skyking162

I’ll admit it up front, there’s not a lot of analysis in this post. I’ve crunched a lot of numbers, but I’m not quite sure how to interpret them or what next steps to take. Any and all ideas are appreciated. Here’s how I got to where I am:

I started with information and data from two Toms — Tango and Tippett — showing the how the league performs by count. Because strikeouts can only occur with two strikes and walks can only occur with three balls, I wanted to measure performance by eliminating strikeouts and walks as potential outcomes. Here are the metrics presented:

BABIP — batting average on balls put into play (no K’s, no HRs)
SLG BIP — slugging percentage on balls in play (no K’s, no HRs)
BA noK — batting average, not counting K’s (includes HRs)
SLG no K — slugging percentage, not counting K’s (includes HRs)
HR noK — homerun percentage, not counting K’s

AT	BABIP	SLG BIP	BA noK	SLG noK	HR noK
0-0	.311	.398	.341	.555	.044
1-0	.310	.403	.342	.574	.047
2-0	.299	.395	.343	.622	.063
3-0	.343	.472	.401	.789	.090
0-1	.299	.375	.321	.487	.031
1-1	.301	.384	.328	.522	.038
2-1	.301	.391	.332	.551	.044
3-1	.307	.400	.347	.604	.057
0-2	.282	.355	.297	.432	.021
1-2	.282	.347	.301	.441	.026
2-2	.288	.369	.313	.494	.035
3-2	.303	.393	.334	.552	.044

Presumably, the difference in performance can be attributed to the batter’s need to avoid additional strikes and desire to gain additional balls. With two strikes players seem to trade good results when they make contact for, presumably, a higher chance of making contact. With more balls, players swing harder. If you look closely, however, BA, SLG BIP, and HR noK aren’t in a simple proportion — there’s more going on. (Any ideas?)

My next plan was to compare one specific player with the league-average. Why not Adam Dunn? He’s going tons of power, no batting average, and strikes out a lot. Here’s how Dunn stacks on up overall when making contact:

TOT	BABIP	SLG BIP	BA noK	SLG noK	HR noK
Lg	.302	.386	.328	.519	.037
Dunn	.291	.390	.368	.772	.106
Dunn/Lg	96%	101%	112%	149%	288%

But how did he handle different counts?

AT	BABIP	SLG BIP	BA noK	SLG noK	HR noK
0-0	.310	.355	.398	.848	.123
1-0	.272	.330	.366	.825	.124
2-0	.316	.381	.413	.946	.141
3-0	.125	.167	.222	.611	.111
0-1	.286	.351	.337	.624	.068
1-1	.294	.371	.385	.867	.124
2-1	.354	.413	.418	.801	.097
3-1	.253	.282	.369	.903	.155
0-2	.317	.406	.371	.721	.079
1-2	.254	.321	.304	.582	.065
2-2	.275	.335	.345	.705	.093
3-2	.288	.322	.366	.761	.110

Obviously, lots of power. But it’s hard to interpret those numbers without comparing them to average. So here’s the ratio of Dunn’s performance to league performance on each count:

AT	BABIP	SLG BIP	BA noK	SLG noK	HR noK
0-0	1.0	.9	1.2	1.5	2.8
1-0	.9	.8	1.1	1.4	2.6
2-0	1.1	1.0	1.2	1.5	2.2
3-0	.4	.4	.6	.8	1.2
0-1	1.0	.9	1.0	1.3	2.2
1-1	1.0	1.0	1.2	1.7	3.2
2-1	1.2	1.1	1.3	1.5	2.2
3-1	.8	.7	1.1	1.5	2.7
0-2	1.1	1.1	1.2	1.7	3.7
1-2	.9	.9	1.0	1.3	2.5
2-2	1.0	.9	1.1	1.4	2.7
3-2	1.0	.8	1.1	1.4	2.5

That’s a lot easier to read. Dunn’s got some weird 3-0 results thanks to small sample size (19 at-bats). But otherwise his batting average on balls in play is pretty consistent, his SLG on balls in play is a bit below average (but somewhat consistent except for 3-1 counts), and his homerun power absolutely crushes the rest of the league (but varies more).

At this point I started mentally comparing Dunn’s performance in different counts to himself. So I calculated Dunn’s advantage in each count relative to his overall advantage. To be exact, the calculation is (DunnCount/LgCount) / (DunnTOT/LgTOT).

AT	BABIP	SLG BIP	BA noK	SLG noK	HR noK
0-0	1.0	.9	1.0	1.0	1.0
1-0	.9	.8	1.0	1.0	.9
2-0	1.1	1.0	1.1	1.0	.8
3-0	.4	.3	.5	.5	.4
0-1	1.0	.9	.9	.9	.8
1-1	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.1	1.1
2-1	1.2	1.0	1.1	1.0	.8
3-1	.9	.7	.9	1.0	.9
0-2	1.2	1.1	1.1	1.1	1.3
1-2	.9	.9	.9	.9	.9
2-2	1.0	.9	1.0	1.0	.9
3-2	1.0	.8	1.0	.9	.9

Dunn’s relative power advantage seems to come on 0-2 counts. He must continue swinging for the fences instead of looking to put the ball in play like the rest of the league. His relative weakness is 3-1, likely because he doesn’t do anything differently, but the rest of the league feels like it can pretend to be Adam Dunn for the next pitch.

So, where do I go from here? What can I do with the raw data available? Anything that popped into your head while reading this?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.