Automatic Outs

Remember Eno Sarris? Yeah, me neither. But I used to co-host the podcast with a guy who liked to talk about infield flyballs or pop-ups and their value for a pitcher. In essence, they are automatic outs. They almost never turn into hits and the rare times they yield a base runner is usually because of an error. Pop-ups are gold for pitchers. After years of thinking that pitchers had zero control once the ball left their hands, we now acknowledge the value of contact management for pitchers. Their arsenal and approach can improve their ability to induce poor, playable contact either on the ground or in the air.

Since co-hosting with that one guy who loved pop-ups, I’ve had a leaderboard saved for Automatic Outs which has a pitcher’s infield flyballs, strikeouts, and total batters faced. I export it to Excel and calculate their AO%: the number of plate appearances ending in an Automatic Out (I know there can be dropped third strikes, guy who is getting ready to comment down below… relax!). I used a sample of 151 pitchers with at least 40 innings, which eliminated all full-time relievers, but a few swingmen snuck in. The average of the group was 25%. Here’s a look at the Top 40, which happened to perfectly include everyone at 28% or higher:

There are no real surprises at the top, which makes sense since strikeout rate is doing most of the heavy lifting here, but we do see some of the early standouts adding Automatic Outs via the pop-up with Ross Stripling, Caleb Smith, Mike Foltynewicz and J.A. Happ all in the top 15. In fact, Smith (20%), Stripling (19%), and Happ (16%) are all among the 15 in pop-ups. Folty is 22nd at 15%. They didn’t make the top 40 cut, but Junior Guerra (17%) and Kyle Gibson (18%) are leveraging pop-ups to supplement their decent strikeout rates.

Here’s a look at the top 25 in infield flyball rate:

Frankly, I’m surprised the Mets infielders even catch the pop-ups that deGrom induces given how often they waste his greatness. Jake Odorizzi charting well on infield flyballs with an improved strikeout rate (+2 pts to 23%) would intrigue more if he didn’t also allow a ton of home runs (1.6 the last 3 yrs). I guess the same goes for Masahiro Tanaka, but he’s on the shelf until his hamstring transplant is done so we’ll worry about that later. Maybe infield flyballs are the key to sporadic success of Reynaldo Lopez. By raw count, only Marco Estrada (19) has more infield flyballs than Lopez (18). Smith and Justin Verlander are tied with 18, as well.

There are 15 guys from the top 40 in AO% who have a 10% or lower infield flyball rate:

As you can see from this list, infield flyballs are not a prerequisite for success. It’s just an added bonus for those who can induce that kind of contact regularly. Given the small samples involved, the guys at the bottom of this list could flip their rate with a couple of good games.

So that’s a quick look Automatic Outs. It’s not some holy grail to uncovering gems, but I like to keep an eye on it throughout the season. When that guy who used to co-host the pod wasn’t talking about sandwiches, he was talkin’ pop-ups and now I notice them whenever I’m watching a start. It’s not a super common event, but they are helpful. Strikeouts are the fantasy lifeblood, but pop-ups are automatics and getting a couple every three starts can enhance a guy’s bottom line, especially the ones that come with runners on and help a pitcher out of a jam.