Pie question: Is he a dead pull hitter at this point?

[craig]

From the game reports that I recall having read, I seem to recall most of Pie's hard-hit balls being rockets down the line, or doubles past the 1st basemen, or an occassional XBH somewhere in right field.

 

I haven't done any special tracking to that effect. Am I misperceiving, and he's gotten plenty of hits to left center etc. as well? Or does the idea seem accurate that his solid contact is more consistently RF-pull than is true for the ordinary good-hitting big-leaguer?

 

If so, is that a concern, or a problem?

[rawaction]

Yeah, he has plenty of hits to left and left center. Actually, I pointed out in one of the game threads how he was smoking a lot of balls to dead CF. He does seem to be pulling a lot of balls, but he's also seeing the ball really well, as evidenced by his high batting average. I think just like any other hitter, when he hits a ball really hard, it's gonna be pulled. Definitely nothing to worry about. I don't think anything about Felix this season has caused worry.

[craig]

Thanks, raw. Glad to hear it's not true and not an issue.

[Guest]

Pie's hit chart to date: (Outs in red, hits in blue.)

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v384/bobskeeper/PieHitChart4-17.png

 

Most of his hits have been to right field, though he has his fair share of hard-hit balls to center, as well. What I reamian concerned about is his strike zone judgement. He's swinging at quite a few balls out of the zone, though he's still making contact at a decent clip. (About 84% of his swings.)

[Warpticon]

Pie's hit chart to date: (Outs in red, hits in blue.)

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v384/bobskeeper/PieHitChart4-17.png

 

Most of his hits have been to right field, though he has his fair share of hard-hit balls to center, as well. What I reamian concerned about is his strike zone judgement. He's swinging at quite a few balls out of the zone, though he's still making contact at a decent clip. (About 84% of his swings.)

 

Haha, that certainly won't do anything to reduce the Vlad comparisons.

[rawaction]

That's only 5 hits to RF vs. 4 to the other parts of the field. It looks like 3 IF hits to the right side which is darn near impossible to do.

[Guest]

That's only 5 hits to RF vs. 4 to the other parts of the field. It looks like 3 IF hits to the right side which is darn near impossible to do.

Actually it's seven to RF. It's hard to tell in the scaled down version I posted, but there are three hits grouped tightly together down the RF line. I also think the scale of my baseline may be a bit small. Generating a strike zone was much easier than generating a ball diamond. ;)

[rawaction]

That's only 5 hits to RF vs. 4 to the other parts of the field. It looks like 3 IF hits to the right side which is darn near impossible to do.

Actually it's seven to RF. It's hard to tell in the scaled down version I posted, but there are three hits grouped tightly together down the RF line. I also think the scale of my baseline may be a bit small. Generating a strike zone was much easier than generating a ball diamond. ;)

 

Ok, I thought that was a little too close. He hasn't gotten out much when he's pulled the ball. That's pretty interesting.

[Diffusion]

Great great work, BK.

 

Show us Pie's strikezone if you've got that!

[Guest]

Great great work, BK.

 

Show us Pie's strikezone if you've got that!

Not a problem. Here it is through yesterday's game, takes are in green, swing and misses in red, and swings and contact are in blue:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v384/bobskeeper/PieSZ4-17.png

 

All in all it looks pretty encouraging. All the pitches he's chasing out of the zone look like high fastballs, not junk pitches in the dirt or a combination of the two. Hopefully he'll get better at laying off those as the season progresses. He looks to make extremely good contact on inside pitches, even those that are a bit off the plate. He could use some work covering the outer and lower thirds, however.

[Diffusion]

Wow. Awesome. How are you doing all this?

 

It looks like he's got a bit of a hole up and in around the hands (quite a few swings and misses up there), but that's nothing major, and that he's not comfortable taking outside pitches the other way (a lot of takes up and away especially and hardly a single ball fielded by the third baseman or left fielder). He'll need to work hard on that, because that's something that'll definately be exploited by major league pitchers.

 

Apart from that, very encouraging.

 

Any possible differentiation there between fair and foul contact?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Wow. Awesome. How are you doing all this?

 

It looks like he's got a bit of a hole up and in around the hands (quite a few swings and misses up there), but that's nothing major, and that he's not comfortable taking outside pitches the other way (a lot of takes up and away especially and hardly a single ball fielded by the third baseman or left fielder). He'll need to work hard on that, because that's something that'll definately be exploited by major league pitchers.

 

Apart from that, very encouraging.

 

Any possible differentiation there between fair and foul contact?

 

My guess he's getting the info from the Gameday provided for AAA games this year.

[rawaction]

Wow. Nice info. Just as a note, that looks a lot different from when I saw Pie for Lansing. He did a pretty good job of laying off high fastballs, but chased some balls in the dirt. And in A ball, it looked like he had problems with pitches in on his hands.

[craig]

Keeper, Q's:

How does Pie's stats compare to typical major leaguers? Specifically:

 

1) the swing-and-miss percentage?

 

2) The percentage of swings at pitches outside the zone

 

3) The percentage of swings at pitches low

 

4) The percentage of swings at pitches high

 

5) The percentage of strikes taken versus swung at...

 

Without knowing how his chart compares, I can't conclude much. But I'd have several guesses (correct those that are wrong):

a) His percentage of swings with contact is very, very high

 

b) His percentage of swings at balls low is very low. (Well, obviously, since it is zero in your chart! But I'm thinking that must be extremely unusual, since the average hitter should be swinging at some breaking balls that are bouncing in the dirt...)

 

c) His percentage of strikes taken is somewhat low.

 

My take is that his plate discipline and pitch recognition is pretty good, and his contact hitting is pretty good. (Or at least has been thus far). Probably his recognition of breaking pitches is relatively good, else he'd have more swings at sliders in the dirt. That he doesn't walk isn't like Corey, who swung at a lot of bad balls and swung through a lot of good balls. Rather, he doesn't walk because he pretty much reads which pitches will be in the zone; he rarely takes them, other than outside edge; and when he swings at strikes, he hits them. If you swing at most of the strikes and usually hit them, it's hard to walk. Not often that a pitcher will go an AB without throwing even a single strike.

[Guest]

Wow. Awesome. How are you doing all this?

With a little help from some programmer friends of mine I found a way to aggregate data from gameday casts.

 

Any possible differentiation there between fair and foul contact?

Yeah, no problem. (Fair is blue, foul is red. Other points omitted to reduce clutter.)

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v384/bobskeeper/PieFair-Foul.png

[Guest]

Keeper, Q's:

How does Pie's stats compare to typical major leaguers? Specifically:

 

1) the swing-and-miss percentage?

MLB average contact percentage (Contact/Swings) = 80.8%. Pie's CP% = 83..3%

 

2) The percentage of swings at pitches outside the zone

MLB average = 8.9%, Pie = 12.7%

 

3) The percentage of swings at pitches low

 

4) The percentage of swings at pitches high

I don't have this data immediately available, but I could probably figure it out without too much difficulty some time this evening.

 

5) The percentage of strikes taken versus swung at...

I'm defining this as # of called strikes taken divided by total number of pitches in the zone... anyway, I have the MLB average at 29.4%, Pie at 16.1%.

 

Without knowing how his chart compares, I can't conclude much. But I'd have several guesses (correct those that are wrong):

a) His percentage of swings with contact is very, very high

It's above average, certainly, but it's nowhere near the level of the best MLB players. (Juan Pierre usually has a contact percentage in the mid-90s.) Other than that, though, I'd say your observations are all more or less accurate.

[Guest]

To let the cat slip out of the bag a little bit...

 

BK is working on getting this information into a database format. Once it is there, I'll be working on a front end for the site to allow you to do your own queries of the type that BK is showcasing here.

 

That's why I talked about maybe having to upgrade my server in the "what's so good about Premium?" thread. It's a LOT of data. :D

[CubinNY]

To let the cat slip out of the bag a little bit...

 

BK is working on getting this information into a database format. Once it is there, I'll be working on a front end for the site to allow you to do your own queries of the type that BK is showcasing here.

 

That's why I talked about maybe having to upgrade my server in the "what's so good about Premium?" thread. It's a LOT of data. :D

 

Nice

[Guest]

To let the cat slip out of the bag a little bit...

 

BK is working on getting this information into a database format. Once it is there, I'll be working on a front end for the site to allow you to do your own queries of the type that BK is showcasing here.

 

That's why I talked about maybe having to upgrade my server in the "what's so good about Premium?" thread. It's a LOT of data. :D

Hey, the database(s) are more or less done. (See this thread for the proof. ;) ) About the only thing I have yet to incorporate is fielding and baserunning info, but that's the stuff that will take a long time to parse/get right.

[Diffusion]

Wow. Awesome. How are you doing all this?

With a little help from some programmer friends of mine I found a way to aggregate data from gameday casts.

 

Ah. Gameday's strikezone is in my experience typically...how can I put this, erm, yes, that'd work...shockingly awfully bad. Basically pitches accurate to within about a foot, the umpire is always, always right, and if a player swings at a pitch, with the exception of stuff in the dirt, it was always going to be a strike anyway. Honestly, if you ever get the chance, try watching the game and Gameday alongside each other and you'll see what I mean.

[Guest]

Wow. Awesome. How are you doing all this?

With a little help from some programmer friends of mine I found a way to aggregate data from gameday casts.

 

Ah. Gameday's strikezone is in my experience typically...how can I put this, erm, yes, that'd work...shockingly awfully bad. Basically pitches accurate to within about a foot, the umpire is always, always right, and if a player swings at a pitch, with the exception of stuff in the dirt, it was always going to be a strike anyway. Honestly, if you ever get the chance, try watching the game and Gameday alongside each other and you'll see what I mean.

When it's free you take what you can get. :)

[Jon]

Gameday has improved. Any strike called is going to be in the zone on Gameday, but they do show swings and misses as being outside of the zone when they actually are. Maybe not as far outside as they were in real life, but it's not bad. And they do a good job of placing hits and outs.

[Laura]

That sounds great!!! =D>

[Danny82]

From the game reports that I recall having read, I seem to recall most of Pie's hard-hit balls being rockets down the line, or doubles past the 1st basemen, or an occassional XBH somewhere in right field.

 

I haven't done any special tracking to that effect. Am I misperceiving, and he's gotten plenty of hits to left center etc. as well? Or does the idea seem accurate that his solid contact is more consistently RF-pull than is true for the ordinary good-hitting big-leaguer?

 

If so, is that a concern, or a problem?

 

On top of what has already been shown in this thread, I would also chime in that I remember seeing one ball he hit to left center in spring that almost left the yard that ended up a double. I then saw another in person against the Mariners where he hit a double the other way. Those were two of the at-bats where he impressed me the most--showing that opposite field power.