Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2021 4:54:31 GMT -5
So, a guy takes a pitch over the heart of the plate for strike 3. Obviously he was looking for something else, right?
This has happened a lot recently.
It occurred to me that when this happens, the opposing team has outsmarted the hitter. They've figured out what he's looking for in this situation, and thrown something else.
Well, if that's the case, shouldn't the same team be good at not getting outsmarted when they're hitting? Shouldn't teams that freeze a lot of batters with strike threes in the heart of the plate (as defined by Statcast) be the same teams that don't have that happen a lot to their hitters, simply because they have a better model of expected pitches thrown?
Well, I didn't really expect one year's data to be statistically significant, but it is. In 2019 the inverse correlation has p = .0501.
Who do you think led MLB with 129 EPS by pitchers but just 79 by their hitters, for a +50? Of course it's the Rays. Pirates were second, Astros 3rd, Red Sox 4th. Five worst were the Jays, Mariners, Rockies, Tigers, and O's.
Sox are leading MLB this year (25 by the pitchers, 13 by the hitters), but so far there's no correlation between this year's results and those from 2019. I suspect that who you've played is a big factor.
Perez has 8 (second in MLB to Darvish with 10), Barnes and Ottavino 3, Whitlock, Andriese 2 and E-Rod 2, Houck, Darwinzon, Taylor, Eovaldi, and Pivetta 1 (breaking ties by fewer pitches thrown). Richards, Brice, and Valdez have 0. Perez really stands out: the rest of the top 10 are Musgrove, Cole, Glasnow, Burnes, Means, Bauer, and Dillon Maples, who's having a breakout year in relief for the Cubs.
On the other side of the ledger, Marwin has 4, Arroyo and Dalbec 2, Cordero, Verdugo, JDM, Xander, and Kiké 1.
There was no change in the EPS rate (per pitch) from 2017 to 2020. This year it's up 17%, so I'm not hallucinating that second sentence. That has to be the new ball, and it's gotta be the same thing that has made umpires have such an awful year: lighter weight, higher spin rate, leading to bigger breaks, but more importantly, less success tracking pitches.
It's trivial to gather all the team-by-team data for 2017 to now at once, and I may do that some time in the next few days.