The quote: Belt is aggressive right now, maybe overly aggressive. He swings first and asks questions later. Or in this case, answers questions. How’s the new approach working out for you, Brandon? “I’d rather be overaggressive and have to back off than be too passive,” Belt said. “Even today, I was a little bit too aggressive. That last at-bat, I… Read more →
Blog post caveat: It’s still extremely early in the season. I had to get that out of the way. I’ve really enjoyed watching Brandon Belt work at-bats this season. We know that certain things like how often a player will swing at pitches tends to become reliable pretty early. And we should wait until we reach some of those mile… Read more →
Today’s quick post is a heat map of swings taken by two hitters with totally different approaches to hitting, Pat Burrell and Pablo Sandoval. Burrell is your classic ‘takes a lot pitches, doesn’t swing much outside of the zone’ masher. In 11 seasons in the majors, he’s averaged 82 walks per per season while seeing an average of 4.18 pitches per plate… Read more →
Your ‘Wednesday Graph’ is coming early this week. I decided to make a gigantic team plate approach graph — using the 9 players on the team with the most plate appearances. Red circles are swings, green circles are non-swings. (Click to view the extra-large version. Large version is a little clearer.) Players are listed in no particular order. Quick thoughts… Read more →
I’m a big fan of Dave Allen and his work with PitchF/X. Dave has put out some really cool — and informative — graphs by using PFX data. His post today on FanGraphs and Jason Heyward’s struggles against breaking pitches down in the zone got me thinking — how is Aaron Rowand looking so far this year? Stealing, er, borrowing… Read more →
Anyone who’s watched a Pablo Sandoval at-bat should be able to realize within a few pitches that Sandoval likes to swing the stick. According to Fangraph’s O-Swing% statistic (the number of pitches outside of the strike zone that a batter swings at) Sandoval has swung at 41.8% of the pitches he’s seen this year outside of the strike zone. Among… Read more →