First Pitch Swinging - Good or Bad?

by Diving Catch on Jul 22, 2006 6:39 PM PDT

Too many times I'm infuriated by the tendency of Halo hitters to swing at the first pitch. I figure I need some perspective, so I head to the stats pages to see what's what. Below are the numbers from the 2006 season when hitting with the count at 0-0.

Link at http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/Statistics/Team/playerstats?team=laa&seasonYear=2006&split=64& amp;seasonType=2&type=reg&pagetype=batting

Some things I see right off the bat:

Overall results for many players are better than I expected. Maybe I'll be more tolerant of some players but not others.
Vladdy swings at the most first pitches (I knew that) but his BA at .333 is about the same as his overall average. GA, AK, OC, and Q also seem to have high BA when first pitch swinging.
Napoli, Morales and Rivera should NEVER swing at the first pitch. Morales seems to be worse at this lately with declining results.
Any other comments from the Halo faithful?
Do you like it or hate it?

NAME            G    AB    BA    OBP    SLG    OPS
Vladimir Guerrero    75    81    .333    .329    .506    .835
Garret Anderson    53    51    .392    .385    .510    .894
Adam Kennedy    57    44    .409    .409    .545    .955
Chone Figgins    66    41    .317    .326    .415    .740
Orlando Cabrera    70    38    .421    .415    .632    1.046
Kendry Morales    33    31    .161    .161    .355    .516
Jose Molina        21    26    .346    .370    .577    .947
Juan Rivera        39    23    .174    .200    .261    .461
Robb Quinlan    21    19    .421    .421    .526    .947
Mike Napoli        32    14    .214    .313    .429    .741
Tim Salmon        21    13    .385    .429    .846    1.275
Casey Kotchman    14    12    .250    .250    .333    .583
Tommy Murphy    17    11    .273    .250    .364    .614
Dallas McPherson    18    10    .500    .500    .500    1.000
Darin Erstad    12    9    .333    .333    .444    .778
Maicer Izturis    25    8    .250    .250    .625    .875
Howie Kendrick    5    4    .000    .200    .000    .200

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Comments

I hate first pitch swinging too...

...but if the Angels didn't, pitcher would groove their first pitch for an easy strike to get ahead of the hitter. Probably some Sabremeterician geek out ther who could make sense out of tossing away one strike for each at bat.

But crap, I sure do miss the relentless ways of the 2002 team, which seemed to me to challenge every pitch and wear down starting pitchers.

Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand. - Leo Durocher

by Stirrups on Jul 22, 2006 11:35 PM PDT reply actions

Cabrera's OB streak

The Angels hit better when we are working counts.

OC became a leader during his streak, and the other Angels followed suit with better ABs, though his overall OBP didn't wasn't that noteworthy. Remember how Eck wouldn't even think about swinging until he had that first strike? But he is a master at making a 2 strike count last forever....miss him, too.

by Diving Catch on Jul 23, 2006 10:34 AM PDT up reply actions

See more pitches

should also look at the averages in 1-0 2-0 counts. I'm always in favor of seeing as many pitches as possible, who would you rather face in the 7th inning, King felix or emiliano fruto? Try to get the starter out of the game and get to the long relief, often average journeyman or, well, brendon donnely, esteban yan types.

A bad day at the ballpark is better than the best day at work

by SoCalSoxFan @ Halos Heaven on Jul 23, 2006 12:35 AM PDT reply actions

Definitely

the averages for 1-0 and 2-0 are much better for most players. For example, DMac is batting 1.000 for the 3 2-0 counts he's seen this season. Funny, Garret is 0-6 in 2-0 counts while Morales is 5-8. Probably Garret sees off-speed in that count, while Morales the rookie gets the fastball.

by Diving Catch on Jul 23, 2006 10:13 AM PDT up reply actions

the Scott Hatteberg response

remember the story in Moneyball? Hatteberg hits around .400 when he swings at the first pitch, but rarely does he actually swing at the first pitch. People were telling him to swing more often at the first pitch because, 'dude, you hit like .400 when you swing at the first pitch', to which he replied, in effect, 'yeah, but that's because i only swing at what i can hit.'

by ziggy on Jul 23, 2006 12:56 AM PDT reply actions

I hated that book

Yeah, I know. Sacrilege. Tough s4!t. I hated it. Somehwere in that book is a quote from DePodesta calculating how many wins the A's roster for that year should win. His last sentence was something like "That should be good enough." He was talking about making the playoffs. He was right. They won that many games. They made the playoffs. But the point of competition is being the champion, and in baseball that is eomthing more than just making the playoffs. And yes, that was one of the years the A's melted down in the playoffs.

The lame cop-out excuse is that the stats don't work in a short series. It's all luck. Bulls4!t. It's luck. It's discipline. It's execution. It's fortitude. And it's will power. And the A's stats approach totally ignores everything but execution. That whole "so and so picked up the team and carried them on his shoulders" never happens in Bill James' world.

Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand. - Leo Durocher

by Stirrups on Jul 23, 2006 10:04 AM PDT up reply actions

hi

you missed the point of the book then. It was to illustrate how a team with a low payroll could compete at a high level using a unique philosophy.

by ClutchHomer on Jul 23, 2006 10:45 AM PDT up reply actions

No. I got the point being made.

And it was the wrong point. The point of sports is not too compete. It is to win.

Ther are probably multiple ways to put together a team that can be competitive. Using stats to do it on a low budget is merely one of them.

But the book itself is what missed the point. From an economists mind, being highly profitable is the measure of success. But in sports, the only measure is being champ. One winner. One success. For everybody else, it's "next year".

Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand. - Leo Durocher

by Stirrups on Jul 23, 2006 11:01 AM PDT up reply actions

point

the main goal for any team is to make the playoffs, anything can happen really in the playoffs. You can hate the book or whatever, but you have to respect the fact that Billy Beane consistently puts a successful team on the field with a payroll that is a fraction of the big boys (Red Sox, Yanks, angels etc).

A lot of people say the Moneyball way is to draft just college guys, but that's not really it, it's getting guys that can help the MLB team quickly and in a cost effective way. If you think about it, the Angels have done that to an extent by thinking outside of the box and drafting Adenhart (just off of arm surgery )outside of the tenth round when he was first round talent, Mark Trumbo, and others.

I also hate people (like Joe Morgan) who act like Billy Beane wrote the damn book. If anyone is looking for a good read, that is kind of the the counterpoint to Moneyball, check out Scouts Honor, it's about the Braves and their philosophy of taking toolsy guys with high upside. I actually enjoyed both books, good to see both perspectives.

A bad day at the ballpark is better than the best day at work

by SoCalSoxFan @ Halos Heaven on Jul 23, 2006 11:49 AM PDT up reply actions

ok

my point exactly, you missed the point of the book.

by ClutchHomer on Jul 23, 2006 11:58 AM PDT up reply actions

didn't miss

the point of the book. . . people generalize when referring to the book, when it's obvious they didn't read it.

A bad day at the ballpark is better than the best day at work

by SoCalSoxFan @ Halos Heaven on Jul 24, 2006 6:08 PM PDT up reply actions

I read it....

good book. Some contradictions I thought, but good book overall. Actually made me agree with some of their philosophy. (For example, who gives a f*** how fast a baseball player runs the 60 in compared to what they have actually done on a baseball field?)

by thewebb on Jul 24, 2006 10:55 PM PDT up reply actions

I read it. Every word on every page.

And I wrote my comments in the margins. The copy is still on my book shelf. I generalize because I did not want to go on writing all day, and my specific comments are in the marginalia, not in my head.

We shall agree to disagree. I hated the book. Bill James probably has a better understanding of the long-term consequences within the game than I do, and I leave that to him and his fellow sabremetricians to enjoy. Billy Beane needed to find a way to be successful enough to keep fans in their seats with one hand tied behind his back, and he found his way. Hats off to him. My position is that getting to the playoffs is the necessary first step, but it is merely the first step, not the reason for existence of any competitive endeavor. Being champion is. "Anything can happen" is fo rthe Bill Buckners of the world. I will put my faith in the Reggie Jacksons, Thurman Munsons, Pete Roses, Don Drysdales, etc.

I am a dinosaur. Just think of me as being blissfully happy in my ignorance and we will get along well.

Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand. - Leo Durocher

by Stirrups on Jul 26, 2006 2:28 PM PDT up reply actions

Choices

Agreed that the 'right pitch' probably makes the difference. I guess I expected Napoli, known for working counts and good idea of the strike zone, to have a higher average when swinging 0-0.

by Diving Catch on Jul 23, 2006 10:24 AM PDT up reply actions

Players generally have higher BA on an 0-0 count

It's the eternal delemma for...pitchers.

What's interesting about first pitch swinging is that the Angels are 10th in the AL in 0-0 BA and 11th in batting overall. So they're not gaining a huge advantage relative to other teams by swinging at the first pitch.

HOWEVER, they are 14th (that's, um, last) in SLG on first pitch swinging (.476). And they're last by a lot (league average is .543 on an 0-0 count). What that probably means is that they, indeed, or NOT swinging at good pitches, because they are not driving the ball well (relative to what other batters are doing when swinging at a first pitch).

So, is swinging at the first pitch good or bad? Neither. As always, what really matters is whether or not you are swinging at a good pitch to hit. And the Halo's aren't.

Special note: The Tigers are hitting .392 (!) when they swing at the first pitch, an increase of 117 points beyond their overall average. And they're slugging .624 to boot! Now maybe THERE'S a team I wouldn't throw first pitch strikes to...

by johnnyangel101 on Jul 23, 2006 11:06 AM PDT reply actions