Evan Longoria and Hitting the Inside Pitch
by RZ on Jul 23, 2010 11:01 AM EDT
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PrintThe title says it all: I wanted to know how good Evan Longoria is at hitting the inside pitch. As usual, I took a look at the Pitch f/x data provided by MLBAM and made this graph plotting his wOBA on contact (wOBAc) by horizontal location and the Major League average for right-handed hitters. So here it is:
Gray lines are the edge of the plate plus the radius of a baseball (20 inches wide). Negative numbers are inside to right-handed hitters; positive numbers are away from right-handed hitters.
The graph takes data for the current season only, but it only gets smoother if the previous two seasons were added. Regardless, Longoria is above average when comes to doing damage on pitches inside. Even on inside pitches off the plate, the graph shows that Longoria still has the ability to cause damage.
So is Longoria the best in the majors at hitting the inside pitch? Well, for this season, Longoria has the third highest wOBAc for right-handed hitters with at least 50 batted balls. His .614 wOBAc is behind only Corey Hart and Martin Prado. When we expand the data set to include this season and the past two, though, Longoria comes out on top of all right-handed hitters with a .555 wOBAc. Mark Reynolds is second at .539 and Alfonso Soriano is third at .534. In other words, since reaching the majors, Longoria has been the best hitter in baseball with making contact on inside pitches and I would assume most scouting reports correspond with this data.
Notes and Other Thoughts:
Since this post is already on the topic of wOBA, Longoria's wOBA has steadily risen each season since his rookie year. But just glancing at some of his stats, I noticed several other trends. His walk rate has gone up about one percent each season and his BABIP has also gone up, with this year's .348 BABIP likely to regress 20-30 points. With his sharp BABIP increase, his batting average is now above .300. And his stolen base total has gone up (which is factored in the Fan Graphs wOBA formula) thus helping it increase just slightly more than in the past.
The bad news is that his wOBA is not above the .400 mark, where it should be if his power rates hadn't gone down. His rate of doubles has increased, but ZiPS projects him to have only 27 home runs at the end of the season with a slugging percentage right around where it is now (.520).
The only good news here is if history repeats itself, Longoria should have a strong resurgence later in the season as he had done so in the past two. A daily wOBA chart from Fan Graphs shows:
This note is not related to Longoria, but I found it interesting. Two Rays' hitters were at the bottom of the leader board this season for wOBAc on inside pitches: Jason Bartlett was second worst and B.J. Upton was not too far behind. Upton's wOBAc from 2008-2010 is .372, compared to his .300 this season. Also, a 2010 leaderboard for wOBAc on inside pitches is available in this spreadsheet for the curious.
Data and statistics from MLBAM and Fan Graphs.
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Interesting post.
Always cool to see your ability to take these hypotheses and see how they stack up with the PitchFX data.
I was hoping someone would do something like this.
I kept hearing that Longoria has “lightning fast hands” and can get to the inside pitch. Cool to see it matches up with the data.
Yup
You can see it watching the games. He has an amazing ability to keep the inside pitch fair. He seems to have less of those towering foul balls than any power hiter I can think of. As the data shows, if the come inside and he makes contact good things happen.
Upton supposedly has some of the quickest hands in the league as well
glad to see thats translating…
by BJ the Bossman on Jul 23, 2010 11:45 AM EDT up reply actions
Yea I know there are a ton of other moving parts
Its just annoying, because he has a perfect athletic skill set to be able to turn on the inside pitch. Maybe that is another reason he can be so frustrating
by BJ the Bossman on Jul 23, 2010 1:48 PM EDT up reply actions
The blind spot in his swing didn't help, but I thought they fixed that
I remember in one of the most recent home games, he showed off the hands. There was a runner on 3rd with one out. He was down 0-2 and got a curve down and away and kept his hands back. I thought he was going to get caught looking, then all of the sudden he just throws his hands at it an get a sac fly to RF. The talent and the hand speed is definitely there.
Wow, sorry for the typos, but hopefully you know what I'm saying
He just doesn’t seem to square the ball up as much as Longo. I’m not sure there is much of a way to measure that. BJ seems to foul back a lot of mistake pitches. He’s all over them, but tips it back to the backstop.
Yea I think his hand speed is close to, or equal to Longo
Theres just so many moving parts, he takes away that advantage. I think Longo has a better eye as well, but aside from that I think it all comes down to approach at the plate. A lot of the time I think Beej just needs to simplify everything. Just start slapping the ball to RF, and once pitchers stop trying to blow you away with high heat, you can start being a bit more selective. But screw it, Im done trying to analyze whats wrong with the Boss.
by BJ the Bossman on Jul 23, 2010 2:03 PM EDT up reply actions
Theres just so many moving parts, he takes away that advantage. I think Longo has a better eye as well
I couldn’t agree more with this.
Yea I thought they fixed the "hole in his swing" too
Supposedly he worked with Shelton in the cage and backed off the plate a bit and moved back in the box. It was supposed to take away that blind spot as you said. Im pretty sure the 3 or 4 games right after that, he went on a tear. And then Im guessing he got lazy or something.
by BJ the Bossman on Jul 23, 2010 1:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Any way to put Longos 2009 on that sweet chart?
Curious to see the effect of his improved performance vs offspeed pitches and how he’s changed on the outer half.
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Enjoyed the post.
Hadn’t considered how good he was on inside pitches other than just hearing how good he is from announcers and such.
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
Fair enough. I'll take the data and factual basis over farm animals marvelling at the sound of their own voice.
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
Am I wrong to think it strange
That Longo’s wOBAc dips so low on pitches right down the middle?
by Not Whole View Gang survivor on Jul 23, 2010 1:24 PM EDT reply actions
Is that just SSS
Because pitchers try very hard NOT to throw Longo a pitch down the middle?
by Not Whole View Gang survivor on Jul 23, 2010 1:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Its a little misleading, this graph only shows horizontal location.
A ball can be horizontally down the middle but up above the hands or below the bat.
If you look at what I posted earlier (http://www.draysbay.com/2010/4/16/1423274/quick-visuals-a-look-evan), Evan can hit the high pitch middle of the plate but not the low one.
I guess it would be a little of both
I did the same function for the data since 2008 and that little dip in the middle pretty much goes away and is around the .4 to .5 mark (I think). So it could be a SSS issue, but more likely that Longoria hasn’t actually hit a home run right around that area horizontally for this season. Although Kurby makes a good point noting that this is only one dimension, and the height of the baseball also matters.
Fuzz
by RZ on Jul 23, 2010 2:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Short compact swing
That would be Kevin Kennedy’s explanation. Keeping the hands in. When I was a catcher. Cookies!
I like pie
Great read RZ, any chance you could take a similar look at where pitchers are pitching to him, right to left?
And if one has a problem using stats to prove a point, then use your eyes.
2010 Trade Deadline Primer --> http://dockoftherays.com/2010/07/03/2010-trade-deadline-primer/
I'm kind of surprised by this
It looks pretty symetrical except slightly shifted to the outside. I would have expected it to look more like an exponential curve.
Thanks, apparently other teams also have scouts.
And if one has a problem using stats to prove a point, then use your eyes.
2010 Trade Deadline Primer --> http://dockoftherays.com/2010/07/03/2010-trade-deadline-primer/
by Sandy Kazmir on Jul 23, 2010 6:30 PM EDT up reply actions
Really cool stuff
I had heard the announcers jabbering about his quickness, and ability to hit the inside pitch, and so naturally I wasn’t sure whether to believe them or not. Always great to see the data back up what the eyes tell you.
Heard from a scout...
Longo’s bat is the fastest in the majors through the contact zone. He gets apparently immense bat speed from his “lightning hands”.
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