Fresh on the heels of my award-winning 2008 Royals O-Swing Percentage Graph, here is a graph the...

Fresh on the heels of my award-winning 2008 Royals O-Swing Percentage Graph, here is a graph the O-Swing (percentage of pitches swung at outside of the strike zone) for all the teams of the AL Central from 2005-2008 by year, also compared to the MLB average. Remember -- this is for hitters, so lower is better.

(Maybe I [or someone else, of course] will do something like this for pitchers next week).

The results speak for themselvs, I guess, but they are saying all sorts of things. Discuss and enjoy!

For a larger version, click here (opens in new tab/window).

Consider this a humble appendix to the "Secrets of the AL Central" series.

All data via FanGraphs, of course.

8 months ago devil_fingers 11 comments 2 recs |

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When did Mike Barnett get hired?

I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.

by kcscoliny on Feb 12, 2009 2:27 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

be aggressive

by ZeppelinDZ on Feb 12, 2009 2:47 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

"Swing to contact"

the bastard child of Allard Baird’s “Pitch to contact”

by Top Ramen on Feb 13, 2009 8:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Cleveland needs to be more aggressive!

Tell that punk Sizemore to get the bat off his shoulder!

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Feb 12, 2009 3:17 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Something that jumps out

is that every team’s O-swing percentage increased. Is there some phenomenon tied to that? A mass exodus of good hitters leaving the division? Or did pitching get significantly better? Or both?

I’ll answer my own questions later…

by Bornin85 on Feb 12, 2009 4:17 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

as I said in the other post

there’s lost of evidence both in the Al and NL to suggest that the balance of talent has been shifting to pitchers overall. Run scoring has been dropping year-by-year across the MLB for a few seasons now.

Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.

by devil_fingers on Feb 12, 2009 4:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Cool, which post exactly?

I’d like to read about that.

by Bornin85 on Feb 12, 2009 4:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The other post is this one, but I just basically said the same thing in the comments.

Just so I can use my database instead of going back and forth with baseball-reference, here are the runs-to-wins conversions for the last few years per league. It’s not the precise runs/game number, but it is directly proportional to it, so you can get the idea. Maybe I’ll graph the other thing later, too.

AL:
2003 10.38
2004 10.54
2005 10.10
2006 10.41
2007 10.32
2008 10.08

NL:
2003 9.96
2004 10.03
2005 9.86
2006 10.33
2007 10.19
2008 9.99

Not a smooth curve, but a clear decline in overall scoring. Probably easier to see in the AL because the pitchers don’t hit (the conversion was 11.13 in 1996). Like I said, I just think that the simplest explanation (one with the least unfounded assumption) is probably just a shift in the balance of power talent to pitching.

Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.

by devil_fingers on Feb 12, 2009 4:41 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs