Tom Glavine - The Great Plate Avoider
In Glavine's return to Atlanta, his long-held belief that the strike zone is for losers (or guys with better stuff) held firm. No one* threw less strikes in 2008 than Tom Glavine. He also managed to avoid the prime hitting area** "better" than anyone else in the majors, too.
*the comparison sample for this piece includes all pitchers with 500+ pitches recorded by PITCHf/x in 2008
** the middle 8 inches of the plate + the next four inches inside (AKA fatins).
Over 100 pitches, Glavine threw about 18 more balls out of the zone than an average pitcher. He threw 17 less pitches down the pipe.
Slicing and Dicing
Let's slice that up another way - to be in a "slice", the ball can't be high or low out of the zone. I'll drill in below, but, for now, here's "out", "fat" and "in". Fat is part of the FatIns above, but here, In and Out will cover balls and strikes.
Glavine does tend to work away out of the zone, amongst the most extreme in the baseball, but not all the way to the outer limits (AKA Livan Hernandez). Here's another look, each slice is shown now.
Glavine likes that outside edge, as we all know. The "edge"is the last inch of the plate, plus a region off the plate that is typically viewed by batters and umpires as strikes. The "sides" are those 4 inches just out and in from the "fat".
Even more notable than the outside nibbling, is the lack of fat and sides - both of them. The for hitting the middle three slices is around 38%, while Glavine only goes there about 19% of the time - essentially, half as often.
Pitch Types
Glavine is primarily a fastball (FA) and change-up (CH) artist, but he mixed in a few dozen other pitches - sliders (SL), cutters (FC) and curves (CU). With the two primary pitches, Glavine, as you'd expect, follows his overall pattern with little deviation.
He may sneak in a little with the change, but the fastball is away, away and away.
Now, throw in the other three pitches, and you'll see the slider works about the same way as the first two, but the cutter and curve do not.
He'll throw the curve over the plate, and go inside with the cutter. Other than that, Glavine stays away and/or out of the zone like nobody else in the game.
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13 comments
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Comments
Awesome stuff.
I like seeing a few pitches’ or a few pitchers’ distributions by location.
I think it would be really useful to see everything broken out by batter handedness, as throwing a slider inside to lefties isn’t the same as inside to righties from a lefty pitcher. I have a feeling he uses certain pitches in different ways/locations depending on the handedness of the batter.
I especially wonder if Glavine throws the cutter against only one handedness and the slider against another, probably cutter against righties, which makes sense because cutters tend to get pounded inside. It looks like it’s going to tail over the plate to them, but continues inside, which is what the chart shows. Sliders against lefties would be thrown to look like fat fastball, but slide to the outside.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
by Sky Kalkman on Feb 24, 2009 8:09 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Splits
Sample sizes, first
CH L 112
CU L 7
FA L 193
FC L 5
SL L 15
CH R 320
CU R 6
FA R 351
FC R 21
SL R 7
Gather your grains of salt, OK?
by Harry Pavlidis on Feb 24, 2009 9:16 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Um, yeah, that'll do, Harry.
Glavine didn’t throw many sliders or cutters, but my hunch about their uses against L/R was right.
Are your flight-path graphs easy to generate? Would be nice to see how his pitches compare in flight, mostly fast/cutter/slider, and maybe change.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
by Sky Kalkman on Feb 24, 2009 9:44 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Virtually impossible to create, takes an ungodly effort
by Harry Pavlidis on Feb 24, 2009 9:57 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Ok, Scotty, enough out of you.
Slider and cutter seem to break the same, interestingly enough. Maybe slider just a bit more. Interesting that the cutter is more to the right side of the plate (he pumps righties more inside than he does lefties outside with the breaking stuff.) Fastball and change are exactly the same but different speed. I’m thinking that’s a good thing.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
by Sky Kalkman on Feb 24, 2009 10:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
SL/FC CH/FA
the cutter is faster (longer) and the slider has a bit of a hump. The change just comes along like the heat and drops on ya.
by Harry Pavlidis on Feb 24, 2009 10:12 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
This is terrific stuff
You just can’t find this anywhere else. I’d love to be able to do stuff like this over at VEB.
by chuckb on Feb 24, 2009 9:06 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
I'm thinking of fan-posting my next Perez piece over there
since the ideas came from your post/comments
by Harry Pavlidis on Feb 24, 2009 9:12 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
that'd be great
I’ll front-page it if you do, especially since my post/comments came from your Perez piece ;)
by chuckb on Feb 24, 2009 11:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Is there a tie-in between Glavine living on the outside corner and Graham's recent observation of LHB/RHB strike zones?
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
by Sky Kalkman on Feb 24, 2009 10:18 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
I'd like to see
what his charts look like for Glavine alone – does he getter even better calls than average?
by Harry Pavlidis on Feb 24, 2009 10:29 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
This is fantastic work, Harry. Really good job here.
by xanthan on Feb 24, 2009 11:26 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

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