Why do sinking fastballs cause groundballs?
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The Hardball Times found this 8/3/2007 on www.hardballtimes.com [flag] |
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Comments (9)
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David Gassko +4GREAT article, Chris. -
Joe2 I notice that a similar number of "airborne" balls are generated by both groups of pitchers.
Does this indicate that most groundball-inducing pitchers induce their GBs at the expense of strikeouts?
This makes sense, as it just highlights the importance of groundballers with great K rates.
Or am I way off base?
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constancio That's one way of looking at it. But remember I'm not really looking at strikeouts because the unit of analysis here is a single pitch-and-swing event.
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studes Nice job, Chris. I particularly liked the easy-to-understand graphics. -
mlentzner Nice article. I think you're on to something here. I hoping you'll be able to split up the data by same handed batter v pitcher and opposite hand batter v pitcher. Then we'll be able to see a better distinction between pitching inside and outside.
One thing I think that needs to be taken into account is the side to side movement of the pitch. Just accounting for the vertical movement sort of assumes the level bat hitting model - which I hope I proved is too naive. Once you model an angled bat then you can show how down and in is the most effecient way to get a ground ball as opposed to just down. If that's not clear I will explain more.
Besides sink, the sinker has a distinct tail to it and I feel this is key to its ability to evoke ground balls. The pitch is trading some of its vertical hop for tailing action.
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constancio Thanks. I share the same interests and hypotheses.Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable focusing on specific pitcher types or pitches and disaggregating by batter handedness (or other batter features) because there simply isn't enough data yet.In fact, I've been sitting on this article and some other for quite some time now waiting for more data to come in. I do think some folks will come up with fantastic models for pitcher/batter interactions within the next year or two, however. Hopefully "tip of the iceberg" pieces like this one will inspire more questions and research.
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hardcoreUFO It think its a pretty simple matter of pitches that have downward movement will tend to be hit with the bottom half of the bat when they are hit at all. Similarly, you will probably find that rising fastballs tend to result in fly balls.
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Vinay Kumar Great job, Chris. Good research, and an excellent presentation of the data.
It helps that the data shows a clear relationship that you could focus on, of course, but even then, it's still not trivial to communicate it to the reader, and you did a very good job at that.
I look forward to you having enough data to address some of the follow-up questions that have come up in this thread.
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tangotiger Agreed, excellent look.
When I aggregate data of handedness, I don't do it by the "pitcher's" point-of-view as Chris is showing, but simply by the "batter's" point-of-view. That is, change the three columns from "1b-side, middle, 3b-side" (as the pitcher would see it) to "inside, middle, outside" (as the batter would see it).
And, when data permits, "same-side" and "opposite-side" to show the handedness of the batter/pitcher.
Links (5)
God bless Mike Bacsik
Published 8/3/2007 by Chip's Moody Blues at Uwe Blog
... A fantastic look at pitches and the truth behind sinkerballers and groundball outs. Kudos to ...
Link Round-up
Published 8/4/2007 by Angela S. at Serious Dismay Sports
... * The Hardball Times: Why do sinking fastballs cause groundballs? ...
Sunday Links: Home Run Charts, Steinbrenner and El Guapo
Published 8/5/2007 by Kristin at Drunken Bleachers Blog
... Why do sinking fastballs cause groundballs? [The Hardball Times] ...
Scott Baker Home Runs
Published 8/13/2007 by ubelmann at The WGOM
... ver the middle. Up and over the middle. Not up that much, but still basically a meatball, especially to someone like Frank the Tank. Up and over the middle. Our first enhanced gameday pitch location, which should be a lot more accurate than the classic gameday locations. I m not sure what to say about this pitch. It s not all that up, and it s not all that over the middle, but it s also not exactly a good location. Thank you sir, may I have another? Meatball. Again, not up in the zone so much as right in the center of it. An off-speed pitch on the inner half. So far up it wasn t even a strike. Summary: To me, it looks like when Baker has allowed home runs, it has been at least as much because he s left the ball over the middle of the plate as it is because he s left the ball up. As far as whether or not Baker should try to pitch lower in the strike zone, I think that s a trickier question. From what I can tell (and certainly, given his GB%), Baker throws a 4-seam fastball. ...
That Sinking Feeling: Part Deux
Published 9/7/2007 by Joe Sheehan at Baseball Analysts
... A quick note about the charts, in the past when I have used graphs like this to show the location of pitches, I've always done so from the catcher's perspective. I've gotten several requests to show those graphs from the pitcher's perspective, which is how these are. Anyway, the chart shows where sinkers are thrown to, but is the location why the sinkers are turned into ground balls? Chris Constancio has already looked at this topic and while I only considered balls-in-play and used a different set of pitchers than Constancio, (and still have a relatively small sample) my conclusion is only slightly different. ...