Hitter Analytics (4/19/15) – First Look at 2015 Data

Weekly update:

• First release of 2015 data.
• I combined some of the categories and found some stabilization points with the details in this article.

Pitchers’ Approach Attacking Hitters

Robert Arthur at Baseball Prospectus has shown pitchers will change their approach depending on the hitter’s talent level. Here is a complete list of the number of fastballs (including sinkers) thrown to each hitter of the past two years divided into half seasons. Also the number of pitches in the strike by half season is included along with the fastball percentage in the strike zone.

Batted Ball Profiles

Inside Edge tracts nine distinct batted ball types. The data includes the normal three distinctions of Groundball, Line Drive and Fly ball. Additionally, the designations of Weak, Medium and Well-Hit are used. I went and combined several of the categories as discussed in this article.

Here are the league average values for each of the six combined batted ball categories.

Batted Ball Type: xBABIPwHR, wOBAcon, Overall %
Hard FB: 0.641, 1.162, 7.6%
Hard LD: 0.719, 0.820, 11.0%
Hard GB and Weak and Med LD: 0.644, 0.619, 13.6%
Medium GB: 0.461, 0.423, 9.6%
Weak GB: 0.151, 0.116, 32.0%
Weak and Medium FB: 0.075, 0.074, 26.3%

With these values, I have created three values to determine a hitter’s talent level.

• BABIPwHR (including home runs, but excluding bunts) – Number of batted balls which went for hits.
• wOBAcon (how hard is the contact) – Each hit is weighted to an average run value. I used 0.9 for single, 1.25 for doubles, 1.6 for Triples and 2.1 for home runs.
• Orig_xBABIP – I created this formula a while back which uses hard hit batted balls and Speed Score to estimate a player’s BABIP

Additionally, I have put some stats on a Plus system to help put the values in context. A value at 1.00 is league average, 90 is 10% below league average and 1.10 is 10% above league average. The nine categories or ordered by likelihood of getting a hit. If you want them in order of damage done per hit move the Well-Hit Fly balls to first in the list.

Additionally here are the 2015 leaders in wOBAcon, xwOBAcon and the difference between the two.

wOBAcon Leaders

NAME	wOBAcon	xwOBAcon	Total
Alex Rodriguez	0.770	0.480	20
Adrian Gonzalez	0.766	0.550	35
Joey Votto	0.606	0.485	31
Mike Trout	0.604	0.505	28
Steven Souza	0.588	0.355	20
Lorenzo Cain	0.579	0.475	33
Stephen Vogt	0.573	0.451	26
Nelson Cruz	0.573	0.417	33
Jake Lamb	0.569	0.454	21
Paul Goldschmidt	0.562	0.466	30
Jedd Gyorko	0.180	0.272	22
Leonys Martin	0.175	0.260	36
Mike Napoli	0.172	0.267	25
Melky Cabrera	0.169	0.227	32
Curtis Granderson	0.167	0.319	27
Rene Rivera	0.165	0.318	26
Ben Revere	0.145	0.347	31
Didi Gregorius	0.138	0.176	26
Chris Carter	0.135	0.290	20
Shane Victorino	0.123	0.191	22

xwOBAcon Leaders

NAME	xwOBAcon	wOBAcon	Total
Will Middlebrooks	0.570	0.417	29
Adrian Gonzalez	0.550	0.766	35
Bryce Harper	0.542	0.548	22
Howie Kendrick	0.534	0.455	33
Corey Dickerson	0.525	0.558	30
Freddie Freeman	0.523	0.428	29
Jason Castro	0.506	0.374	21
Mike Trout	0.505	0.604	28
Mitch Moreland	0.504	0.373	22
Starling Marte	0.495	0.345	21
Albert Pujols	0.242	0.274	31
Elvis Andrus	0.241	0.224	39
Carlos Ruiz	0.241	0.245	22
Xander Bogaerts	0.234	0.353	29
Juan Uribe	0.231	0.205	22
Melky Cabrera	0.227	0.169	32
Adam Eaton	0.215	0.185	33
Shane Victorino	0.191	0.123	22
Ichiro Suzuki	0.180	0.260	20
Didi Gregorius	0.176	0.138	26

Largerst Difference

NAME	wOBAcon	xwOBAcon	wOBAcon	Total
George Springer	0.188	0.441	0.253	21
Ben Revere	0.145	0.347	0.202	31
Logan Morrison	0.180	0.359	0.179	30
Robinson Cano	0.296	0.468	0.172	35
Chase Utley	0.209	0.377	0.168	33
Dioner Navarro	0.194	0.351	0.157	25
Chris Carter	0.135	0.290	0.155	20
Rene Rivera	0.165	0.318	0.153	26
Curtis Granderson	0.167	0.319	0.153	27
Will Middlebrooks	0.417	0.570	0.152	29
Yonder Alonso	0.419	0.278	-0.141	26
Jose Iglesias	0.469	0.324	-0.145	31
Adam Jones	0.548	0.397	-0.151	33
Nelson Cruz	0.573	0.417	-0.156	33
Alejandro De Aza	0.534	0.372	-0.162	25
Giancarlo Stanton	0.462	0.288	-0.174	25
Adrian Gonzalez	0.766	0.550	-0.216	35
Steven Souza	0.588	0.355	-0.233	20
Michael Cuddyer	0.550	0.306	-0.244	26
Alex Rodriguez	0.770	0.480	-0.290	20

Plate Discipline

A few years back, I found walk and strikeout rates can be found using O-Swing%, O-Concat%, Z-Contact% and Z-Swing% values found here at FanGraphs. By looking at a hitter’s approach, we can get a quick idea if they are hacking too much at bad pitches and will this approach catch up with them. Additionally, I included what the expected value would be if regressed corrected. Strikeouts and walks regress in a small number of samples, so this value will near the actual production rather quickly.

 

Times to First

I am collecting times from home to first base when a hitter is giving it their all to beat out a throw for a hit. With this information, changes in talent from age or injuries could be detected. Readers can submit times to first information by commenting in any of my articles or filling out the form below. All I would need is the player, handedness if a switch hitter, game and inning. If you can time the run even better. If you don’t have the chance to time the run, just let me know the other information and I can watch the game. I will check each when I have time and I will add them to the spreadsheet.

Additionally, here is a simple tool to give me some times

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