Rizzo

[SABR Gamer]

Huh... you found a better way to tell Kyle he was wasting his time than I was going to. Well done.

 

Cute. Wrong, but cute.

 

As always when we have these discussions, the thresholds aren't magical numbers where the statistic instantly switches from "completely meaningless" to "ZOMG now it means something!" in a single PA.

 

I'd be willing to bet that literally nobody thinks that is the case.

[KaiserCesar]

Well, those numbers show that contact rate yields a predictive result earlier than K rate. I think Kyle's idea of 'strikeout rate variance' when compared to the underlying numbers is a good way to see if something is truly different with Rizzo, especially when the sample is relatively small.

[Guest]

Those were some good looking swings last night. I don't really think over analysis of minutia is all that relevant, but his hands appeared to stay in a good hitting position. Hopefully he can stay consistent like that.

[Rob]

Huh... you found a better way to tell Kyle he was wasting his time than I was going to. Well done.

 

Cute. Wrong, but cute.

 

As always when we have these discussions, the thresholds aren't magical numbers where the statistic instantly switches from "completely meaningless" to "ZOMG now it means something!" in a single PA.

 

Nobody is saying that. But we're only about 60% of the way towards that threshold. Considering the quality of opponents faced to this point, I think it's prudent to see how he does against some of the lesser competition before getting ourselves all worked up.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Nobody is saying that. But we're only about 60% of the way towards that threshold. Considering the quality of opponents faced to this point, I think it's prudent to see how he does against some of the lesser competition before getting ourselves all worked up.

 

So this is another iteration of the "does noticing something and being curious about it count as getting 'all worked up'" thing?

 

I agree. We definitely don't need to get all worked up.

[PackLandVA]

Didn't read this whole thread, so forgive me if already stated, but:

 

Rizzo doing far better against lefties than righties. Wonder if he's more focused about putting the ball in play against lefties as opposed to hitting for power against righties.

[Guest]

Didn't read this whole thread, so forgive me if already stated, but:

 

Rizzo doing far better against lefties than righties. Wonder if he's more focused about putting the ball in play against lefties as opposed to hitting for power against righties.

 

.114 BABIP against righties and a .313 BABIP against lefties probably has something to do with it.

[Bull]

Didn't read this whole thread, so forgive me if already stated, but:

 

Rizzo doing far better against lefties than righties. Wonder if he's more focused about putting the ball in play against lefties as opposed to hitting for power against righties.

 

.114 BABIP against righties and a .313 BABIP against lefties probably has something to do with it.

 

I think a 25% LD% vs lefties over against 12% vs righties explains that BABIP variance. PackLandVa may have identified a cause for that low BABIP. His BB% is lower against RHP too (12.1 to 7.7). He's swinging often and swinging hard vs RHP. He's hitting a lot of HRs and a lot of popups.

[KaiserCesar]

Didn't read this whole thread, so forgive me if already stated, but:

 

Rizzo doing far better against lefties than righties. Wonder if he's more focused about putting the ball in play against lefties as opposed to hitting for power against righties.

 

.114 BABIP against righties and a .313 BABIP against lefties probably has something to do with it.

 

I think a 25% LD% vs lefties over against 12% vs righties explains that BABIP variance. PackLandVa may have identified a cause for that low BABIP. His BB% is lower against RHP too (12.1 to 7.7). He's swinging often and swinging hard vs RHP. He's hitting a lot of HRs and a lot of popups.

 

Well, not all of the low BABIP can be attributed to that. Someone posted in a game thread the other day that Rizzo has a BABIP of .300 on his line drives alone.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

There was a mention in the Tribune today that a Cubs coach had been studying video of Rizzo and found a mechanical flaw involving him finishing his swing too high, and the fix began with Friday's game.

[Guest]

i can't believe how far he hit that double on that swing. he has crazy power

[scarey]

Nobody is saying that. But we're only about 60% of the way towards that threshold. Considering the quality of opponents faced to this point, I think it's prudent to see how he does against some of the lesser competition before getting ourselves all worked up.

 

So this is another iteration of the "does noticing something and being curious about it count as getting 'all worked up'" thing?

 

I agree. We definitely don't need to get all worked up.

 

 

I don't know about you, but I call this:

 

 

It's conceivable that you could have positive or negative variance in how your contact and pitch recognition components turn into strikeouts. Maybe Rizzo's actual strikeouts for one of the years aren't lining up with his strikeout peripherals, so to speak. It'd be neat to test if some sort of xK% was more predictive than actual K%.

 

 

 

Code:

K% O-swing% Z-zwing% Swing% O-contact% Z-contact% Contact% Zone% SwStr%

League average 20% 31% 65% 46% 66% 87% 79% 45% 9%

Rizzo 2012 17% 35% 68% 50% 64% 91% 81% 46% 10%

Rizzo 2013 29% 31% 66% 46% 57% 93% 79% 44% 10%

 

 

 

(with the exception of SwStr%, these all come from the PitchFX tab on Fangraphs, which has slightly different values than the other tab that has the same stats that I believe are hand-recorded by one of the stats services).

 

Why was Rizzo better than league average at avoiding K's last season? It seems to be just that he was swinging at more pitches than average and thus ending the PA with a BIP.

 

This year, he's swinging at fewer pitches, while making more contact in the zone and less contact out of the zone. His LD% has also gone down from 24% to 16%.

 

So his K's this year are a combination of taking more pitches and failing to drive the pitches he's making contact with, presumably fouling more off, which combine to cause him to get into more 2-strike counts. His inability to make contact at pitches outside the zone are causing him to get wiped out by those 2-strike counts more often.

 

When you look at his batted-ball data this year, you get a big drop in line drives and even a big drop in ground balls, but a big rise in pop-ups and fly balls (combined for 37% of his BIP last year vs. 56% this year).

 

So we've got Law reporting that it seems like he's getting his hands low and loading slower. We've got an inability to consistently put the ball in play earlier in the count. We've got a major increase in fly balls and pop-ups. Those all seem to work together, so I'm going to take it as true that he's developed some sort of mechanical hitch that he'll need to either consciously fix or just work his way out of.

 

 

getting all worked up.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

You shouldn't.

 

Some fans, it seems, have very weird ideas about what sample size means, and they severely underestimate how quickly you can start to find interesting things in the types of data we have available to us these days. "Interesting" meaning some non-zero chance that we're seeing real information and not noise in the statistics.

[neely crenshaw]

Many of these new stats have to have a large sample size to be accurate. They are based on average data from major league games. The more data you accumulate, the closer to your norm you will be.

[jersey cubs fan]

you don't say

[Banedon]

Many of these new stats have to have a large sample size to be accurate. They are based on average data from major league games. The more data you accumulate, the closer to your norm you will be.

 

http://i.imgur.com/r98BJOt.gif

[neely crenshaw]

perhaps we should stop posting 6 week stats like they show a huge trend and are a definitive answer.

[Banedon]

perhaps we should stop posting 6 week stats like they show a huge trend and are a definitive answer.

 

Something nobody has done.

[Banedon]

There was a mention in the Tribune today that a Cubs coach had been studying video of Rizzo and found a mechanical flaw involving him finishing his swing too high, and the fix began with Friday's game.

 

Small sample size alert:

 

Last 7 days- .360/.448 /.760/

[Ding Dong Johnson]

There was a mention in the Tribune today that a Cubs coach had been studying video of Rizzo and found a mechanical flaw involving him finishing his swing too high, and the fix began with Friday's game.

 

Small sample size alert:

 

Last 7 days- .360/.448 /.760/

Huge trend and definitive answer.

[jersey cubs fan]

There was a mention in the Tribune today that a Cubs coach had been studying video of Rizzo and found a mechanical flaw involving him finishing his swing too high, and the fix began with Friday's game.

 

Small sample size alert:

 

Last 7 days- .360/.448 /.760/

Huge trend and definitive answer.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Many of these new stats have to have a large sample size to be accurate. They are based on average data from major league games. The more data you accumulate, the closer to your norm you will be.

[sneakypower]

Besides, I'm not sure how this explains why he's swinging and badly missing at absolute garbage for a worrisome strikeout rate. That's the biggest problem right now.

swinging strike %

2012: 9.6%

2013: 9.3%

 

swings outside of the zone

2012: 38.5%

2013: 30.6%

 

i'm not remotely worried about him yet; he's just been pretty cursed so far, it happens over a SSS

 

this reminds me of last year when people were panicking over Shark's demise (in June?) when he was still pitching really well, just with unsustainable poor results

 

his k% is up to 29%. i don't believe that you're really "not remotely worried"

update: Rizzo's had 1 K in the 21 PA since this post (coinciding with a 1.630 OPS) bringing his K rate down to 24%, a couple points off his ZiPS projection of 21%

 

now carrying an .850 OPS despite a .222 babip; he's awesome

[Guest]

There was a mention in the Tribune today that a Cubs coach had been studying video of Rizzo and found a mechanical flaw involving him finishing his swing too high, and the fix began with Friday's game.

 

Small sample size alert:

 

Last 7 days- .360/.448 /.760/

Huge trend and definitive answer.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Many of these new stats have to have a large sample size to be accurate. They are based on average data from major league games. The more data you accumulate, the closer to your norm you will be.

 

hahahaha i thought this was a real post by that poster

[CubInOK]

Many of these new stats have to have a large sample size to be accurate. They are based on average data from major league games. The more data you accumulate, the closer to your norm you will be.

What about minor league games? How will I be able to predict how many times Brett Jackson will strike out every 30 PAs if I don't have data from major league games?

[SouthSideRyan]

Many of these new stats have to have a large sample size to be accurate. They are based on average data from major league games. The more data you accumulate, the closer to your norm you will be.

What about minor league games? How will I be able to predict how many times Brett Jackson will strike out every 30 PAs if I don't have data from major league games?

 

ct can provide that.