Rays April HitFx Data
by R.J. Anderson on Jun 6, 2009 11:15 PM EDT
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PrintThanks to Harry Pavlidis for helping my clueless self out. I'm hardly an expert with this data, and without a larger sample size or comparative set of numbers there's not too much I can do analysis wise, but the numbers are still fun to compare I guess. First, the hitters:
| Player | SOB |
| Pena | 87.4 |
| Burrell | 84.3 |
| Gross | 84.2 |
| Longoria | 83.5 |
| Kapler | 82.9 |
| Iwamura | 82.1 |
| Zobrist | 78 |
| Aybar | 77.8 |
| Crawford | 77.1 |
| Upton | 76.1 |
| Bartlett | 76.1 |
| Navarro | 76 |
| Joyce | 75.6 |
Joyce has an extremely small sample size, even smaller than most others. I find it interesting how hard Kapler and Iwamura were hitting the ball. Neither is exactly thought of as a power hitter, yet both seemed to get consistently good wood on the ball. Also, Gross hitting the ball harder than Longoria? Interesting, I'm guessing the amount of fastballs seen plays into that. I checked for an uptrend in B.J.'s data, but there's nothing there, Harry noted elsewhere that he hit a ton of balls the other way with very good velocity, so it seems that pulling the ball hard was the issue. That seems to have changed as of late, but that's just an eye observation.
As for the pitchers:
| Player | SOB |
| Percival | 86.2 |
| Wheeler | 84.1 |
| Balfour | 83.9 |
| Nelson | 81.1 |
| Shields | 80.7 |
| Niemann | 80.5 |
| Kazmir | 79.5 |
| Sonny | 79.5 |
| Garza | 78.9 |
| Cormier | 77.8 |
| Howell | 70.7 |
| Shouse | 70.2 |
So basically, the average pitch hit off Percival was almost equal to the average ball hit by Carlos Pena. Well, that certainly comforts me. The groundballers get less hard contact made, no surprise there,and Garza is ridiculous.
That's about all for my analysis. It's a really small sample size and I have no idea of many of the guidelines and averages. I'm sure people smarter than myself are going to devour this stuff and produce some really, really good stuff though.
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This seems obvious
but there is a strong correlation to FB% (.806) and a – correlation to GB% (-.838). LD% is .583.
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More proof that JP is our #1 reliever by far
Maybe I’m just an old fashioned BJ suck-off-er. (Good call Sandy)
by Lurch's Lobbyists on Jun 7, 2009 1:46 AM EDT reply actions
10 hardest hit balls:
Brian Bass Carlos Pena Home Run 109.55
Dan Giese Carlos Pena Home Run 108.26
Dallas Braden Pat Burrell Fly Out 106.05
Mark Hendrickson Pat Burrell Single 105.87
Cole Hamels Pat Burrell Home Run 105.79
Dan Giese Evan Longoria Ground Out 105.79
Matt Thornton Pat Burrell Single 105.7
Trevor Cahill Carlos Pena Home Run 104.9
Scott Baker Pat Burrell Single 104.75
Chien-Ming Wang Carlos Pena Home Run 104.56
Weakest:
Dana Eveland Dioner Navarro Sac Bunt 25.92
Josh Beckett B.J. Upton Single 25.32
Gavin Floyd Gabe Gross Ground Out 25.25
Jeremy Guthrie Akinori Iwamura Fielders Choice Out 25.03
Mark Hendrickson Jason Bartlett Ground Out 24.03
Santiago Casilla Jason Bartlett Ground Out 19.77
Jarrod Washburn Dioner Navarro Ground Out 18.95
Brian Bass Ben Zobrist Ground Out 18.69
Chien-Ming Wang B.J. Upton Single 18.18
Mark Buehrle Evan Longoria Single 16.87
by R.J. Anderson on Jun 7, 2009 9:44 AM EDT up reply actions
Hardest hit balls against:
James Shields Paul Konerko Ground Out 118.31
Brian Shouse Jason Giambi Home Run 108.48
Lance Cormier Jim Thome Double 108.27
Scott Kazmir Matt Holliday Line Out 107.41
James Shields Adam Jones Ground Out 106.71
Grant Balfour Matt Holliday Ground Out 106.71
Matt Garza Travis Buck Home Run 106.01
Matt Garza Ryan Sweeney Single 105.28
Andy Sonnanstine Jason Giambi Single 105.27
Grant Balfour Matt Stairs Double 104.92
Weakest:
Lance Cormier Ronny Cedeno Ground Out 13.34
Matt Garza Jason Bay Ground Out 14.96
Joe Nelson Cesar Izturis Single 16.54
Andy Sonnanstine Endy Chavez Bunt Ground Out 16.83
James Shields Jim Thome Single 17.05
Andy Sonnanstine Ichiro Suzuki Bunt Ground Out 17.1
Lance Cormier Jim Thome Ground Out 17.38
Jarrod Washburn Dioner Navarro Ground Out 18.95
Andy Sonnanstine Ken Griffey Field Error 24.91
J.P. Howell Cesar Izturis Single 26.33
by R.J. Anderson on Jun 7, 2009 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions
Hittracker has it at 69.9 by Brett Gardner
The ball had a true distance of 219 feet. Time to tear down that new Yankee stadium.
Rays Win!
by Sandy Kazmir on Jun 7, 2009 10:15 AM EDT up reply actions
Ahhhhhhhh
that makes some sense
Rays Win!
by Sandy Kazmir on Jun 7, 2009 10:38 AM EDT up reply actions
For the Rays:
Juan Morillo Jason Bartlett Home Run 90.72
by R.J. Anderson on Jun 7, 2009 10:24 AM EDT up reply actions
Which is odd, Morillo sits in the high 90s.
Such a waste of velocity.
by R.J. Anderson on Jun 7, 2009 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions
Avg speed per batted ball type in play
would be very useful to compare vs babip and league avg expected babip
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Nerd glands everywhere are salivating
I would like to see something comprehensive comparing pitcher weights vs. batter weights. Maybe if I have time after the Wings game today.
Rays Win!
by Sandy Kazmir on Jun 7, 2009 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions
lol @ nerd glands
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
I suspect the more we look at ball speed coming off the bat
on an overall basis, the less we’ll think it means. I think this might be useful to look at in conjunction with other metrics, but while it seems to be mostly good hitters near the top of the list, there are plenty of good hitters sprinkled throughout, which probably has something to do with batting style and approach at the plate.
As pointed out on BTB, one of the places this will be the most useful is in determining whether a hitter has changed their approach at the plate and, in conjunction with other metrics, whether pitchers are pitching to a given hitter differently.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
Just to clarify
Once we figure out HOW to use it, we’ll be able to create other metrics from it that are one or two levels out, so it still will be very useful, I just don’t think it will be that simple to make generalizations without taking smaller sets of the samples.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
I agree
it quite obviously isn’t helping Gabe Kapler’s HR/FB rate or BABIP =p.
But I agree, I don’t know how much effect this has on BABIP, and I’m assuming the data will prove erratic when looked at through sample sizes this small. Is this just reaffming LD% and average home run distance. It seems, at first glance, that there is a strong correlation here.
Honestly we truly do not know what these numbers mean
For hitters it is more obvious, but I’m sure there is a strong relationship between ball of the bat speed and the type of pitch.
And for pitchers it is even more murky. For example I’d make this hypothesis: I believe that pitchers that throw harder (and get more k’s in general) will have wide splits. Few very very hard hit balls and a lot of weakly hit balls. Whereas a soft tosser will not have such a large split. They’ll have even less hard hit balls and also less weakly hit balls.
Also the question remains what does each mph mean? i know many people picked 100 mph but that is such an arbitrary number.
"Honestly we truly do not know what these numbers mean" - I agree 95%
A lot of the analysis that’s going to be done at first is people just trying stuff out. Many of them won’t even claim that they’re results mean anything, they’re just sharing in the hopes of getting good feedback. In fact, Pitch f/x analysis is still in this stage to a large degree.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
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