Royal's Strike Zone Judgement

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Oct 20, 2009 12:54 PM EDT Comment 19 comments

Yesterday at Beyond the Box Score I wanted to see if Vladimir Guerrero was able to determine if a pitch was out of the strike zone and the results. The only person I could think of with worse strike zone judgement was Miguel Olivo. I ran the same numbers for Olivo and a few other Royals. For my strike zone, I used -1.2 and 1.2 for the x dimension and 1.5 to 3.5 for the y dimension. For the expanded zone I increased the x dimension to -2 and 2 and the y dimension to 0.5 and 4.5. Here is the comparison of a few of your favorite Royals:

Description	Alberto Callaspo	David DeJesus	Billy Butler	Alex Gordon	Willie Bloomquist	Jose Guillen	Mike Jacobs	Miguel Olivo	League Average
Called Balls	76.7%	76.2%	75.6%	74.4%	73.2%	69.7%	63.2%	53.9%	71.8%
Called Strike	3.5%	3.1%	1.3%	3.7%	2.0%	1.3%	2.9%	0.6%	2.2%
Fouls	8.4%	9.3%	7.9%	6.1%	8.8%	10.1%	11.3%	11.7%	9.3%
In play, no out	2.5%	1.6%	1.8%	0.9%	2.7%	1.9%	2.1%	1.7%	2.0%
In play, out(s)	4.9%	4.0%	3.4%	2.9%	5.5%	5.2%	5.2%	5.6%	4.5%
Swinging Strike	4.1%	5.9%	10.0%	12.0%	7.9%	11.8%	15.3%	26.5%	10.3%
Total Pitches	489	1328	1063	1067	559	1489	1173	648	424815
BABIP	0.333	0.284	0.345	0.244	0.326	0.274	0.291	0.234	0.303

I was surprised to see Willie's and Jose's numbers near the league averages. Most of all, I just love looking a Miguel's line. About half of the time he is swinging at pitches out of the zone. A top of that, he misses pitches 1/2 of the time. Then, with the balls he does put into play, only 23% end up as hits. I will just say this for next season, if we are going to suck, we might as well have some characters like Miguel to make fun of on the team.

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At least Olivo is an awesome defender

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 20, 2009 1:29 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs

variety is the spice of life. speaking of which, bring back TPJ the relief-pitcher.

Blank

by benfunke on Oct 20, 2009 1:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

How could I forget Pena, I will crank out those numbers by the end of the day.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Oct 20, 2009 1:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

So despite Willie's terrible overall numbers he still had a high BABIP?

Ouch

Unless I'm wrong...
My Twitter feed

by Top Ramen on Oct 20, 2009 1:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think that is just BABIP on balls out of the zone

So on balls outside the strikezone that the gritty one puts in play, .326 are hits.

His overall BABIP is .309

by kcbottom9th on Oct 20, 2009 2:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

ah

i was worried for a second there about Butler

by marbotty on Oct 20, 2009 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I read sometimes that the person goes out of the zone, but he is able to hit the ball well.

Miguel can’t actually hit the balls he sees out of the zone. Vlad actually cases more balls out of the zone, but comes up empty about 30% of the time, vice 50% or Olivo.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Oct 20, 2009 3:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

So Willie should only swing at pitches outside the zone?

Go Royals!

by BabyBlues on Oct 21, 2009 12:30 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Foul %

is there anything to be taken from that?

by royalsreview on Oct 20, 2009 4:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Truthfully not really, but I was making sure all the %'s add up.

The main way I would look at it is see their over all take rate, Balls and Called Strikes. Then see what they did when they chased. For example Callaspo would put the ball in play when he chases, while Gordon is likely to whiff. I should come with a take rate, a whiff rate and a contact rate.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Oct 20, 2009 4:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, foul %

is just a part of contact rate. So it’s a plus vs. missing, but a minus vs. taking.

Of course, we have to keep in mind that some of those non-takes might actually be “called strikes” otherwise, meaning there’s an inherent human error component of about 3% in all the non-take numbers as well. A guy may feel pressured to try to do something with a pitch that he feels is a ball because the umpire has been giving the pitcher an extra inch outside or something.

This space for rent.

by jonfmorse on Oct 20, 2009 6:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs