Conventional wisdom dictates that a hitter take a pitch on a 3-0 count. The pitcher has thrown three straight balls, so why not make him throw a few strikes in a row? On the other hand, the 3-0 pitch is probably the easiest to hit, as the pitcher has no margin for error and can’t afford to try anything fancy. Which is the more compelling argument?
Let’s begin with some descriptive analysis: who swings on 3-0 and who doesn’t? I looked at all 3-0 counts between 2003 and 2008, excluding intentional walks; below are the 20 players who swung most often (minimum 50 PA).
Player PA Swing % Sammy Sosa 57 25 43.9% Jeff Kent 127 46 36.2% Victor Martinez 144 50 34.7% Vladimir Guerrero 50 16 32.0% Matt Stairs 109 33 30.3% Jeff Bagwell 52 15 28.8% Ryan Howard 111 32 28.8% Luke Scott 63 18 28.6% Alfonso Soriano 89 25 28.1% Ben Broussard 80 21 26.3% David Ortiz 208 51 24.5% Jacque Jones 86 21 24.4% Torii Hunter 128 31 24.2% Jose Guillen 89 21 23.6% Mike Sweeney 65 15 23.1% Hank Blalock 112 25 22.3% Pedro Feliz 81 18 22.2% Craig Monroe 59 13 22.0% Matt Holliday 129 28 21.7% Jim Thome 180 38 21.1%
Here we find some of the usual suspects when it comes to hacking: Soriano, Jones, Guillen, et al. Surprisingly, though, we also find some very patient hitters such as Bagwell, Ortiz, and Thome. On the other end of the spectrum, there were 53 players who never swung at the 3-0 pitch. Here are the 20 with the most PA:
Player PA w/o a 3-0 swing Luis Castillo 153 Omar Vizquel 149 David Eckstein 141 Jason Kendall 140 Kevin Youkilis 136 Jose Reyes 132 Bobby Crosby 123 Scott Podsednik 123 Ray Durham 121 Mark Kotsay 117 Dave Roberts 105 David DeJesus 104 Frank Catalanotto 104 Juan Pierre 102 Mark Ellis 101 Kazuo Matsui 101 Darin Erstad 98 Ryan Freel 96 Curtis Granderson 95 Craig Biggio 90
Note that both groups feature some very good hitters, particularly the first. This is because a hitter needs to stay in a lineup and command a minimum of respect from pitchers in order to accumulate 50 PA with 3-0 counts.
Next, let’s look at 3-0 swing rates on the team level over that 2003-2008 period:
Team 3-0 Swing % Astros 14.5% Angels 14.1% Rangers 10.2% Indians 9.6% Royals 9.3% Mariners 9.3% Phillies 8.9% Rockies 8.5% Cardinals 7.9% Dodgers 7.8% Red Sox 7.7% Rays 7.7% Tigers 7.4% Cubs 7.1% Twins 7.0% Braves 6.8% Orioles 6.8% Marlins 6.5% D'backs 6.3% Expos 6.0% Yankees 5.8% Brewers 5.7% Reds 5.7% Padres 5.7% Giants 5.2% White Sox 5.1% Blue Jays 4.5% Mets 3.5% Pirates 3.4% Nationals 3.1% Athletics 1.7%
As you can see, there is considerable variation in swing percentage. Is this variation due to directives from the manager or front office, or because the teams with higher percentages just happen to have more 3-0 swingers on their rosters, as a matter of coincidence or design? I can’t say for sure, but my guess would be a mixture of both.
On to the normative question: should hitters be swinging 3-0? For starters, here are the overall batting lines for all 3-0 plate appearances from 2003-2008:
Swing? PA AVG/ OBP/ SLG HR/PA HR BB wOBA Yes 2826 .347/.505/.685 .059 166 708 0.500 No 37666 .289/.742/.498 .016 603 23806 0.582 Total 40492 .297/.726/.523 .019 769 24514 0.577
First of all, it is clear that just getting to a 3-0 count is a huge win for a hitter; you really can’t go wrong with either approach. That said, taking on 3-0 resulted in more production as measured by wOBA; a t-test confirms this increase as statistically significant. Most of this advantage, however, is due to the walks that are the result of 63.2 percent of PA with a take on 3-0. In other respects, swinging on 3-0 is advantageous; note the large increases in average, slugging, and home run rate. This suggests that there are many instances when giving the batter the green light makes sense.
For a final perspective on this issue, let’s return to the first group, our “rakers.” Though taking is more productive on the whole, could it be that a free swinger does better with an approach on 3-0 that is consistent with his general approach at the plate? That is, should the rakers be raking? Here are the top 20 swingers, along with their wOBA when taking and swinging:
Player Take wOBA Swing wOBA Difference Sammy Sosa 0.725 0.808 -0.083 Jeff Kent 0.664 0.498 0.166 Victor Martinez 0.541 0.468 0.073 Vladimir Guerrero 0.656 0.682 -0.026 Matt Stairs 0.618 0.490 0.128 Jeff Bagwell 0.637 0.501 0.136 Ryan Howard 0.677 0.565 0.113 Luke Scott 0.576 0.358 0.218 Alfonso Soriano 0.709 0.438 0.271 Ben Broussard 0.565 0.710 -0.144 David Ortiz 0.681 0.659 0.023 Jacque Jones 0.556 0.499 0.057 Torii Hunter 0.600 0.673 -0.073 Jose Guillen 0.607 0.773 -0.166 Mike Sweeney 0.528 0.442 0.086 Hank Blalock 0.674 0.403 0.271 Pedro Feliz 0.582 0.475 0.107 Craig Monroe 0.512 0.740 -0.228 Matt Holliday 0.553 0.507 0.045 Jim Thome 0.620 0.598 0.022
Only five of the 20 rakers benefited from doing so; the other 15 saw their performance suffer, in many cases dramatically. Perhaps the get-me-over fastball isn’t quite as juicy as some of these hitters seem to think.
This analysis seems to support the conventional wisdom: overall, it is better to take on 3-0. The difference, however, is not as big as I expected; indeed, one can think of many situations where giving a hitter the green light will increase run expectation. There’s also a game-theoretic argument for the green light: if a hitter commits to taking on 3-0, then the pitcher has an incentive to lob a meatball over the plate. This, in turn, gives the hitter an incentive to swing away. Then the pitcher has an incentive to throw the ball a bit off the plate…and so on. By adopting the mixed strategy of swinging on occasion, a hitter might get the best of both worlds: more walks and some easy extra-base hits.
Dan Malkiel is an intern with Baseball Prospectus.
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I'm a bit stunned that Howard has gotten to 3-0 111 though. That would require him to not swing at 3 bad pitches in a row. Stunning.
As an addendum, your third chart was kind of interesting but you did nothing with it... so why include it if you can't analyze or synthesize it beyond "I can’t say for sure, but my guess would be a mixture of both."
Correlation, not causation. He is swinging at only a pitch he absolutely loves, which is why he is likely to hit a home run. You can't then say that everyone should be swinging at 3-0 pitches because they'll hit 0.059 hr/pa. At most you can suggest to give the batter the green light to go for a hr if he likes the pitch, but that seems pretty obvious.
I'm definitely not saying that everyone should swing at 3-0 pitches.. if a player has no or little power, then it makes little sense to swing. But if a player has a good chance at hitting for power, then it's probably worth giving the green light to.
Regarding the team chart, I was simply interested in whether there were organizational philosophies on this matter. Had the rates all been roughly the same, we could have concluded that there probably weren't. Since they are different, it seems likely that there are.
I don't think you can say that. A walk is always a positive, except in situations where a double play is essential (in which case the other team isn't going to give you anything to hit anyway).
One of the big cultural barriers in baseball is the feeling that a player who draws a walk is passing the buck, where a player who takes his cuts is shouldering the load, manning up, etc. Unless you're Barry Bonds on the otherwise impotent Giants, leaving it to the next guy with no more outs and another man on is never the worst alternative.
Do the hitters that always take on 3-0 see more strikes than the hitters that are willing to swing on 3-0? If the walk rate is similar then the batters gain nothing from mixing it up and swinging every now and then.
What if a hitter plan to swing at a 3-0 pitch, but saw it drifting out of zone or just to a spot where he is not comfortable swing at? Or more unlikely, a batter decided to take but saw a absolute meatball and changes his mind, which might or might not result in solid contact due to late start.
If you could do this study by intend (which of course you cannot), I would not be surprised to see a "Green Light" would generate a better result than to take regardless. And I think that would offer more insight.
If you are an NL #8 hitter, with the pitcher on deck, a walk is a FANTASTIC outcome. In the early innings, it means you avoid having the pitcher lead off (and kill) an inning. (With 2 outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd, you won't get a hittable pitch anyway.) In the late innings, either you're getting a (semi-)intentional walk anyway, or you're setting up for a pinch hitter to have a high-leverage PA. Both of those are much more valuable than what a #8 hitter will generally do at the plate, and should be praised.
Assume that if the pitch were "hittable" its equal to take or swing. The presumably large number of out of the strike-zone pitches on 3-0 which pump up the OBP of the "take" option but don't truly get to the heart of the question because even a hitter looking to hit will probably take that pitch. Basically you treat every case of a 3-0 walk as a case where the hitter has decided to take, a tremendously false assumption.
The analysis doesn't really do much to answer the question you set out to examine for this reason. I think in the absence of the ability to actually see when the hitter was taking all the way you should redo it using only at-bats with a 3-0 pitch which is a strike.
Solid piece.
but wasn't there a rule about being worked inside, really close inside, by the pitcher next time he sees you if swing at his 3-0 pitch? There should be.
I think the people complaining about your way of breaking the problem down are missing the point. You can't say "only swing at strikes" because batters don't have that skill. They can only decide in advance to not swing at ANYTHING, or to be willing to swing. Once they are willing to swing, they can be fooled, or get overanxious, or just plain miss.
As follow-on work, it might be interesting to see if it's possible to characterize the type of hitter who gets the biggest wOBA boost from swinging at 3-0 pitches. It looks like it's the already-selective power hitters, but quantifying that difference might be fun.
I wonder if there's a tendency for players to swing at the 3-0 more with someone on base. With men on base already, trading a little bit of on base percentage for a bit of slugging percentage can be a good deal for the team. Also, walks are more valuable for faster players, especially if first base is open.
In addition, swinging away may depend on what inning it is, how many outs there are, what the score is.
So, although you have a relatively small number of cases to deal with, you should do the full analysis of the potential risks and payoffs of swinging away, not just using a general wOBA calculation but one that takes the base-out situation into account as well as the inniner and score.
I'm not sure how to articulate this, but I think we need a tripartite analysis: looking at wOBA on a take vs. a swing lumps together the two kinds of takes (those leading to a walk and those to a 3-1 count) as well as the two kinds of swings (those leading to a 3-1 count and those leading to a ball in play.)
Imagine an ideal hitter who swings only when, if he does not, the will become 3-1. Then what we want is wOBA(swing in 3-0)-wOBA(in 3-1). And that, I'm guessing, will favor swinging in 3-0.
I think a good study would be to see how "power hitters" and non-power hitters" fare when they take or swing on a 3-0 count. Since the advantage in swinging is increased power and the advantage of taking is increased obp.