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Believe it or not, most of our writers didn't enter the world sporting an @baseballprospectus.com address; with a few exceptions, they started out somewhere else. In an effort to up your reading pleasure while tipping our caps to some of the most illuminating work being done elsewhere on the internet, we'll be yielding the stage once a week to the best and brightest baseball writers, researchers and thinkers from outside of the BP umbrella. If you'd like to nominate a guest contributor (including yourself), please drop us a line.

Brian Mills is a dual graduate student in Sport Management and Statistics and runs the blog Prince of Slides. As a former college player and high school coach, he continues to find ways to keep his mind on baseball and off of real life. While Brian mostly encounters management and economic problems in the office, he enjoys dabbling in sports analytics and playing fantasy baseball in his free time. He and his fiancée have two cats, Callie and Ripken. You can probably figure out who got to name them.

Every year we hear about rookies breaking out unexpectedly and tearing through the first half of the season. Then it all falls apart. Sportswriters often conclude that the player must have been "figured out" by the opposing team: perhaps when players are first called up, in order to save time and energy, opposing pitchers simply put the ball over the plate to allow them to make their own outs. In some cases, this ends up being a big mistake.

To see whether this rookie adjustment is real, I set out to look for any systematic differences in pitch locations to rookie and veteran players, and for evidence of adaptation by opposing pitchers later in the season. My first step was to see if the location of pitches for rookies (defined here as players who debuted during the 2010 season) differs in any way from more veteran guys. We can do this in two ways: Check the difference in percentage of pitches within the rulebook strike zone for rookie batters and veterans; and check to see if the average distance from the center of the plate differs between these two groups of players. If pitchers aren’t worried about putting a ball over the plate to rookies, then it seems reasonable that these players would see more pitches near the center of the plate and within the strike zone.

As a first step, I ran a regression analysis of average linear distance from the center of the plate, controlling for count, pitcher, batter handedness, whether or not the pitch is within the strike zone (as defined by the edge of the plate, a bottom of the zone at 1.75 feet, and a top of the zone at 3.45 feet), whether there are runners on base, the inning, the outs, the count, the spread in score (rookies may be more likely to play in blowout situations when pitchers would be less fine in their location), and whether or not the pitcher or the batter debuted in 2010. The result: there is no discernable difference in how far pitchers are from "grooving" pitches to players who debuted in the current season. 

But this is likely not the whole story. If pitchers are throwing pitches in some sort of systematic dichotomy—rookies get pitches down the pipe or way off the plate, while veterans see pitches mostly near the edges of the strike zone—we may not see any difference in this average linear distance variable. Therefore, it is also important to examine the percentage of pitches within the strike zone. To do this, I used a logistic regression, with similar independent variables from the previous analysis, and then re-ran my first regression—for the distance of the pitch from the center of the zone—separately for pitches within and outside the strike zone. The results are similar: no significant difference for 2010 debuts and the rest of the players in the data. The pitch maps below show the location densities for each group of players.


 

Strikingly similar pictures of pitch location, and this turns out to be the case even when you break down pitches by count. (See tables at the end of this article.)

However, I’m still not completely satisfied. Perhaps pitchers adjust to the player’s tendencies during the course of the season, rather than being consistent through the entire year. Maybe this is why our maps look so similar: the adjustment eventually smooths things out to look identical.

Solving this took a bit more statistical muscle. First, I sequenced each pitch seen for every player, to see if there are any changes during the players’ first season in the bigs. From there, I took the average percentage of pitches within the strike zone for each pitch (first to last) to all rookies. A simple regression shows a very small statistically significant result in the expected direction: as time goes by, pitchers are less likely to throw the ball down the middle.

There is a slight change here, noted by the red lines. However, it turns out that this effect is not real. Only 25 of the 142 players in the sample saw a full 633 pitches. If we restrict the sample to only these players, the "adjustment" slope disappears

Why? Well, it turns out that the players that saw fewer pitches were most likely lower-level rookies, and therefore received more pitches near the middle of the plate. Once these guys are weeded out, the remaining rookies pull the average Within Zone Percentage down (and Distance From Center upward). So what we're seeing seems to be simply an effect of better rookies—who last longer—seeing fewer pitches down the pipe. Essentially, top rookie hitters are treated similarly to top veteran hitters, while those without known power are treated like David Eckstein

In the end, it seems that once a player hits the majors, the book is out on him. Certainly there could be cases where batters suddenly stop getting pitches grooved down the middle, but in general it's not happening often enough to show up in the data. As a whole, each player tends to see a similar approach throughout the entire season, rather than a sudden—or even gradual—in season adjustment to the swinging tendencies.

 

Table 1:

2010 Rookies

 

 

Total Pitches Seen

Total Pitches Within Zone

Percent of Pitches Within Zone

0-0 Count

11878

4845

40.79%

0-1 Count

5701

1870

32.80%

0-2 Count

2853

637

22.33%

1-0 Count

4894

2057

42.03%

1-1 Count

4652

1697

36.48%

1-2 Count

4185

1145

27.36%

2-0 Count

1694

796

46.99%

2-1 Count

2411

1021

42.35%

2-2 Count

3580

1286

35.92%

3-0 Count

541

250

46.21%

3-1 Count

962

477

49.58%

3-2 Count

2068

947

45.79%

Totals All Counts

45419

17028

37.49%

**Green indicates that the rate is higher than the more veteran players, while Red indicates the rate is lower.

2010 Veterans

 

Total Pitches Seen

Total Pitches Witin Zone

Percent of Pitches Within Zone

0-0 Count

166992

68635

41.10%

0-1 Count

79418

25958

32.69%

0-2 Count

37355

8172

21.88%

1-0 Count

69284

29225

42.18%

1-1 Count

65852

24657

37.44%

1-2 Count

57346

15330

26.73%

2-0 Count

24695

11097

44.94%

2-1 Count

35426

15303

43.20%

2-2 Count

49540

17226

34.77%

3-0 Count

8418

3767

44.75%

3-1 Count

15332

7454

48.62%

3-2 Count

30224

13852

45.83%

Totals All Counts

639882

240676

37.61%

**Green indicates that the rate is higher than the MLB 2010 Debuts, while Red indicates the rate is lower.

 

 

 

Table 2: Player by Player Pitches Seen Within Strike Zone (>300 Pitches Seen; Includes Pitchers)

First Name

Last Name

% of Pitches
Within Strike Zone

Total Pitches Seen

MLB Debut in 2010

Drew

Butera

45.36%

582

Yes

Darwin

Barney

45.35%

333

Yes

Peter

Bourjos

45.08%

701

Yes

Danny

Valencia

42.48%

1163

Yes

Danny

Worth

42.27%

414

Yes

Cole

Gillespie

41.98%

455

Yes

Chris

Heisey

41.61%

858

Yes

Ruben

Tejada

41.47%

914

Yes

Jason

Donald

41.46%

1153

Yes

Jose

Tabata

41.19%

1595

Yes

Lorenzo

Cain

40.97%

642

Yes

Scott

Sizemore

40.76%

628

Yes

Daniel

Nava

40.48%

751

Yes

Brad

Davis

40.09%

459

Yes

Austin

Jackson

40.03%

2703

Yes

Will

Rhymes

40.03%

742

Yes

Jonathan

Lucroy

39.49%

1175

Yes

Wilson

Ramos

39.27%

303

Yes

Casper

Wells

39.24%

367

Yes

Ryan

Kalish

39.00%

741

Yes

Allen

Craig

38.48%

499

Yes

Jesus

Feliciano

38.22%

437

Yes

Starlin

Castro

38.05%

1832

Yes

Carlos

Santana

37.55%

799

Yes

Dayan

Viciedo

36.72%

354

Yes

Chris

Carter

36.63%

303

Yes

Mike

Stanton

36.49%

1592

Yes

Domonic

Brown

36.33%

311

Yes

Jordan

Brown

36.11%

324

Yes

Pedro

Alvarez

36.11%

1501

Yes

Danny

Espinosa

35.48%

434

Yes

Josh

Bell

35.15%

549

Yes

Jason

Heyward

35.13%

2582

Yes

Logan

Morrison

35.03%

1179

Yes

Justin

Smoak

34.92%

1532

Yes

Mitch

Moreland

34.67%

675

Yes

Jon

Jay

34.60%

1234

Yes

Jason

Castro

34.09%

883

Yes

Lucas

Duda

32.51%

363

Yes

Brennan

Boesch

31.66%

1769

Yes

Brett

Wallace

31.44%

633

Yes

Ike

Davis

30.19%

2375

Yes

Chris

Carter

28.57%

623

Yes

Matt

Treanor

47.21%

985

No

Mike

McCoy

47.16%

335

No

Roy

Halladay

47.15%

333

No

Juan

Castro

46.99%

498

No

Jack

Wilson

46.15%

728

No

Marco

Scutaro

46.15%

2802

No

John

McDonald

45.00%

560

No

David

Eckstein

44.99%

1847

No

Jason

Kendall

44.69%

1828

No

Brent

Lillibridge

44.59%

370

No

Lou

Marson

44.39%

1131

No

Elvis

Andrus

44.30%

2686

No

Jamey

Carroll

44.30%

1799

No

Eric

Young, Jr.

44.09%

694

No

Francisco

Cervelli

43.87%

1158

No

Dustin

Pedroia

43.84%

1510

No

Kevin

Cash

43.74%

471

No

Eric

Patterson

43.64%

857

No

Rob

Johnson

43.63%

855

No

Bobby

Wilson

43.44%

389

No

Ramon

Castro

43.35%

489

No

Kevin

Frandsen

43.32%

561

No

Placido

Polanco

43.11%

2120

No

Sean

Rodriguez

43.09%

1432

No

Brett

Carroll

42.77%

346

No

Kevin

Youkilis

42.50%

1854

No

Angel

Sanchez

42.50%

1026

No

Brendan

Harris

42.49%

466

No

Jayson

Nix

42.41%

1271

No

David

Ross

42.40%

592

No

Jason

Repko

42.18%

569

No

Jose

Molina

42.18%

671

No

Freddy

Sanchez

42.17%

1750

No

Ben

Francisco

42.16%

733

No

Jacoby

Ellsbury

42.07%

309

No

John

Hester

42.06%

428

No

Tommy

Manzella

42.04%

1068

No

Kurt

Suzuki

41.99%

1879

No

Garrett

Atkins

41.97%

579

No

Paul

Janish

41.97%

834

No

Jed

Lowrie

41.96%

777

No

Joaquin

Arias

41.93%

508

No

Mike

Lowell

41.69%

897

No

Kelly

Shoppach

41.63%

723

No

Andrew

McCutchen

41.62%

2626

No

Reed

Johnson

41.59%

690

No

Jeff

Mathis

41.59%

731

No

Mark

Ellis

41.58%

1787

No

Julio

Lugo

41.57%

991

No

Austin

Kearns

41.52%

1864

No

Pat

Burrell

41.51%

1838

No

Edgar

Renteria

41.50%

1065

No

Henry

Blanco

41.47%

516

No

Aaron

Hill

41.45%

2118

No

Omar

Infante

41.39%

1795

No

Brandon

Inge

41.38%

2383

No

Matt

Tuiasosopo

41.37%

539

No

Bobby

Crosby

41.36%

723

No

Mike

Aviles

41.24%

1559

No

Reggie

Willits

41.24%

788

No

Taylor

Teagarden

41.23%

342

No

Casey

Blake

41.23%

2416

No

Wil

Nieves

41.21%

597

No

Chone

Figgins

41.20%

2893

No

Rajai

Davis

41.20%

1903

No

Ryan

Theriot

41.17%

2334

No

Ty

Wigginton

41.17%

2390

No

Willie

Bloomquist

41.17%

651

No

Brandon

Wood

41.12%

890

No

Denard

Span

41.10%

2657

No

B.J.

Upton

41.03%

2364

No

Geovany

Soto

41.03%

1555

No

Matt

Carson

41.00%

300

No

Michael

Young

40.96%

2695

No

Howie

Kendrick

40.96%

2395

No

Jeff

Keppinger

40.94%

2196

No

Wilson

Valdez

40.93%

1224

No

Martin

Prado

40.86%

2555

No

Asdrubal

Cabrera

40.79%

1547

No

Craig

Tatum

40.78%

434

No

Scott

Podsednik

40.78%

2283

No

Jason

Bartlett

40.76%

2024

No

Ronny

Paulino

40.76%

1288

No

Buster

Posey

40.74%

1706

No

Michael

Brantley

40.73%

1311

No

Ryan

Spilborghs

40.71%

1523

No

Gregor

Blanco

40.70%

1081

No

Alex

Gonzalez

40.58%

2319

No

Jason

Bay

40.57%

1521

No

Nick

Stavinoha

40.56%

429

No

Aaron

Cunningham

40.53%

486

No

Wes

Helms

40.51%

1212

No

Juan

Pierre

40.51%

2723

No

Mike

Cameron

40.50%

684

No

J.J.

Hardy

40.49%

1482

No

Kevin

Kouzmanoff

40.48%

1969

No

Jonathan

Herrera

40.44%

1041

No

Cody

Ross

40.44%

2238

No

Carlos

Ruiz

40.42%

1806

No

Adam

Rosales

40.40%

995

No

Alberto

Gonzalez

40.40%

703

No

Gerald

Laird

40.31%

1084

No

Magglio

Ordonez

40.30%

1320

No

Josh

Wilson

40.25%

1441

No

Luis

Valbuena

40.24%

1250

No

Andy

Marte

40.24%

758

No

Chris

Iannetta

40.23%

952

No

Ryan

Hanigan

40.22%

982

No

Darnell

McDonald

40.22%

1380

No

Nick

Punto

40.21%

1144

No

Mark

Grudzielanek

40.18%

448

No

Brendan

Ryan

40.12%

1797

No

Brett

Gardner

40.08%

2617

No

Adam

Moore

40.07%

801

No

Gaby

Sanchez

40.07%

2423

No

Yadier

Molina

40.05%

1890

No

David

Freese

40.02%

1022

No

Ronny

Cedeno

40.01%

1932

No

Ramon

Hernandez

40.00%

1280

No

Gordon

Beckham

39.98%

1801

No

Chris

Denorfia

39.97%

1231

No

Adam

Everett

39.94%

338

No

Melvin

Mora

39.91%

1383

No

Max

Ramirez

39.89%

351

No

Bill

Hall

39.87%

1565

No

Matt

Diaz

39.86%

838

No

Ronnie

Belliard

39.81%

731

No

Tony

Abreu

39.78%

729

No

Erick

Aybar

39.76%

2032

No

Jose

Lopez

39.74%

2114

No

Jason

Bourgeois

39.71%

549

No

Orlando

Cabrera

39.70%

1791

No

Jerry

Hairston

39.68%

1797

No

Pedro

Feliz

39.66%

1402

No

Mark

DeRosa

39.64%

391

No

Nick

Hundley

39.60%

1149

No

Alexi

Casilla

39.58%

614

No

Bengie

Molina

39.54%

1449

No

Yunel

Escobar

39.49%

1932

No

Alcides

Escobar

39.46%

2101

No

Drew

Stubbs

39.45%

2337

No

Russell

Martin

39.44%

1463

No

Jayson

Werth

39.43%

2830

No

Paul

Konerko

39.42%

2542

No

Ryan

Ludwick

39.42%

2164

No

Cliff

Pennington

39.41%

2286

No

Mike

Napoli

39.36%

2078

No

Rickie

Weeks

39.35%

2948

No

Orlando

Hudson

39.34%

2102

No

Derek

Jeter

39.32%

2706

No

Gabe

Kapler

39.26%

591

No

A.J.

Ellis

39.24%

502

No

Jason

Michaels

39.22%

770

No

Oscar

Salazar

39.21%

607

No

Troy

Glaus

39.16%

1910

No

Rusty

Ryal

39.16%

835

No

Miguel

Tejada

39.12%

2285

No

Rafael

Furcal

39.11%

1685

No

Ian

Kinsler

39.11%

1749

No

Scott

Hairston

39.07%

1336

No

Xavier

Nady

39.05%

1306

No

Chris

Snyder

39.02%

1594

No

Alberto

Callaspo

39.02%

2040

No

Trevor

Crowe

39.01%

1784

No

Brett

Hayes

39.00%

300

No

Cesar

Izturis

38.85%

1668

No

Daric

Barton

38.84%

2997

No

Jose

Guillen

38.76%

2201

No

Chris

Young

38.73%

2778

No

Aaron

Rowand

38.73%

1255

No

Tony

Gwynn

38.69%

1326

No

Miguel

Cairo

38.69%

822

No

Ian

Desmond

38.65%

2005

No

Andres

Blanco

38.60%

614

No

Ryan

Raburn

38.48%

1593

No

Ramiro

Pena

38.47%

616

No

Jorge

Cantu

38.47%

2007

No

Dewayne

Wise

38.46%

416

No

Marlon

Byrd

38.44%

2237

No

Jeff

Baker

38.43%

869

No

Michael

Cuddyer

38.43%

2480

No

Andy

LaRoche

38.38%

1003

No

Casey

McGehee

38.37%

2489

No

Edwin

Encarnacion

38.36%

1405

No

Franklin

Gutierrez

38.33%

2640

No

Corey

Hart

38.32%

2354

No

Dexter

Fowler

38.31%

2041

No

Alexei

Ramirez

38.28%

2223

No

Josh

Willingham

38.27%

1879

No

Augie

Ojeda

38.25%

332

No

Mike

Sweeney

38.23%

586

No

Alex

Rios

38.22%

2224

No

Ramon

Santiago

38.22%

1345

No

Yorvit

Torrealba

38.21%

1387

No

Matt

Kemp

38.20%

2623

No

Fred

Lewis

38.16%

1858

No

Derrek

Lee

38.16%

2639

No

Eli

Whiteside

38.12%

543

No

Anderson

Hernandez

38.12%

467

No

Matt

Downs

38.06%

423

No

Omar

Vizquel

38.04%

1509

No

Clint

Barmes

38.00%

1571

No

Yuniesky

Betancourt

37.96%

1860

No

Brandon

Phillips

37.93%

2481

No

J.D.

Drew

37.93%

2220

No

Rod

Barajas

37.86%

1157

No

Carlos

Quentin

37.85%

1873

No

Ryan

Sweeney

37.84%

1308

No

Felipe

Lopez

37.77%

1689

No

Troy

Tulowitzki

37.77%

1909

No

Scott

Rolen

37.77%

2142

No

Coco

Crisp

37.74%

1219

No

Aramis

Ramirez

37.73%

1948

No

Mark

Kotsay

37.72%

1368

No

Dan

Uggla

37.72%

2821

No

Milton

Bradley

37.69%

1101

No

Jason

Varitek

37.61%

468

No

Joe

Mauer

37.61%

2247

No

David

DeJesus

37.57%

1549

No

Evan

Longoria

37.51%

2567

No

Vernon

Wells

37.50%

2088

No

Julio

Borbon

37.50%

1560

No

Justin

Upton

37.48%

2385

No

Nate

McLouth

37.48%

1190

No

Nyjer

Morgan

37.47%

2191

No

Ryan

Zimmerman

37.47%

2410

No

Billy

Butler

37.46%

2544

No

Cameron

Maybin

37.44%

1282

No

Everth

Cabrera

37.41%

882

No

Casey

Kotchman

37.41%

1799

No

Xavier

Paul

37.40%

500

No

Michael

Bourn

37.39%

2423

No

Aaron

Miles

37.38%

503

No

Juan

Uribe

37.35%

2051

No

Maicer

Izturis

37.34%

924

No

Jose

Bautista

37.33%

2869

No

Miguel

Olivo

37.23%

1566

No

Brayan

Pena

37.22%

634

No

Chris

Getz

37.18%

952

No

Alex

Gordon

37.18%

1127

No

Carlos

Lee

37.13%

2203

No

Lastings

Milledge

37.12%

1479

No

Torii

Hunter

37.12%

2511

No

Matt

LaPorta

37.11%

1622

No

Laynce

Nix

37.10%

601

No

Luis

Castillo

37.06%

1190

No

Hunter

Pence

37.05%

2397

No

Manny

Ramirez

37.04%

1277

No

Willy

Aybar

37.01%

1232

No

Kila

Ka'aihue

37.01%

862

No

Ivan

Rodriguez

37.00%

1454

No

Nelson

Cruz

36.93%

1703

No

Matt

Tolbert

36.93%

352

No

Conor

Jackson

36.87%

933

No

Jhonny

Peralta

36.83%

2414

No

Todd

Helton

36.82%

2048

No

Stephen

Drew

36.81%

2502

No

Victor

Martinez

36.80%

2076

No

Craig

Counsell

36.79%

897

No

Corey

Patterson

36.79%

1120

No

Shin-Soo

Choo

36.78%

2518

No

Nolan

Reimold

36.77%

514

No

Delmon

Young

36.76%

1972

No

Skip

Schumaker

36.75%

1929

No

Adrian

Beltre

36.75%

2392

No

Geoff

Blum

36.73%

814

No

Mitch

Maier

36.73%

1669

No

Mark

Reynolds

36.71%

2563

No

Josh

Bard

36.67%

450

No

Emilio

Bonifacio

36.66%

821

No

Jorge

Posada

36.66%

1803

No

Alex

Avila

36.65%

1326

No

Carlos

Gomez

36.63%

1133

No

Marcus

Thames

36.62%

912

No

Hideki

Matsui

36.61%

2256

No

Ryan

Braun

36.59%

2539

No

Bobby

Abreu

36.58%

2840

No

Shelley

Duncan

36.54%

1018

No

Brian

Schneider

36.54%

561

No

Josh

Thole

36.54%

873

No

David

Wright

36.52%

2640

No

Nick

Markakis

36.51%

2821

No

Eric

Chavez

36.48%

466

No

Chris

Johnson

36.43%

1304

No

Shane

Victorino

36.34%

2372

No

Felix

Pie

36.33%

1035

No

Adam

LaRoche

36.32%

2448

No

Jeremy

Hermida

36.32%

939

No

Randy

Winn

36.31%

895

No

Adam

Jones

36.31%

2253

No

Alex

Rodriguez

36.27%

2338

No

Jack

Cust

36.18%

1755

No

Chris

Coghlan

36.18%

1603

No

Mark

Teahen

36.12%

1066

No

Joe

Inglett

36.10%

615

No

Andruw

Jones

36.08%

1361

No

Ken

Griffey

36.05%

430

No

Brian

Roberts

36.04%

1060

No

Carl

Crawford

36.02%

2482

No

Brooks

Conrad

36.01%

711

No

Jeff

Francoeur

35.98%

1779

No

Tyler

Greene

35.94%

434

No

John

Jaso

35.94%

1661

No

Nick

Swisher

35.91%

2545

No

Russell

Branyan

35.90%

1724

No

Chris

Dickerson

35.90%

429

No

Juan

Rivera

35.84%

1638

No

Ryan

Langerhans

35.84%

586

No

John

Buck

35.81%

1614

No

Humberto

Quintero

35.77%

942

No

Angel

Pagan

35.76%

2332

No

Adam

Kennedy

35.74%

1564

No

Willie

Harris

35.69%

1090

No

Johnny

Damon

35.68%

2511

No

Gabe

Gross

35.66%

959

No

A.J.

Pierzynski

35.65%

1596

No

Raul

Ibanez

35.57%

2533

No

Don

Kelly

35.54%

937

No

Ben

Zobrist

35.50%

2687

No

Jimmy

Rollins

35.50%

1462

No

Travis

Snider

35.47%

1201

No

Miguel

Montero

35.44%

1329

No

Roger

Bernadina

35.43%

1781

No

Jason

Jaramillo

35.36%

362

No

Seth

Smith

35.29%

1564

No

Andre

Ethier

35.29%

2196

No

Akinori

Iwamura

35.28%

890

No

Carlos

Guillen

35.26%

1021

No

Neil

Walker

35.25%

1790

No

Blake

DeWitt

35.23%

1842

No

Michael

Saunders

35.21%

1366

No

Andres

Torres

35.21%

2312

No

Lance

Berkman

35.20%

1909

No

Mike

Morse

35.14%

1070

No

Carlos

Gonzalez

35.13%

2266

No

Adam

Lind

35.06%

2319

No

Wilson

Betemit

35.05%

1304

No

Garret

Anderson

35.03%

588

No

Lyle

Overbay

35.01%

2359

No

Chase

Headley

34.99%

2638

No

Albert

Pujols

34.85%

2783

No

Matt

Holliday

34.85%

2565

No

Jonny

Gomes

34.78%

2001

No

Grady

Sizemore

34.75%

564

No

Jake

Fox

34.70%

709

No

Ichiro

Suzuki

34.69%

2724

No

Kendry

Morales

34.63%

800

No

Jason

Kubel

34.61%

2317

No

Kazuo

Matsui

34.56%

327

No

Jim

Edmonds

34.52%

1043

No

Carlos

Pena

34.51%

2286

No

Gregg

Zaun

34.48%

464

No

Rick

Ankiel

34.48%

931

No

Alex

Cora

34.48%

728

No

Cristian

Guzman

34.39%

1355

No

Mike

Fontenot

34.37%

1001

No

Jeff

Clement

34.36%

582

No

Jose

Reyes

34.34%

2216

No

Curtis

Granderson

34.29%

2164

No

Kelly

Johnson

34.24%

2757

No

Will

Venable

34.20%

1798

No

Hanley

Ramirez

34.18%

2285

No

George

Kottaras

34.16%

1013

No

David

Murphy

34.06%

1885

No

James

Loney

34.06%

2484

No

Eric

Hinske

33.99%

1268

No

Brad

Hawpe

33.99%

1430

No

Travis

Hafner

33.95%

1897

No

Landon

Powell

33.94%

495

No

Nick

Johnson

33.81%

420

No

John

Bowker

33.79%

651

No

Aubrey

Huff

33.72%

2556

No

Ian

Stewart

33.71%

1774

No

Kosuke

Fukudome

33.64%

1745

No

Matt

Wieters

33.64%

1974

No

Koyie

Hill

33.58%

816

No

Ryan

Doumit

33.57%

1716

No

Chipper

Jones

33.56%

1445

No

Dioner

Navarro

33.47%

502

No

Jim

Thome

33.43%

1421

No

Delwyn

Young

33.42%

796

No

Ryan

Church

33.33%

903

No

Justin

Maxwell

33.33%

579

No

Chris

Davis

33.27%

514

No

Joey

Votto

33.20%

2536

No

Scott

Moore

32.93%

334

No

Greg

Dobbs

32.93%

665

No

Matt

Joyce

32.91%

1091

No

Adam

Dunn

32.87%

2656

No

David

Ortiz

32.79%

2638

No

Matt

Stairs

32.77%

473

No

Jay

Bruce

32.76%

2134

No

Tyler

Colvin

32.75%

1435

No

Adam

Wainwright

32.69%

361

No

Mark

Teixeira

32.56%

2807

No

Dan

Johnson

32.54%

590

No

Adrian

Gonzalez

32.51%

2642

No

Reid

Brignac

32.42%

1274

No

Chase

Utley

32.32%

2033

No

Carlos

Beltran

32.22%

1015

No

Luke

Scott

32.14%

1991

No

Ross

Gload

31.95%

507

No

Colby

Rasmus

31.95%

2147

No

Josh

Hamilton

31.95%

2069

No

Jason

Giambi

31.93%

877

No

Nate

Schierholtz

31.90%

975

No

Robinson

Cano

31.90%

2414

No

Melky

Cabrera

31.84%

1903

No

Gerardo

Parra

31.84%

1382

No

Alfonso

Soriano

31.70%

2104

No

Travis

Ishikawa

31.67%

600

No

Brian

McCann

31.64%

2250

No

Miguel

Cabrera

31.52%

2367

No

Ryan

Howard

31.44%

2414

No

Garrett

Jones

31.34%

2578

No

Prince

Fielder

30.95%

2759

No

Vladimir

Guerrero

30.87%

2002

No

Kyle

Blanks

30.78%

510

No

John

Baker

30.77%

338

No

Justin

Morneau

30.31%

1356

No

Chad

Tracy

29.94%

628

No

Pablo

Sandoval

28.82%

2099

No

Thank you for reading

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TangoTiger1
4/08
Great job!
bmmillsy
4/08
Thanks, Tango. Appreciate the comment.

A quick note: While Pitchers remain in the table at the bottom, I DO remove pitchers from the original analysis in the article.

I did it with them in as well, but it didn't really change anything (given the 'non-pitcher' result, this should be expected, as I doubt the pitching approach to batting pitchers is really going to change: just let them make the out).
lichtman
4/09
"In the end, it seems that once a player hits the majors, the book is out on him. Certainly there could be cases where batters suddenly stop getting pitches grooved down the middle, but in general it's not happening often enough to show up in the data. As a whole, each player tends to see a similar approach throughout the entire season, rather than a sudden—or even gradual—in season adjustment to the swinging tendencies."

Good work!

Let's be careful about these generalized conclusions! You are looking at only a coarse and specific "approach" by pitchers - namely pitch location distribution and even then only as measured front he center of the plate or in and out of the zone. There are all other kinds of "approaches" that may change against rookies as the season goes on. The one you typically hear about is the percentage of fastballs or off-speed pitches thrown. Even then, one would have to be careful about lumping everyone together as if one group of players were thrown more off-speed as the season goes on and another group were thrown more fastballs, overall, the percentages would not change, as one would offset the other. Same thing actually with your study. What if as the season went on, some rookies were thrown more strikes and others were thrown less, depending on their perceived strengths and weaknesses?
bmmillsy
4/09
Hey MGL,

Thanks for the comments. I agree with all of your points. I was hoping to go a bit further later on and look at individual player trajectories. And I generally look at location, rather than pitch selection here. There are absolutely more things to look at. One of the reasons I have focused on location is that I don't have pitch types clustered throughout the data outside of the Gameday stuff.

I am hoping to get into looking more specifically at individual player trajectories and rather than 'grooving it' vs. 'not grooving it', look more specifically at changes in average location (inside-to-outside, up-to-down). Going through each player that way is a pretty big project.
rawagman
4/09
Very interesting article, Brian. Reading it, like MGL, I was thinking that, if anything, the rookies would be treated more like weaker hitters in that the opposing pitchers would be trying to blow the ball by them, location be damned. Pitchers seem to have a limited numbers of breaking balls in them, and they want to save those for the bigger threats. I would be very interested in seeing this study repeated for pitch type instead of location (easier to control for that than the variable of a pitcher missing his spots, right?)
BurrRutledge
4/10
This is very neat stuff. Like MGL, I think you'd have to look on an individual player-by-player basis. And also pitch type. When the pitchers figure out Rookie X taps curve balls to the shortstop, he's going to get a lot of sliders - but the pitch location may not necessarily change.

But, as you show, on a whole there is not a distinguishing difference in pitch location for rookies vs. established players.

Thanks for publishing this here!
BurrRutledge
4/10
"he's going to get a lot of curve balls
bmmillsy
4/10
Thanks for the comments! Definitely think there's added value in looking player by player, and certainly at pitch types. Hoping to check these things out in the near future. Definitely other angles to take at the 'approach to rookies' question.