A Look at Advanced Scouting Reports

Special thanks to Baseball Prospectus' hitting guru Ryan Parker in his assistance with this piece.

As the league has slowly begun to work on adjusting to White Sox slugger Jose Abreu, the common sentiment has been to throw off-speed away and fastballs in on his hands. In the nascent stages of Yasiel Puig's development, advanced scouting reports read the very same: "hard in, soft away." Such is quite likely the most common advanced scouting report.

This scouting report is sensible. Of course, it's effective for a pitcher to throw a breaking ball inside to a same-side hitter for the simple fact that the pitch will likely begin on a collision course with the batter. However, there are very few who can actually get a breaking ball on the inner third without either hitting the batter or casting a breaking ball in the middle of the plate. Throwing off-speed away gives the pitch more time to break as well as increasing the margin of error. The pitch also breaks away from the hitter's hands.

Throwing fastballs in makes sense for a multitude of reasons. Pitchers often bust power hitters in so they lack the opportunity to extend their hands, limiting them from driving the baseball. It also has a tendency to cause ground balls since hitters can rarely pull their hands in enough to make solid contact with the baseball.  Possibly the most important aspect of throwing fastballs inside stems from Perry Husband's theory of effective velocity. Through years of studying Major League hitters, Husband found that a hitter has far less time to react to a pitch on the inner portion of the plate than a pitch outside. He found the difference so noticeable that a fastball up and in appeared eight miles per hour faster than one that was low and away despite the two pitches having identical radar gun readings.

Even before Husband's findings, it was an acceptable thought that hitters had far less time to react to an inside pitch. On top of getting to the hitter quicker or slower, there is a mechanical difference on how hitters do their damage based on the location of the pitch. Hitters don't hit an inside, middle, or outside pitch at the same depth. An inside pitch will be hit furthest out in front and an outside pitch will be hit furthest back. There is just over sixty feet from the pitching rubber to home plate. An outside pitch might actually go the whole sixty feet, while an inside pitch would have to be hit before it reaches the plate for it to be struck well.

As always, Baseball Savant was paramount for running PITCHf/x queries on results on how batters have faired against each type of pitch in every quadrant of the zone. Classifying four-seam, two-seam, sinkers, and cutters above 92 mph as the "hard stuff," I looked at hitters with the highest percentage of pitches on the five inner quadrants of the zone. Similarly, I looked at all other pitches below 85 mph on the outer five quadrants.

Hard In to RHB

Num	Name	Hard In/Total Pitches	Percentage of Hard In
1	Jose Bautista	754/4640	16.2500%
2	B.J Upton	718/5484	15.6632%
3	Gordon Beckham	635/4065	15.6215%
4	Josh Willingham	713/4628	15.4062%
5	Torii Hunter	743/4865	15.2724%

Looking at Bautista's hit map against good velocity, it doesn't actually seem that Bautista has much trouble with inside pitches. In fact, Bautista has hit 52 of his 192 homeruns in that time period on pitches on the inner half. The only zone he has hit more is right down the middle of the plate.

There's not exactly a trend amongst these five hitters. Both Bautista and Upton have an open set-up at the plate, while both Beckham and Hunter start their respective swings with their hands close to the body. These mechanical cues could be significant in how to pitch a hitter, or they could be insignificant and only anecdotally relevant data points.

Soft Away to RHB

Num	Name	Soft Away/Total Pitches	Percentage of Soft Away
1	Wilin Roasrio	405/3414	11.8629%
2	Chris Denorfia	430/3854	11.1572%
3	Jesus Guzman	329/2919	11.0654%
4	Giancarlo Stanton	517/4699	11.0023%
5	Alfonso Soriano	560/5195	10.7796%

Every single one of these hitters have a wRC+ of over a 100. Other than Denorfia, all of these hitters have above average raw power. It makes sense for pitchers to shy away from throwing any velocity to the inner half to Stanton and Soriano, two hitters with incredible wrist strength.

Hard In to LHB

Num	Name	Hard In/Total Pitches	Percentage of Hard In
1	Adam Lind	733/3781	19.3864%
2	Matt Carpenter	890/5100	17.4510%
3	Chase Utley	703/4074	17.4510%
4	Raul Ibanez	726/4194	17.3709%
5	Dustin Ackley	839/4904	17.0911%

Utley sticks out like a sore thumb when looking closer. His hands are incredibly quick to the ball, making it easy for him to handle velocity in. Sure enough, his heat map against pitches upwards of 92 mph reflects that his hits come on the inner half for the most part.

Both Utley and Ackley are extremely open when they begin to shift their weight in the batters box. Lind and Ibanez thrive when they are able to extend their hands, so it makes sense to bust them in.

Soft Away to LHB

Num	Name	Soft Away/Total Pitches	Percentage of Soft Away
1	Juan Francisco	341/2663	12.8501%
2	Ike Davis	555/4352	12.7528%
3	Carlos Pena	471/3759	12.5299%
4	Luke Scott	302/2438	12.3872%
5	Matt Joyce	548/4770	12.2595%

Here's the most interesting chart. All five hitters are power bats who struggle to maintain regular playing time due to below-average hit tools. The next five in terms of gross number of pitches soft away are Adam Dunn, Jay Bruce, Eric Hosmer, Freddie Freeman, and Chris Davis.

The takeaways make sense. Power bats from the left side are easily compromised by soft stuff because they are usually looking for velocity over the middle of the plate to drive. A handful of the hitters exposed by velocity inside have an open batting stance, requiring them to drift towards the plate to begin their swing, which can allow them to get tied up.

Overall, there aren't many hitters who show up on both lists. While "hard in, soft away" is sensible, it may not be the most practical. There are advantages for either pitching tactic, however only a select few hitters are compromised by both hard inside and soft away.

All statistics courtesy of the goldmine that is Baseball Savant.

Daniel Schoenfeld is a contributor at Beyond the Box Score and can be followed at @DanielSchoe