In the previous post, we saw some teams loved to swing at fastballs in the 2020 season and some didn't. There are also different types of pitches in baseball and this time, let’s look at breaking pitches.
According to the statcast website, we can find that slider, curveball, knuckle curve, slow curve, knuckleball and eephus are in this group. Last season, the White Sox batters swung 1515 times at breaking pitches, leading the majors. They posted a batting average of .239 when they chose to swing. Is it hard to hit breaking pitches?
Firstly, let’s loot at slider. The Chicago White Sox batters swung at sliders 1069 times last season and it was 11.9% of total pitches. Of these 1069 swings, 591 times were in zone. When the White Sox batters decided to swing at sliders, their batting average was .227. At the same time, the Mariners batters only swung at sliders 614 times in 2020.
Secondly, curveball is also included in this group on the statcast website. And in 2020, the Orioles swung at curveballs 393 times and the Dodgers made 392 swings. Of the Orioles’ 393 swings, 205 times were in zone. And for the Dodgers, 255 swings were in zone. The Orioles batters had a .267 BA and an xwOBA of .213 while swinging at curveballs. The Dodgers hitters’ batting average was .251 and they had a .288 xwOBA when they chose to swing at curveballs. The Twins batters didn’t like to swing at curveballs since they only swung at curveballs 248 times in 2020. In addition, knuckle curve is also used by some pitchers in the MLB. For example, Gerrit Cole’s knuckle curve is one of the nastiest pitches in the league. In the 2020 season, the Mets batters swung 123 times at knuckle curves and of these 123 swings, 75 times were in zone. Mets batters had a batting average of .295 when swinging at knuckle curves. However, things were quite different for the Dodgers and the Cubs. The Dodgers swung at knuckle curves 51 times last year and had a batting average of .087 while swinging. The Cubs swung 82 times at knuckle curves and posted a .088 batting average when Cubs batters decided to swing. In the meantime, the Indians only swung at knuckle curves 41 times and Astros only had 44 swings at knuckle curves. We can see slow curves and knuckleballs in the majors. Nonetheless, we don’t see them very often. Last season, only 68 swings at slow curves and 38 of these swings were in zone. The number was even lower at knuckleballs, only 9 swings, 4 of these 9 swings were in zone.
How to read a pitch well is indeed an important lesson for a batter who wants to perform well in the MLB. MLB pitchers throw a lot of nasty breaking pitches and those nastiest pitches really frustrate hitters. Major League batters swung more than 22000 times at sliders and 60.8% of these swings were in zone. Nonetheless, we can see that less than 60% of swings in zone when batters decided to swing at curveballs or knuckle curves.
No comments:
Post a Comment