Graph of the Day: Line Drives and Whiffs

by Harry Pavlidis on May 23, 2009 9:08 AM EDT

Playing around with the Gameday and PITCHf/x data is fun. We're working on a few things behind the curtains down here in Mom's Basement. Here's some early output of those efforts, and I'm giving you all two graphs today since I'm not sure what to make of this. Heck, you may never see Swiningg Strike to Line Drive ratios from me ever again. I dunno.

Two groups, based on pitch counts, and three segments within each. Best five, closest to average (which was about ~2.45 SS:LD across all Pitch f/x data) and the worst five.

Pelfrey, Silva and Loux are actually < 1.0, meaning they've yielded more line drives than whiffs. That's awful.

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by Zach Sanders on May 23, 2009 11:33 AM EDT reply actions

What's the thought here?

More swinging strikes should lead to less solidly hit balls?

by Dan Turkenkopf on May 23, 2009 7:45 PM EDT reply actions

It correlates with K%, which is pretty important for pitchers:

From this article:

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 23, 2009 10:52 PM EDT up reply actions

That doesn't surprise me very much.

I was just wondering about the connection to line drives.

Or is there a correlation between K rate and line drive rate too?

by Dan Turkenkopf on May 24, 2009 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Good question.

Sounds like Harry doesn’t really know and part of why he posted this was to get people to think about that. Or to think about what else LD% might be connected to. It’s obviously a bad thing. How flakey is it, though, year to year.

Is there a good reason we should be comparing SS and LD? Are they related at all? Maybe, maybe not. We tend to combine somewhat unrelated things together into stats a lot (K/BB, OBP+SLG) that give better measures of performance even though they tend to lose meaning. Both a good and bad idea.

One thing I really like about SS% is that it’s an even finer-toothed comb than K, BB, and HR. On its own it might not be a better indicator of success, but it’s explanatory value is at a finer granularity. It might not just be a measure of “stuff”, though, as a pitcher who can get to two strikes more often will get more hitters to chase a mediocre splitter than a pitcher who has to use his splitter on fewer 0-2 counts. The first pitcher might get more swinging strikes, but that’s a result of control than stuff. The more we can use pitch f/x to break down the pitcher/hitter matchup into explanatory variables, the better.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 24, 2009 1:18 PM EDT up reply actions

I could see there maybe being a connection between getting a lot of swinging strikes and generating bad contact...

I’ve found that line drive rate doesn’t vary very much when looking at pitch speed – although it was a very specific interpretation of pitch speed that might change if we defined it differently.

Does velocity affect swinging strike rate? Or is it more movement?

I understand the experimental nature of all this, and god knows I throw a bunch of things at the wall to see what sticks. It’s definitely an interesting winnowing process trying to see which things are connected, and determining whether one causes the other, or (more likely) what the underlying cause is of both.

by Dan Turkenkopf on May 24, 2009 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions

The thing that interests me is why is there really no significant different in BABIP ability?

Pedro has the stuff to record tons of strikeouts and doesn’t allow HRs. But when the ball’s put into play, those batted balls fall for hits only a bit less often than for Kyle Lohse? Seriously?

There must be some sort of trade off between K/BB/HR and BABIP. Small increases in BABIP are killer, so maybe a pitcher is willing to walk a few more hitters or strike out a few less in order to keep his BABIP not much higher than .300. If he can’t do that, he doesn’t stick in the majors. If he can do that, but the K/BB/HR combination gets too poor, he doesn’t stick, either. But if he can adjust K/BB/HR to ok levels while keeping the BABIP in check, then he’s a major leaguer.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 24, 2009 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Perhaps...

But we do see that the best pitchers tend to have better than expected BABIPs as well. At least over their career. Season to season numbers definitely vary, but there seems to be a pattern for the very best pitchers to outperform their teams.

The tradeoff is an interesting idea. I think you’re suggesting pitchers may pitch outside the zone more often than they might otherwise need to in order to reduce the amount of good wood on the ball. How many strikeouts equal a point in BABIP for overall effect?

by Dan Turkenkopf on May 24, 2009 3:50 PM EDT up reply actions

Good question.

I’d like to see all the equal trade-offs between changes K/BB/HR/BABIP. Not difficult and I’ll do it at some point, but anyone can feel free to beat me to the algebra.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 24, 2009 11:12 PM EDT up reply actions