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Slugging and Slicing

By Harry Pavlidis

For those of you who watched my quasi-realtime stream of data (errors) in the Bob Howry thread, here's the straight dope. 

  1. Percent (rate) of Pitches thrown in each slice
  2. Swing Rate in each slice
  3. In Play Rate (on swings) in each slice
  4. Slugging Rate (on balls in play/homers) in each slice

The slices are each 8 inches wide - with 4 inches on each "side" of the plate.  Fat, Sides, Edges, Off, Wide, Other.  Other is ultra wide of the zone or, simply, too high or low.

The bugs in my logic from before have been corrected, but the discussion on how high/low to set the slice borders (not just the width) is far from over.  So, using each hitter's average top and bottom zone (as set by the PITCHf/x operator), let's see how things fall-out this time.

First, a reminder on what the slices look like ("other" is not shown):

Zones_medium

For each step, I do exclude some pitches. For Step 1, getting all pitches, and all other steps, I exclude these pitches:

and a.event not in

('Batter Interference','Catcher Interference',

'Fan interference','Hit By Pitch')

and a.des not like '%caught steal%'

and a.des not like '%pick% off%'

and a.des not like '%steals%'

For step two, I just keep the swings

t.event in ('SS','F','X','HR')

and a.event not in

('Batter Interference','Catcher Interference',

'Fan interference','Hit By Pitch')

and a.des not like '%caught steal%'

and a.des not like '%pick% off%' and a.des not like '%steals%'

For steps three and four (really one step) I only count X and HR to arrive at slugging.

The results:

 

Side Slice # Rate Swings Swing Rate In Play In Play Rate Total Bases SLG TB/Pitch
Inside Fat 92,559 0.091 64,645 0.698 32,018 0.495 19,611 0.612 0.212
Inside Side 70,975 0.070 47,034 0.663 22,628 0.481 12,819 0.567 0.181
Inside Edge 49,635 0.049 28,123 0.567 12,143 0.432 5,672 0.467 0.114
Inside Off 30,752 0.030 12,043 0.392 3,919 0.325 1,549 0.395 0.050
Inside Wide 16,077 0.016 3,401 0.212 754 0.222 232 0.308 0.014
Inside Other 119,814 0.118 34,921 0.291 7,943 0.227 3,544 0.446 0.030

 

Side Slice # Rate Swings Swing Rate In Play In Play Rate Total Bases SLG TB/Pitch
Outside Fat 109,757 0.108 75,444 0.687 37,029 0.491 21,453 0.579 0.195
Outside Side 113,535 0.112 70,777 0.623 33,841 0.478 17,147 0.507 0.151
Outside Edge 97,127 0.096 49,472 0.509 22,090 0.447 9,179 0.416 0.095
Outside Off 68,265 0.067 23,147 0.339 9,161 0.396 3,317 0.362 0.049
Outside Wide 38,481 0.038 7,081 0.184 2,279 0.322 712 0.312 0.019
Outside Other 205,483 0.203 49,006 0.238 13,057 0.266 4,906 0.376 0.024

 

Slice # Rate Swings Swing Rate In Play In Play Rate Total Bases SLG TB/Pitch
Fat 202,316 0.200 140,089 0.692 69,047 0.493 41,064 0.595 0.203
Side 184,510 0.182 117,811 0.639 56,469 0.479 29,966 0.531 0.162
Edge 146,762 0.145 77,595 0.529 34,233 0.441 14,851 0.434 0.101
Off 99,017 0.098 35,190 0.355 13,080 0.372 4,866 0.372 0.049
Wide 54,558 0.054 10,482 0.192 3,033 0.289 944 0.311 0.017
Other 325,297 0.321 83,927 0.258 21,000 0.250 8,450 0.402 0.026

 

  # Rate Swings Swing Rate In Play In Play Rate Total Bases SLG TB/Pitch
Inside 379,812 0.375 190,167 0.501 79,405 0.418 43,427 0.547 0.114
Outside 632,648 0.625 274,927 0.435 117,457 0.427 56,714 0.483 0.090
All Pitches 1,012,460 1.000 465,094 0.459 196,862 0.423 100,141 0.509 0.099

OK, this makes much better sense now.  The "Other" and the top/bottom cut-off that plays a big part in creating it is subject to change, but I think I've nuked the stupid errors.

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