. Something has to be going on for Youkilis. While I haven't seen this data in years past, this just seems off for his reputation.

Contact %: List resembles In Play %. Casey is highest while Ramirez is lowest.

It is great to be able to use pitch f/x to help us better understand players and the reasons behind their struggles or success. The next step will be to break down the players by pitch type or pitch speed. Once we get that, we will better understand what pitches are causing these numbers.

Here is the charts with the calculations for you to view

6/08: Pitcher Preview Justin Masterson

2008-06-08T11:14:00.000-04:00

Justin Masterson squares off vs Seattle and Erik Bedard tonight. This is part two in the tonight's game preview. See the previous post for the Bedard analysis.

Masterson, a rookie, will be making his fourth career start in the majors. So far, he has been effective even while being wild. He sports a 2.95 ERA to go along with 14 k's in 18.1 innings. He is a sinkerballer who has a GB% of 56.3%. While all of this looks nice, he does show some disturbing numbers. His BB/9 is 4.42 and his BABIP is a measly .175. Along with an unreal 89.9 LOB%, we can't expect his success to last. As his numbers start to revert to the norm, expect his ERA to rise and his struggles to start happening. He shows a promising skill set for a rookie, but don't expect success going forward unless he is able to buck these trends.

Here is his pitch f/x data:

As you can see, that is one nasty sinker. His sinker has more downward movement than his changeup and almost as much downward movement as most pitchers curveball. That one pitch makes him a weapon every time he is on the mound.

Here is his pitch types by batter hand:

stand	CH	FB	SI	SL	Grand Total
L	23	36	58	34	151
R	0	26	67	31	124
Grand Total	23	62	125	65	275

He does not use the changeup vs right handed batters. It would be nice to see him start just to give them another look.

Here is strike % and contact % by pitch type:

LHB
	CH	FB	SI	SL	Grand Total
Strike %	78.3%	50.0%	56.9%	73.5%	62.3%
Contact %	73.3%	83.3%	86.4%	57.9%	75.0%

RHB
	CH	FB	SI	SL	Grand Total
Strike %	0.0%	57.7%	65.7%	61.3%	62.9%
Contact %	0.0%	57.1%	81.3%	61.5%	73.1%

His changeup and slider look to be very tough on lefties. He has the ability to not only throw those pitches for strikes, but also to get swings and misses. A deadly combination. One would have to think that changeup success could carry over vs the righties, even if it were to a lesser degree.

Lastly, here are his pitch results by type and batter hand:

Just for fun, take a look at the amount fouls on the sinker for right handed hitters. Of those 13 foul balls, I wonder how many were drilled off the hitters legs? Sinkers will do that to a hitter.

If you have never seen Masterson pitch, you are in for a treat. He has a very unique delivery:

Here is his delivery according to pitch f/x

Enjoy folks.

Red Sox vs Erik Bedard, Again

2008-06-08T09:37:00.000-04:00

The Red Sox will get a chance to avenge their defeat at the hands of Erik Bedard on May 28th. In that game, Bedard threw 7 innings, giving up 2 hits, no runs and striking out 8 on 110 pitches.

Going into that game, we previewed Bedard's pitches through BIS and IE data.

Now here is a look at the pitch f/x data from that start:

First thing is that pitch f/x shows he throws four pitches: Fastball, cutter, changeup and curveball. The point of the first post on Bedard wasn't to point out the vast differences between the two companies, but that is what ended up coming out of it. Below is his horizontal vs vertical chart. Note that pitch f/x only recorded 109 of his 110 pitches. We are missing one ball.

Chart looks like he threw lots of cutters and very little changeups right?

Well you are correct. Here are the numbers:

stand	FB		CT		CB		CH		Grand Total
L	10	28.6%	18	51.4%	7	20.0%	0	0.0%	35
R	23	31.1%	22	29.7%	25	33.8%	4	5.4%	74
Grand Total	33	30.3%	40	36.7%	32	29.4%	4	3.7%	109

It is not often that you see a starter throw more cutters than fastballs in one game. Percentage wise, he preferred to throw the cutter vs the lefties but he wasn't shy about using it on the righties. Bedard only threw 4 changeups all game and they all came against the righties. I would love to hear his thinking behind not using that changeup more. Whatever reason, it proved to be effective.

Here is his pitch choice by count and batter hand:

One reason he might not have used much besides his cutter vs lefties is because he didn't get deep into counts. Only twice did he face a 3 ball count vs the lefties. Against righties, he was just as likely to throw the curveball early in the count as he was his fastball or cutter. Staying ahead of hitters in this game was a key to Bedard's success.

He faced 25 batters. Of those 25 first pitches, 12 were ball, 9 were called strike, 3 were foul and 1 was a swinging strike. That is not as good of a first strike percentage that we would expect from his dominating performance. So where did he make up for this? When he fell behind 1-0, he battled back to have 5 called strikes, 1 foul, 1 out and 1 swinging strike.

One last thing I found while going over his chart. Not sure how significant this is, but I thought it was pretty neat.

When he threw his curveball, here are his average horizontal and vertical breaks, by pitch result:

Result	PFX_X	PFX_Z	RPM
Ball	-5.8	-6.0	1347.6
Ball In Dirt	-7.8	-7.8	1825.4
Called Strike	-6.3	-7.1	1525.8
Foul	-6.9	-7.0	1593.3
In play, out(s)	-6.5	-8.5	1658.4
Swinging Strike	-6.7	-6.8	1519.1
Average	-6.3	-6.7	1480.5

Anything jump out at you? When he threw a ball, the pitch movement was less than average. When he threw a ball in the dirt, it was greater than average. So it almost seems like there is a fine line when it comes to throwing a curve. Put to much movement on it and it will be in the dirt. Put less movement on it and it will be a ball. Maybe it is nothing, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I also looked at the curves through release point and spin angle and didn't notice a difference.

Finally, here is everyone's favorite cluttered strike zone chart, from the catcher's point of view:

Kept the curve and cutter down. If the Sox hope to be successful tonight, they will have to battle and hope his curve isn't on. Bedard has been fairly inconsistent this year so lets hope they catch him on an off day.

Chase Utley HR's

2008-06-07T17:33:00.002-04:00

I contributed some pitch f/x analysis on Chase Utley and his power this season over at Ghostman on Third.

Without giving away the article, he doesn't mind pitches middle to away. Check it out

Quick Tim Wakefield Chart

2008-06-07T11:39:00.003-04:00

As Red Sox fans, we have come to take Tim Wakefield for granted over the years. But it is truly remarkable what he has been able to do over the course of his career. In the modern game, to be as successful as he has been with a knuckleball, is something to marvel at. We might not ever see another pitcher who is as successful as Wakefield while featuring a knuckleball.

Let us take a quick look at pitch f/x just to see what that knuckleball looks like.

This is a horizontal vs Speed graph. It is seen from a catchers view. I just circled the three pitch types here instead of breaking them down by color because it was quicker and fairly obvious what is going on.

The top circle is his fastball that he throws when he needs a strike. Notice some of the fastballs have a positive horizontal movement? That resembles a cutter, but I have never heard him say he throws one. Either way, that fastball has cutter movement.

Next is his knuckleball. What I find so remarkable is how it breaks to both sides of the plate. It almost looks like half his knuckleballs break right and half break left. This could explain why it is so hard for a catcher to catch the knuckleball. When you don't know which way it is going, how are you supposed to catch it?

Lastly, we have his curveball. This is a big, slow breaking ball as you can see the speed is even less than the knuckle.

So that is Tim Wakefield. I am not sure that pitch f/x tracks the knuckleball as well as regular pitches, but either way, very interesting data.

If you would like to read more about it, here is a hardball times article by John Walsh in November of 2007.

James Shield Brings His Changeup To Boston

2008-06-05T09:04:00.000-04:00

Tonight is Jon Lester vs James Shields.

Lester frustrates me to much to look at him right now. Maybe later. If there is one thing that I could ask for out of Lester, it would be to cut down on his walks. Sorry Jon, but you just aren't going to be a good pitcher with a BB/9 of 4.26. Encouraging sign on the year for him though is a 49.6% GB rate. Just don't expect that ERA of 3.67 to last. His peripherals say it should rise to around 5.00.

On the other end of the control spectrum, we have James Shields. Let us take a look:

K/9: 6.47
BB/9: 1.9
HR/9: 0.78
BABIP: .289

Very easy to understand why he is successful. He strikes hitters out, keeps runners off base and doesn't give up the long ball.

Now onto the scouting:

Here is a nice article on James Shields' mechanics with some pitch f/x data.

So we know he throws a fastball, nasty changeup and curveball, but here is my question:

Does he throw a cutter or slider?

Baseball Info Solutions says cutter. Inside Edge says slider. Dan Fox, formerly of Baseball Prospectus, said slider.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what you call it. I will call it a cutter and move on.

Average pitch movement:

Everything there looks pretty impressive. To have 5 pitches that are grade out average or better is rare, but that is what makes Shields so good. That changeup is just devastating.

Another thing that makes him so impressive? Look at his pitch selection vs batter hand. He is confident in all his pitches, regardless who is at the plate:

stand	2 FB	CB	CH	CT	FB	Grand Total
L	45	38	194	105	172	554
R	40	49	114	81	187	471
Grand Total	85	87	308	186	359	1025

Finally, here is his BABIP, Strike % and Contact % by pitch type and batter hand. What else can you say but that is a nasty changeup.

Should be a good one. I'm going with 5-2 TB tonight.

6/04 Pitcher Preview: Edwin Jackson

2008-06-04T09:01:00.001-04:00

Tonight will be Josh Beckett vs Edwin Jackson in TB.

We know Beckett is 2 seam fb, 4 seam fb, curveball and changeup. See these posts for Beckett data.

Here is Edwin Jackson:

4 pitch guy: Fastball, curveball, slider and changeup. The slider and curveball are fairly similar. Not an impressive curveball and has decent downward tilt on the slider. Here are his average speeds:

FB: 94
CB: 80
SL: 85
CH: 88

While he has 4 pitches, he really only uses three. His curveball is just for show:

Stand	FB		CB		CH		SL		Grand Total
Left	312	60.7%	32	6.2%	137	26.7%	33	6.4%	514
Right	317	61.0%	39	7.5%	21	4.0%	143	27.5%	520
Grand Total	629	60.8%	71	6.9%	158	15.3%	176	17.0%	1034

Versus LHB, he is a FB/CH guy. He could afford to throw a breaking ball more to lefties. LHB have a .789 OPS while RHB are at .648.

Here is his pitches by count, broken down by batter hand:

Looks pretty confident with that slider versus the righties. I wonder why he doesn't use it more against lefties. If he can learn to throw that slider down and in to lefties, he might be more effective against them.

6/03 Pitcher Preview: Matt Garza

2008-06-03T09:06:00.000-04:00

Tonight the Red Sox face the first place Rays of Tampa Bay and will square off against Matt Garza.

Here is his numbers:

Nice two seamer, doesn't get much bite on the changeup, ok slider and a big 12-6 curve.

Pitch type by batter hand:

stand	2FB	CB	CH	FB	SL	Grand Total
L	70	44	48	230	27	419
R	62	8	10	165	71	316
Grand Total	132	52	58	395	98	735

Looks like Garza throws the Curve and changeup to lefties and the Slider mainly to righties.

Left
	2FB	CB	CH	FB	SL	Grand Total
BABIP	0.385	0.250	0.111	0.220	0.571	0.269
Strike %	0.56	0.61	0.50	0.66	0.67	0.62
Contact %	0.86	0.75	0.85	0.86	0.82	0.85

Right
	2FB	CB	CH	FB	SL	Grand Total
BABIP	0.077	0.500	0.000	0.316	0.571	0.328
Strike %	0.60	0.50	0.30	0.63	0.63	0.61
Contact %	0.77	0.75	1.00	0.91	0.76	0.85

Take a look at the two seam fastball. This pitch is thrown around the same amount for a right handed and a left handed hitter, but the BABIP varies greatly. That should even out as the season goes on.

Looks like his curveball is his best pitch vs the lefties. A high strike percentage and the lowest contact % of all his pitches. Note the contact % is the same on the pitch to both sides, but the strike % is much lower against RHB.

A 91% contact percentage on the fastball to RHB shows he is not missing bats with that pitch. Seems like more of a get me over pitch than an out pitch.

Lastly, here is his pitch type by count:

Incredible that he uses his off speed pitches early in the count and then completely abandons them when he falls behind. If I am a hitter, I let the first pitch go and take my chances that he falls behind. If he falls behind in the count, sit dead red because your getting the fastball. As we saw above, his fastball is not a swing and miss pitch so no worries there.

With a patient team like Boston facing Garza tonight, I expect Garza might struggle as he falls behind in the count. Should be interesting to watch the Red Sox strategy versus him.

Another Pitch F/X Outlet

2008-06-02T18:44:00.001-04:00

Along with my Red Sox analysis here, I will be contributing pitch f/x analysis over at Ghostman On Third. This blog is written by my roommate Matt Lyon and will cover MLB as a whole. My work over there will allow me to look at various teams and players while this site will stay dedicated to the Red Sox. Expect one to two articles a week on that site to focus on pitch f/x.

The first example of that can be seen in this Scott Kazmir article.

Enjoy and thank you.

League Averages According to Pitch F/X

2008-06-02T10:32:00.001-04:00

OK so here is the data. This data is up to May 27th and comprises over 198,000 pitches that have been recorded this year through pitch f/x. I hope to update this information at the end of each month to see if it varies much over the course of the year. I am also attaching the spreadsheet with all the data tables. I have all the pitches in one spreadsheet but that is over 141 MB large, so I'll just give the pivot tables that were created from them.

I decided to use the following pitch speed groups: 95+, 90-95, 85-90, 80-85, 75-80 and 60-75. Next month, I might break down the groups by more typical baseball numbers, such as 88-92,92-96 and so on. For now, we'll stick with this since it is done.

First, here is the results of the pitch by pitch speed:
So as you can expect, the majority of the pitches fall between 85-95 mph, with the most coming in the 90-95 range.

Let's go through different pitch result:

The ball percentage is fairly consistent throughout the pitch speed. Nothing huge there. The highest percentage of ball's in the dirt is the 75-80 range, which is most curveballs. Makes sense.

Notice the foul bunt percentage. We always hear fastballs are the hardest pitch to bunt while breaking balls are the easiest. The foul bunt percentage would indicate this. The typical fastball speeds have a higher foul bunt percentage than the typical breaking ball speeds, save for the 95+ group.

The balls that are hit into play are fairly consistent by pitch speed. No speed shows a significant difference when it comes to getting hits versus outs.

The lowest swinging strike percentage comes from 90-95 group. This is a typical fastball and goes to show that major league hitters can hit the average fastball. Notice the jump in swinging strikes with the 95+ fastball though. No wonder pitchers with big velocity are consistently give second and third chances in the majors.

Before we do the last part, here are the home runs by pitch speed first:

HR's by Speed	Total	Percent
95 + MPH	33	2.65%
90-94.9 MPH	380	30.47%
85-89.9 MPH	402	32.24%
80-84.9 MPH	243	19.49%
75-79.9 MPH	132	10.59%
65-74.9 MPH	57	4.57%
Unknown Speed	66	5.29%
Total HR	1247	100.00%

Pretty significant differences by pitch speed. Not many home runs on 95+. Could be a sample size issue, or could be a true indication that it is tough to lift those pitches.

OK so now onto BABIP, Strike % and Contact %. The BABIP is calculated minus the home runs.

	95+	90-94.9	85-89.9	80-84.9	75-79.9	65-74.9	Total
BABIP	0.339	0.321	0.321	0.323	0.307	0.316	0.320
Strike %	64.10%	63.71%	62.43%	62.07%	60.03%	54.20%	62.22%
Contact %	79.76%	85.24%	83.37%	72.69%	72.92%	78.03%	80.42%

I am a little concerned about the BABIP. The season average is usually right around .300. This data shows .320. Now not every play is recorded through pitch f/x because sometimes the system just doesn't work or doesn't pick up the pitch. So that number could be lower. Either way, that is what the database is showing right now.

Interesting to note that the strike % declines as the pitch speed gets slower. Breaking balls must be harder to control than the fastballs.

Lastly, the contact % is significantly higher between 85-95 mph. Again, confirming that it is easier to hit a fastball than an off speed pitch.

OK now that we know the league averages by pitch speed, we can look at individual hitters. I will do that over the course of the next month.

Here are the tables if anyone wants them: Spreadsheet

Manny Ramirez's 500th HR

2008-06-01T14:38:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Manny Ramirez on his 500th career HR.

The HR came in the top of the 7th inning last night at Baltimore vs Chad Bradford.

The pitch was an 82 MPH fastball right down the heart of the plate. Here is the location according to pitch f/x:
That pitch is belt high and right down the middle. I couldn't make that up.

One last thing. The home run was to right center. We always here that when Manny is locked in, he drives the ball to right center. This is a great example of that. A pitch right down the middle and instead of trying to pull it, he just goes with it to right center. Here is the video from the home run for anyone who hasn't seen it:

Red Sox vs Orioles, Lester vs Olson 5/31

2008-05-31T13:37:00.000-04:00

After a nice extra inning win on the road yesterday, the Red Sox look to keep the winning ways going tonight in Baltimore. The Sox will be starting Jon Lester while the O's will be throwing Garrett Olson. We have looked at Jon Lester a lot already on this blog so let us take a look at Garrett Olson.

Olson is a lefty who was drafted #48 overall in the 2005 draft. He started 2008 in AAA but has been effective in his 33 innings of work this year for Baltimore. He is 4-1 with a 4.09 era and 26-13 K's to BB. In fact, he has actually pitched much better than his ERA indicates. The ERA is inflated due to a rocky start vs NYY on 5/21 in which he gave up 6 runs in 2.2 innings.

So what will he be throwing at Boston tonight?

Really just a three pitch guy. Fastball, changeup and slider. Slider has a long horizontal break that sweeps across the plate.

Below is his pitch type by count, broken down by batter hand:

Versus left handed hitters, he is mainly a fastball/changeup guy. Very little sliders to the lefty and will only use it when he gets ahead in the count. Versus right handed hitters he will throw that slider all day until he gets to three balls.

Here is his slider locations versus right handed hitters:

This chart is from the catchers view. He is trying to pound the zone down and in, but tends to leave some of the sliders over the heart of the plate. If he can keep that slider down tonight, expect him to be effective against a RH heavy lineup.

Before we finish up, here is Olson's release point for his fastball and changeup. I figured since he only throws lefties these two pitches, would a hitter be able to recognized the pitch from his release point? This data shows the difference, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it is for a hitter to be able to pick up on it.

From the catcher's view:

Quick note, the points that are in the oval are from his 5/21 start versus the Yankees where he got rocked. Three things could have happened: he was either working from a different part of the mound, his mechanics were off or the system was off. Either way, something was happening.

So back to the rest of his starts. You can see that his changeup comes more from the right of the graph. Would this mean he is extending his arm more when he releases that pitch compared to the fastball?

Now it is easy to sit here and see the difference. But we really don't know if it is visible to a hitter.

I am looking forward to watching Olson vs the Sox tonight. Should be a good one.

5/30 Pitcher Preview: Josh Beckett

2008-05-30T14:19:00.000-04:00

Josh Beckett will go tonight for the Sox vs the O's and Daniel Cabrera. Beckett is coming off a good performance last time out vs Oakland in which he gave up 2 runs in 7 innings.

While Beckett's season to date might look discouraging to the casual viewer with a 5-4 record and a 4.43 ERA, there are many more encouraging signs in his perphials. His 31-3 strikeout to walk ratio over his past three games along with a 65-11 K:BB rate on the year is extremely impressive. In fact, look at these numbers from Fangraphs over the past three seasons:

K/9:

2006: 6.95

2007: 8.70

2008: 9.59

BB/9:

2006: 3.25

2007: 1.79

2008: 1.62

FIP: Predicted ERA based on peripherals

2006: 5.13

2007: 3.08

2008: 3.59

So with that said, where is he struggling? Three main things are leading to "presumed" lack of success this year:

HR/9: This is increased because of his fly ball percentage

2006: 1.58

2007: 0.76

2008: 1.48

FB%:

2006: 38%

2007: 37%
2008: 40%

LOB%: Needs to do a better job of stranding runners

2006: 69%
2007: 75%
2008: 68%

Overall, Beckett is settling down nicely after a rough first week of the season. Expect his ERA to drop and Wins to pile up as we move into summer. In fact, he can hold his peripherals and move his HR/9 number down to about 1.00, we can expect another run at the Cy Young award.

Below is Beckett's pitches from his 5/24 start vs Oakland. I am going to use the pitch type from Ross Paul's algorithm. This method is used to identify pitches on a real time basis, so its job is to get the majority of the pitches right and doesn't take into account each pitchers repertoire. With that said, Josh Beckett is a fairly easy pitcher to identify. He throws a 2 seam FB, a 4 seam FB, a curveball and a changeup. These charts don't split up the fastball, but that is nitpicking for a real time pitch identification system right now.

Calculating league averages by pitch speed

2008-05-29T17:18:00.000-04:00

So I am about to wrap up my calculations but I wanted to ask a question to the readers first. I am going to be posting the BABIP, Strike % and Contact % for all of MLB according to pitch speed. Currently, I have grouped the pitch speeds into 6 categories:

1. 95+
2. 90-94.9
3. 85-89.9
4. 80-84.9
5. 75-79.9
6. 60-74.9

Does anyone see a better way to group the speeds? I would like to do it by pitch type, but I don't have an algorithm to classify ever pitch in one go. For now, I figure this works. The 6th category is the largest range of speeds, but I figured with so little amount of pitches in that range, combined with the fact that those pitches are mostly curves and Jamie Moyer fastballs(kidding), it would make sense.

I will wait a day for any responses and then post the results after that.

Here is a quick tease:

95+ MPH
BABIP: 0.354
Strike %: 64.10%
Contact %: 81.98%

Thanks guys.

5/28 Pitcher Preview: Erik Bedard

2008-05-28T18:10:00.001-04:00

Here is Erik Bedard according to Inside Edge and Baseball Info Solutions. Inside edge is from espn.com while BIS is from fangraphs: I am going to use 2007 data because the IE data on espn.com is for his whole career unfortunately and not just 2008

Very interesting to see just how much their numbers are off. I guess that goes to show how inaccurate it can be to chart pitches from television. The biggest concern I have with this data is how different the curveball percentages are. From my experience, curves are the easiest pitches to chart.

I will look at the pitch f/x data and update the post later tonight.

UPDATE: To see Bedard through pitch f/x, refer to this terrific article by Mike Fast from January.

To give an example of what Mike and I talked about in the comments, here is a quick look at spin angle vs speed:
Just from eyeballing that data, which is not broken down by pitch type, you can see three clear sets of data: Fastball which has the most speed, changeup which is the smallest set to the right and the curve ball to the left. If you look closely at the fastball data set, you can see the bottom left part of that is starting to break off from the rest of the points. That is the cutter Mike talks about.

Bedard is definitly not throwing a slider. The slider would show up around the 80-85 mph range with a spin angle around 150.

Hope that helps anyone who is wondering what the data looks like before it is dissected.

Sinker Release Points

2008-05-28T00:05:00.000-04:00

After reading tonight's Cubs F/X post regarding Derek Lowe, it made me think about sinker ball pitchers. About a week ago while watching rookie Justin Masterson pitch, I decided to take a quick look at the release points of various known sinker ball pitchers around the league.

Three questions keep popping up for me when looking at these numbers.

1. Is this data skewed because of the various parks?
A: Yes it is. I don't know how much though. Josh Kalk would be able to explain better.

2. How much of this data is affected by differing mound heights at each park?
A: I asked Mike Fast this a couple weeks back and he basically said the errors in last years data had much more to do with park inconsistencies than mound height. This is an unknown area still waiting to be explored.

3. Is the release point data affected by where you stand on the mound?
A: I haven't read anything on this, but my guess would be yes. Some pitchers like to stand on the right of the rubber, others like to be off to the left. Some pitchers choose the rubber side based on the hitters hand. Has anyone done more work in this regard?

Lastly, if we can normalize all of this data, how much can teams, players and fans learn about release points? Will there be a time when we can look at a pitcher who is standing on the right side of the rubber and see that his breaking pitches would be more effective from the left side? Will we be able to evaluate release point data from a medical point of view? Will we be able to have a better understanding of arm slot in regards to injury history?

The great thing about looking at this data everyday is that you always find more questions you want answered. As Tom Tango said yesterday "You are all on the path to reach the pinnacle of sabermetrics". The more data that becomes available, the more questions that arise.

Isn't it wonderful?

Manny Ramirez vs Pitch Speed

2008-05-27T17:00:00.000-04:00

So here is a quick look at Manny Ramirez vs various pitch speeds.

So what kind of conclusions can we draw from this chart? Well, until we calculate league average, not much. We can't know if this is good or bad. One thing I can say is that his contact percentage is fairly consistent vs pitch speed. I am looking forward to calculating the league averages at these various speeds to see just where Manny is on average.

My next two projects will be calculating league average at these various speeds and then doing some random players to see if anything jumps out.

With that said, does anyone have any stats that they would like to see?

Disclaimer: BABIP includes HR's. The BABIP is off from what fangraphs has because there are pitches that aren't tracked by Pitch F/X