Strikeout pitch sequences, by location

Recently, I skimmed the surface of the complicated subject that is pitch sequencing by looking at the most common two and three-pitch sequences of pitch types employed by big league pitchers to strike out hitters. While the type of pitch tells us one piece of information, there are obviously other aspects of these pitches that play a role in their overall description and effectiveness.

Today I'm going to revisit the same data set from 2013, but this time focus on pitch location. For now, I'm breaking up location into its horizontal and vertical components. At least for me, I would like to see each pitch characteristic separately first, and let some observations based on those results direct the next level of inquiry. As before, I will examine both two-pitch and three-pitch sequences.

Horizontal Location

For the purposes of this study, I have broken up the horizontal plane into five regions, based on the strike zone that I have found is being called in 2013 as discussed here. The regions are "OutB" for pitches that would be balls off the outside corner, "OutS" for pitches in the outer third of the zone, "MidS" for pitches in the middle third of the zone, "InsS" for pitches in the inside third of the zone and finally "InsB" for pitches that would be balls off the inside corner.

2-pitch sequences

Here are the most common sequences to strike out hitters.

Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Count
OutS	OutS	1831
MidS	OutS	1740
MidS	MidS	1647
OutS	MidS	1469
InsS	OutS	1138
MidS	InsS	1137
OutB	OutS	1126
InsS	MidS	1090
OutS	InsS	1029
InsS	InsS	966

Most common 2-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts, 2013

The first observation is that basically every strikeout ends with a pitch that crosses the front of the plate in a location that is within the horizontal extents of the typically called strike zone. This tells us that hitters are not chasing pitches off the outside edge and whiffing at an alarming rate, for example.

There is certainly a greater affinity for the outer edge of the strike zone than the inner, which is not surprising to me. I do find it interesting that the middle of the zone is pitched to as much as it is, but remember the vertical component is missing from this perspective, so "middle" could still mean the pitch is down below the knees in a relatively safe location.

Here is the pitcher leaderboard for more common strikeout two-pitch sequences.

Pitcher	Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Count
Cliff Lee	MidS	InsS	22
Yu Darvish	OutS	OutS	20
Lance Lynn	MidS	OutS	18
Eric Stults	OutS	OutS	18
Bartolo Colon	OutS	OutS	18
Tim Lincecum	OutS	MidS	17
Shelby Miller	OutS	OutS	17
Max Scherzer	OutS	MidS	17
Max Scherzer	MidS	MidS	17
Lance Lynn	OutS	Outs	17
Greg Holland	MidS	MidS	17
CC Sabathia	MidS	OutS	17

Most common 2-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts by individual pitcher, 2013

Impressively, Cliff Lee leads the pack here and does so by finishing off hitters on the inner third of the plate, a much less common horizontal location. Of note as well here is Tim Lincecum, whose three most common strikeout sequences finish with a pitch in the middle third of the zone. This tends to agree with his woeful ranking on Bill Petti and Jeff Zimmerman's Edge% leaderboard at Fangraphs.

3-pitch sequences

For consistency with the previous pitch types article, here are the abbreviated leaderboards for the league and individual pitchers for most common three-pitch strikeout sequences from a horizontal location perspective.

Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Pitch 3	Count
OutS	OutS	OutS	575
MidS	OutS	OutS	568
MidS	MidS	MidS	536
MidS	MidS	OutS	518
OutS	MidS	OutS	495

Most common 3-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts, 2013

Pitcher	Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Pitch 3	Count
Yu Darvish	OutS	OutS	OutS	11
Bartolo Colon	MidS	OutS	OutS	11
Max Scherzer	OutS	MidS	MidS	9
Chris Tillman	MidS	OutS	OutS	9
Tim Lincecum	MidS	MidS	MidS	8
Max Scherzer	OutS	OutS	MidS	8
Matt Moore	MidS	MidS	MidS	8
Greg Holland	MidS	MidS	MidS	8
Eric Stults	OutS	OutS	OutS	8
Cliff Lee	MidS	MidS	InsS	8
A.J. Griffin	MidS	OutS	OutS	8

Most common 3-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts by individual pitcher, 2013

A few new names pop up here. One trend appears to be that guys with elite fastballs are showing up throwing to the middle third of the plate a lot. This agrees with some work that I have done before, showing how velocity and strike zone location play together.

Vertical Location

Based on the same defined strike zone, I have broken up the vertical plane into five regions as well. The regions are "TopB" for pitches that would be balls above the strike zone, "TopS" for pitches in the upper third of the zone, "MidS" for pitches in the middle third of the zone, "BotS" for pitches in the bottom third of the zone and finally "BotB" for pitches that would be balls below the strike zone.

2-pitch sequences

Here are the most common sequences of vertical pitch locations to strike out hitters.

Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Count
BotB	BotB	1539
MidS	BotB	1392
BotS	BotB	1389
MidS	BotS	1252
BotS	BotS	1208
BotB	BotS	1153
MidS	MidS	1149
BotS	MidS	986
TopS	BotB	903
MidS	TopS	875

Most common 2-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts, 2013

The overwhelming majority of strikeouts come on pitches in the lower third of the strike zone or below. I have to admit, I am surprised that there are not more strikeout pattern that end with "TopS" or even "TopB" vertical locations, given the ability of high fastballs to induce whiffs. In the previous study, we found that all fastballs still generate the most strikeouts, so I was expecting to see a more balanced result here. Certainly breaking balls and offspeed pitches would be expected to be more successful when kept low, so these would be contributing heavily to these totals.

A significant point to me is to see how many strikeouts actually come on pitches that would typically be called balls had the hitter been able to lay off the offering. This is a major difference between the horizontal and vertical views of the location, as earlier we did not see any common strikeout sequences finish out of the zone in the horizontal plane.

Here are the individual pitcher leaders for most common strikeout two-pitch sequences.

Pitcher	Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Count
Yu Darvish	BotB	BotB	24
Mat Latos	BotB	BotB	21
Ervin Santana	BotB	BotB	20
Max Scherzer	MidS	BotB	18
Patrick Corbin	BotB	BotB	18
Felix Hernandez	BotB	BotB	18
Cole Hamels	BotB	BotB	17
Hisashi Iwakuma	BotB	BotB	17
Edwin Jackson	BotB	BotB	17
Justin Masterson	BotS	BotS	17
Adam Wainwright	BotS	BotB	17

Most common 2-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts by individual pitcher, 2013

Justin Masterson is the only pitcher to have made the leaderboard by staying within the called strike zone. The rest of the leaderboard shows how important it is for pitchers to keep the ball down. We recognize Darvish, Santana, Jackson and Masterson as having put away sliders from the previous study looking at pitch types.

Checking in on Tim Lincecum who we touched on above, his strikeout pitches are also heavily weighted toward a final pitch below the strike zone, mitigating some of the problems caused by hitting the middle third of the plate. He is in fact the first pitcher down the leaderboard to post a setup pitch above the middle third of the zone, with 13 "TopS" to "BotB" sequences leading to strikeouts.

3-pitch sequences

Finally, we consider the most common three-pitch sequences in terms of vertical location.

Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Pitch 3	Count
BotS	BotB	BotB	463
MidS	MidS	BotB	386
BotB	BotB	BotB	386
MidS	BotS	BotB	384
TopB	TopB	TopB	380

Most common 3-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts, 2013

Pitcher	Pitch 1	Pitch 2	Pitch 3	Count
Yu Darvish	BotS	BotB	BotB	11
Max Scherzer	MidS	MidS	BotB	9
Edwin Jackson	BotB	BotB	BotB	9
Max Scherzer	TopB	TopB	TopB	8
Hisashi Iwakuma	MidS	BotB	BotB	8
Ervin Santana	BotS	BotB	BotB	8
Yu Darvish	BotS	BotB	BotS	7
Patrick Corbin	BotS	BotB	BotB	7
Max Scherzer	MidS	MidS	BotS	7
Mat Latos	BotB	BotB	BotB	7
Gio Gonzalez	TopB	TopB	TopB	7
Ervin Santana	BotB	BotB	BotB	7
Chris Tillman	TopB	TopB	TopB	7

Most common 2-pitch sequences ending in strikeouts by individual pitcher, 2013

Interestingly, we see a new pattern hit the leaderboard when expanding to three pitches, one where every pitch is above the top of the strike zone. This is closer to what I thought I might see as a result of the frequency of FF-FF-FF leading to strikeouts found in the previous article. On the individual level, Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez and Chris Tillman all have shown an aptitude for putting away hitters while staying up.

By adding a third pitch, we also start to see more sequences where at least one of the pitches would be in the strike zone, at least vertically speaking.

Through looking at the components of pitch location, we have gained a couple of additional insights into pitch sequencing leading to strikeouts. The bigger challenge, of course, is to combine the pitch type, horizontal location and vertical location information, at a minimum, in such a way as to start understanding pitch sequencing at more than a cursory level.

Here is an updated Google document that has the full list of two-pitch and three-pitch sequences for individual pitchers for pitch type, horizontal location and vertical location. Only those sequences that occurred at least four times are included in the tables.

. . .

Credit and thanks to Baseball Heat Maps for PITCHf/x data upon which this analysis was based. Data includes all games up to and including July 8, 2013 to match the previous pitch sequencing article.

You can follow me on Twitter at @MLBPlayerAnalys. <a href="https://twitter.com/MLBPlayerAnalys" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @MLBPlayerAnalys</a>
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