What's Wrong: AJ Burnett

After getting a good response from the first installment of the What's Wrong Series, I've decided to continue on to a pitcher who may become very popular this off-season: AJ Burnett. The current Blue Jays pitcher has an opt-out clause in his contract which rumors suggest he will exercise following the 2008 season. The 31 year old right-hander is not having the best of possible contract seasons; unless you are judging by that antiquated, context-dependent stat known as "wins."

The difference between Burnett and my last subject, Justin Verlander, is age. A.J. Burnett is past his prime years, but is likely to get paid this off-season by a team looking for a cheaper alternative to Ben Sheets and C.C. Sabathia. But the buyer may beware that this season, although Burnett has put up some pretty win and strikeout numbers, there are a number of reasons for caution. Despite playing in a neutral park with one of the league's best defenses, Burnett sports a high ERA due in part to his tendency to give up line drives.

Forgetting about wins, Burnett has pitched poorly, compared to previous seasons. First, the traditional stats:

2006: 135.7 IP, 3.98 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 7.83 K/9, 2.59 BB/9-- 115 ERA+
2007: 165.2 IP, 3.75 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 9.56 K/9, 3.58 BB/9-- 119 ERA+
2008: 146.0 IP, 4.50 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 9.32 K/9, 3.68 BB/9-- 93 ERA+

Indeed, Burnett's ERA, walk rate, and hit rate are at their highest levels since Burnett's 2000 season in Florida. While his strikeout rate in 2008 will be the second highest of his career (behind last season), it doesn't seem to have helped Burnett keep runs off of the board. To see why, we need to look at some of the batted ball data, courtesy of statcorner.com. First of all, Batting Average on Balls in Play, a number which should be around .280 for the average pitcher. It's high this season for Burnett, at .318; pitchers with a high BABIP should see a correction in the following season. Following this, fewer hits should result in fewer runs for Burnett.

But, we can see by looking at Burnett's last six seasons that he his allowing fly balls (26.7% and line drives (18.7%) at a higher rate than any time in his career. Unlike Justin Verlander, Burnett is allowing a lot of batted balls on those trajectories which typically result in a higher slugging percentage. This season, hitters have a slugging percentage of 1.041 on line drives; that is, they average more than a single when they make line drive contact. In addition, a line drive off of Burnett becomes a base hit an incredible 79.4% of the time. Both of these figures are the highest since he's joined the Blue Jays.

Another useful way of looking at Burnett's results is to break it down by pitch outcomes. The folks at statcorner.com do this as well, and we can see what percentage of Burnett's pitches have been balls, called strikes, swinging strikes, fouls, or hit in play. Interestingly, Burnett gets the same rate of called and swinging strikes as last season, he also throws balls at a similar rate. The foul ball percentage is down a bit this season; he's about average for his career on the rate at which balls are hit in play.

It may be tempting to look at a pitcher with a high BABIP and high Line Drive percentages and simply say that he is less effective than last year. But there is another important component, obvious to folks who realize how context-dependent ERA is: the defense. While the trajectory of a batted ball may be influcenced by what kinds of pitches and locations thrown by the pitcher, ultimately the responsibility for making an out lies with the defense. The simplest measure of defense is to take the total number outs recorded by the defense and to divide by the number of balls hit in play. Baseball Prospectus tracks this, and the Toronto Blue Jays actually do quite well, recording outs on 71.1% of balls in play. This puts them fifth in the majors, trailing the most efficent Tampa Bay (71.7%) and lapping league-worst Cincinnati (67.9%). Last season, the Blue Jays had the best defensive efficiency in the league.

Despite the team numbers, something is going on with the defense behind Burnett. A standard way to neutralize the effect of defense on a pitcher's results is to only consider the Three True Outcomes- the homer, the strikeout, and the walk. By these defenseless measures we can see if a pitcher has a bunch of Derek Jeters playing behind him. The Hardball Times has a good tracker of this, called Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). Burnett's numbers the last five years:

FIP
2004: 3.09
2005: 3.05
2006: 3.84
2007: 4.44
2008: 3.78

When a player's FIP is lower than his ERA, it suggests that the team is playing less efficient defense behind him. And the Blue Jays somehow have a Defensive Efficiency of just .679 when Burnett is pitching, versus that .711 overall. For comparison, Roy Halladay's got the Blue Jays defense working overtime, as they gobble up 71.8% of batted balls with the Doc on the mound. Once again, the culprit points back towards the hit trajectory-- a good defense doesn't suddenly get poor for Burnett, the problem is the type of batted ball the defense is facing.

In addition to his line drive problem, Burnett may be facing a new problem: left-handed batters. Throughout his career, Burnett has been able to get out both handed batters at an even rate: a .670 OPS against righties, a slightly higher .699 OPS against lefties. This season, though, lefties have raked him hard, to the tune of a .788 OPS that is his highest since his rookie season. Those left-handers make up a lot of Burnett's high BABIP as well, hitting at a .340 clip on balls in play. In addition to giving up more home runs to lefties than righties, he also walks them more often. One thing he's changed, according to the pitch f/x data, is throwing changeups to lefties:

Change-Up Rate
2007: Total: 9.86%, RH: 4.56%, LH: 14.78%
2008: Total: 6.16%, RH: 4.23%, LH: 7.83%

One difference between the seasons is that this year, splitters and sinkers are distinguished by Josh Kalk's system Last year, some of those pitches may have counted as change ups, but the majority of them were counted as fastballs. Still, the rate at which he throws off-speed pitches to lefties has dropped, and he's throwing curves slightly less often to left handers as well. This may not be to his benefit, as a great majority of Burnett's extra base hits come on his fastball, relative to his other pitches.

So what can we expect from a pitcher like A.J. Burnett? Baseball-reference.com, with their similar pitcher tool, doesn't know what to think of Burnett. His career hasn't matched any pitcher for more than one season at a time, and currently is best matched with Chuck Dobson, who was completely out of baseball after his age 31 season, in 1975. Last year's top comparison is more interesting- Erik Hanson, who also followed a good age-30 campaign (ERA+ 115 in 1995) with a sub-par age-31 year (ERA+ of 92 in 1996). He then tore his labrum and was out of baseball two years later. The career-ending injury is always a possibility for the fragile Burnett, whose multiple arm surgeries are likely to catch up with him.

If he stays healthy, Burnett's new pitching coach may be looking for a better selection of pitches, especially to left-handed hitters. If he can curb his line-drive problem and go back to getting a higher percentage of ground balls, he could become a good pitcher for a few years. Personally, I hope the Yankees stay far away...

What's Wrong: Justin Verlander

For most young baseball players, the expectation is that there will be improvement until the age of 27-29, then either a steady or sharp decline in their 30s. But a number of young players this season saw significant failure-- is this a harbinger of doom for these players, or just a fluke season? To answer these questions, we will have to rely on past down-years for similar players, as well as some peripheral statistics for 2008. We're going to start with a pitcher whose mediocre 2008 seasons affected me personally, because I spent a fantasy baseball draft pick on him in the ninth round.

Justin Verlander
2007: 201.7 IP, 3.66 ERA, 183 K, 67 BB, 181 H (ERA+ 125, 8.17 K/9, 8.19 H/9, 3.00 BB/9, 1.23 WHIP)
2008: 164.3 IP, 4.60 ERA, 129 K, 66 BB, 146 H (ERA+ 94, 7.07 K/9, 8.01 H/9, 3.61 BB/9, 1.29 WHIP)

UPDATE: A commenter pointed out that I made an error in Verlander's strikeout rate. In fact, he has reduced his strikeouts by more than one per nine innings, which is a significant difference. As noted in the comments, fewer strikeouts means more balls in play, but the BABIP (See below) suggests that those extra batted balls are not dropping for hits.

How did the Tigers' ace lose a full run/game on his ERA? While his strikeout and hit rates have largely stayed the same, his walk rate is elevated, but not some sharp increase that screams "suddenly bad pitcher!" (See: Willis, Dontrelle). This might suggest that Verlander has simply gotten "unlucky," which in baseball projection terms is talking about BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play). Research suggests that a hitter with a high BABIP in one individual season will see a correction in the following season; when the number of hits goes down, so does the ERA. Most interestingly is that pitchers, from season to season, do not seem to have an ability to control where a batted ball is hit (except home runs). So is Verlander allowing a bunch of bloop doubles this year?

2007: 42.0% GB, 30.7% FB, 18.1% LD, .279 BABIP
2008: 42.0% GB, 31.9% FB, 16.3% LD, .271 BABIP

Those are the percentage of all batted balls per trajectory. In addition to having a relatively stable BABIP, his line-drive percentage has actually dropped. Normally one could argue that a pitcher with a higher BABIP will not see a correction because they are allowing a lot of line drives (the trajectory with traditionally the highest associated slugging percentage). That's not true in Verlander's case. Using the new stat site www.statcorner.com, I looked at all of their breakdowns for Verlander. Only one difference between 2007 and 2008 really stands out: Verlander is getting fewer swinging strikes in 2008 (7.8%) than 2007 (8.8%). According to the site, the league average is also 7.8%, so Verlander has regressed in this area.

Swinging strikes immediately suggests that there's something wrong with either Verlander's fastball or curveball. So let's take a look at the pitch f/x data, using Josh Kalk's fascinating database. There's 2007 and 2008. Some things I notice, comparing the two player cards, in no particular order:

1) Release point. In 2007, the variation in Verlander's release point was absurdly tiny; almost exclusively between 5.8' and 7' from the ground, and between 2.25' and 3.5' horizontally. Compare that to the pitches recorded from 2008, which have a similar variance vertically, but are spread from 1.8 to 3.8' horizontally. Could it be that a wider variety of release points explains his higher ERA?

2) Pitch Movement. In 2007, pitch f/x calls three different pitches in three distinct clusters- fastball, moving between 4 and 15 inches vertically; changeup, moving between 1" and 12" vertically; and curveball, moving between 0" and -9" vertically (this means the pitch is falling less than a pitch without spin). In 2008, the system adds the recognition of the cutter, but the fastballs seem to be in the same area as in 2007. The changeup and curve clusters, however, have migrated towards each other and overlap slightly. Using the measures I invented in the A-Rod posts, it appears that curveballs with vertical break greater than 0 cause more missed swings (28.3%) than do curveballs with break below zero (20.2%), like all of the curves in 2007. But, using TB/Swing, the positive curves generate bigger hits (.191 TB/Swing) than negative ones (.151).

3) Fastball velocity: In 2007, his average fastball was recorded at 95.17 mph. This year, it's actually up to 96.07, while the cutter sits at 94.41. So it may be that pitches that last year counted as cutters were lumped in to the 2007 total, but Verlander's velocity has not changed at all.

So, if his peripherals are staying the same, he's not overly lucky this year, and his pitch f/x data is essentially the same, what's going on? The Detroit blog Triple Deke thinks that part of the issue is performance against left-handed batters. But lefties are hitting nearly the same this year (.694 OPS against) than last year (.689), with fewer home runs per plate appearance. Triple Deke also points to Verlander's performance with runners in scoring position, and it's true that he's allowed a .726 OPS against in those situations, compared to .651 last year. But it's unclear whether performance with RISP is really a repeatable ability, or perhaps we looking at one of those datapoints that suggests Verlander is simply unlucky.

Regarding a projection for the future, Verlander doesn't have much of a major league resume to go on just yet. Baseball-Reference listed Clark Griffith the most similar pitcher at age 23, and Elden Auker at age 24, which doesn't help much. Many of the more recent pitchers on the list did not experience a drop-off until later in their career (Mussina, Pettitte, Hudson) or can't stay off the DL (Wood, Harden). Eight of the ten pitchers listed improved their career ERAs in their year-25 season; Verlander dropped his from 121 to 112 this season.

For what it's worth, the Marcel Projection system forecast a step back for Verlander this season: it thought he would go just 179 innings with a 3.85 ERA, a 7.44 K/9, and a 3.02 BB/9. Marcel is the simplest projection system possible, and is based off of the last three years. Since this is Verlander's third full season, the projections for 2009 are not likely to be positive. But for a pitcher who has kept almost everything identical from a good season (2007) to a mediocre season (2008), who can say for sure what happened, much less what's going to happen. Meanwhile, I'm still trying not to giggle from writing (Wood, Harden) last paragraph...

Is A-Rod Easy To Pitch To (Part II)

In the first part, we began to investigate if there is a predictable pattern behind A-Rod's performance, and whether pitchers can maximize their success by picking the right pitch and location for each count. The main assumption is that if there were an easy way to deal with A-Rod, that lots of pitchers would be aware of this-- it's when they deviate from the game plan that the pitch ends up in the bleachers. Our friend is Josh Kalk's pitch f/x database, and our enemy is sample size.

This time, we'll see how A-Rod performs in the most pressure counts- with two strikes and with three balls. Then we'll see if there's anything interesting in the data related to pitch speed and break.

0-2 Count

Looking at the spreadsheet (available for free here), A-Rod swings at about an average rate in this count, though a higher than average number of those swings go for fouls. One thing you're not likely to see is A-Rod staring at a called strike three on this particular count- just four called strikes in 119 0-2 pitches in the database. The most interesting story in this count is on sliders. A-Rod is twice as likely to swing at an 0-2 slider, and has more swinging strikes on sliders than all other pitch-types combined. The location of the pitch does not seem to matter, although just like other counts he is more likely to swing at the slider away (from righties) and the slider down and in (from lefties).

1-2 Count
Before I saw the data, I had no reason to expect that A-Rod would perform any differently between 0-2 and 1-2 counts; the data disagree with that preconception. First of all, A-Rod is much more likely to swing on 1-2 (54.4% versus 44.5% on 0-2 and 45.7% overall). In the 0-2 count, we saw that the slider was deadly against A-Rod while he had some success with a fastball. The reverse is true on 1-2, he's even hit two home runs on 1-2 sliders. The visual evidence on the 1-2 fastballs is is striking:

Wheras A-Rod only swings and misses on pitches out of the zone on 0-2, there are a number of missed fastballs right in the middle of the plate. I cannot think of any reason for this to be true; it is not true of any other count. It seems at times that he cannot handle the 1-2 fastball. However, A-Rod's remarkable eye continues to show, as he is very unlikely to take a third strike on this count as well.
2-2 Count
A-Rod is even more likely to swing when the count is evened up, at 69.3% the most of any count. This is especially true of fastballs, where the rate goes up to 71%. By far the most common result of these swings is a foul ball... 34 times in 76 2-2 fastballs in the database, well above his normal fastball foul-percentage of 20.3%. Pitchers seem to like to pound the zone on this pitch, not wanting to run the count full:

A-Rod seems more likely to go outside the zone on this pitch than in other counts, but he's still unlikely to take that third strike. The best strategy seems to be that breaking pitch outside the zone or the fastball up.

3-2 Count

With the count full, A-Rod has had a lot of success. His keen batting eye returns from previous two-strike counts, although he will still go out of the zone. He also gets a lot of hits on pitches right over the plate, and with a .571 TB/Swing, it's his best count. If there's a pattern to how to get A-Rod out in these counts, I can't pinpoint it. Occasionally he will swing through fastballs in the zone, but that's not the best plan given his multiple homers on full counts. Once again there are a high number of foul balls:

In general, with two strikes A-Rod does what we would expect most hitters to do: he swings more, he takes strikes less, and he fouls off more pitches. According to a visual look of pitch location, he is more likely to chase pitches out of the zone. Perhaps its his baserunning ability that causes pitchers to pound the zone on 3-2.

Other three-ball counts are not nearly as successful for A-Rod. Even 3-1, a notable hitters pitch, doesn't match the full count in terms of TB/Swing. He is more likely to take a pitch in this count (22%), but not as likely as the 1-0 count (23.1%). Just like the 2-0 count I examined last time, A-Rod fouls off a lot of 3-1 pitches (26.8%). On 3-0, A-Rod doesn't seem to get the take sign all that often, his take percentage is 21.2%, which is near the median. While he's only missed a 3-0 pitch once, he hasn't had much success, with a TB/Swing of just .209. So we continue to have evidence that A-Rod fouls off a high percentage of "hitters pitches." His best pitches, as measured by TB/Swing, are three-ball counts.

Pitch Speed and Break
Location, pitch type, and count are not the only factors that go into A-Rod's performance, the effectiveness of the pitches are also important. Pitch f/x also allows a peek into this world. I've added sheets to the Google Spreadsheet that detail what goes on when the pitcher dials up the speed. First of all, he's more likely to swing:

All Fastballs-- 46.2%
Greater than 90 mph-- 47%
Greater than 93 mph-- 47.8%
Greater than 96 mph-- 51%

His effectiveness goes down as the speed increases. Amazingly, in 104 pitches above 96 mph, he has swung 52 times. He has yet to get a hit. Twenty-seven of those fireballs were fouled off, while he missed swinging at ten of them (chart at right).


Sliders, meanwhile, gain effectiveness not from speed but from break. The break is measured as deviation from a line extending from the front-middle of the plate to a point 40 feet in front of home plate. In the horizontal direction, a positive pfx score is indicative of a pitch which moved from the middle of the plate to the outside (from a righty to A-Rod). In the vertical direction, a positive value is a pitch which drops less than it does from gravity alone (due to backspin); a negative value drops more. The average slider to A-Rod broke 1.97 inches horizontally (away from A-Rod) and 3.03 inches vertically. Compare this to the fastball, which had a horizontal break of -3.44 inches (towards A-Rod) and a vertical break of 10.44 inches. Sliders don't so much slide as they do stay put, relative to the fastball. So is the more effective slider the one which stays put, or the one which dances?

According to the pitch f/x data, A-Rod is most dangerous on a slider which breaks more than three inches horizontally and between 0 and 3 inches vertically.

So what have we learned in this voyage that will help a pitcher? Some of the things the data suggest would be obvious by common sense, others are a bit puzzling. To sum up for readers like Shaun P who like to read the conclusions first:

1) Pitch A-Rod up and in early in the count, don't try to get him to chase out of the zone.
2) Behind in the count, A-Rod is less likely to take a strike and more likely to foul off a pitch.
3) In hitters' counts, A-Rod tends to foul off a high number of pitches.
4) A-Rod's most dangerous counts are 1-0, 3-1, and 3-2.
5) On 0-2, A-Rod will swing at sliders but not fastballs; on 1-2 the reverse is true.
6) A-Rod has trouble with pitches exceeding 96 mph.
7) Sliders which deviate too much from their initial trajectory will be hit a long way.

What do people think of these conclusions? Are there ready explanations for the more puzzling ones? Is there something wrong with my analysis? I'm open to all comments. Thanks for reading!

Is A-Rod Easy to Pitch To? (Part I)

Of all the blogs I read daily (58 subscriptions on my Google Reader), I find myself at Bronx Banter most frequently. The commenters there are top-class and always have something insightful to say, and the in-game threads are just the best anywhere (although when the Yankees are losing, it can get rough). One of the most frequent commenters is called "weeping for brunhilde," a man who stands behind the beauty of baseball as he thinks it was meant to be played: with maximum effort and minimum home runs. He's the kind of fan who values the hit and run over the three-run homer, and certainly there's a place in baseball for that.

One of his more frequent criticisms of the current Yankees is that of all the elite hitters in the game, Alex Rodriguez is "easy to pitch to." His contention is that, sure if you make a mistake, A-Rod is going to hit it a long way. But, if you know what you're doing, A-Rod can be dealt with in a predictable matter. I realized that with the huge database of Pitch f/x data now available online, we can begin to address that question. When we're discussing how to approach pitching to a particular batter, there are three primary concerns:

1) The Count
2) Pitch Selection
3) Pitch Location

The online tool allows us to easily look at the first two categories, while the third is a bit harder, and we'll take a look on a case-by-case basis. I'll list the caveats up front: 1) Sample Size-- this is data from only one season and while it includes many of A-Rod's at bats, it does not include all of them. In addition, the sample size for individual pitches in individual accounts is absurdly low, and most of the time I've combined categories to make more sound judgments. However, it may just be that the difference between two averages is not significant. 2) Problems with Pitch f/x. This has come up most frequently with pitch location and break, as cameras situated in different parks give different values, and need to be adjusted. The raw data I have access to is not adjusted, but I've tried to avoid most problems by combining all fastball-types (fastball, cutter, sinker) together, and we're not really interested in location just yet. 3) Relative importance- I have a bunch of different calculated values here, and while we can see how A-Rod in a particular split performs versus A-Rod as a whole, we have no idea how the average batter performs in similar situations. So while A-Rod takes the first pitch more often than on other counts, we don't know whether that's true generally, and whether A-Rod takes more or fewer first pitches than other batters. With all that in mind, let's plunge into the data.

The online tool allows one to drill down by pitch type, count, speed, break, and result of pitch. In this first examination we'll look at the first two. Click here for a spreadsheet that collects every pitch recorded by pitch f/x by count. I've added some calculated values at the end, which I shall explain.

Swing %- Swings (strikes + fouls + outs + hits)/Pitches
Take %- Taken Strikes/Pitches
Foul %- Fouls/Pitches
In Play, Out %- Outs/Pitches
TB/Swing- (Singles + 2*Doubles + 3*Triples + 4*HR)/Swings

I intended the last one to be a bit like Slugging Percentage, except measured by the total bases the player gets for every swing he makes. A-Rod's overall TB/Swing is .305. Interestingly, if you remove foul balls, it goes up to .491. I am open to all suggestions about this stat, but for now I will use it as a description of how successful the player is for a given count or pitch thrown.

So let's walk through a typical A-Rod at bat, starting with the first pitch.

0-0 Count

Everyone says that the first pitch determines everything- the pitcher needs to get that strike one to have control over the at-bat. Well, just under half the time (46.4%), the pitcher gets that first strike, while 40.5% of A-Rod's at bats go to 1-0. The remaining times, he hits the ball in play, and has recorded 21 base hits and 43 outs (.328 BABIP). He is more likely to take a strike on the first pitch (29.9%) than in all counts overall (16.8%), and is much less likely to swing (29.7% versus 45.7% overall). His TB/Swing rate (.345) is elevated over average (.305), thanks to the eight first-pitch home runs, and he's less likely to make an out.

What kinds of pitches are these hitters' throwing? Well, in the 489 at bats Pitch f/x has data for, more than half of them (288) are classified as fastballs. The next highest is the slider at 86, and then the curve at 47 pitches. By the numbers, the worst pitch to throw A-Rod to open the at-bat is the curveball- his .556 TB/Swing is one of his highest for any pitch type in any count. On the other hand, he is very unlikely to swing at the first-pitch curve, just 19.1% of them he's swung at, and has taken 44.7% of them for strikes!

The first-pitch fastball is the highest number of data points per category, so let's look at a detailed chart, which can be accessed online here. The x-axis is from the catcher's perspective and is positive to the catcher's right... so for A-Rod, points in the negative numbers are inside; positive numbers are outside. The interesting thing about the first-pitch fastball is that A-Rod is taking no matter where the pitch is. However, when he does choose to swing, there is a clear pattern:



A-Rod clearly likes that fastball middle of the plate and out, and will swing with the most success the further on the outside part of the plate it is. He is extremely unlikely to chase a first-pitch fastball outside the zone. contrast this with the first-pitch slider, the pitch on which A-Rod is most likely to swing:



Once again, A-Rod is looking for a slider on the outside of the plate, and is more likely to miss if it's down and away; this makes sense on outside sliders from right-handed pitchers. In fact, right handed pitchers are more likely to throw A-Rod a first pitch swing-and miss down and away than any other location, with any type of pitch.

Advice: if you're looking for that first-pitch strike, the fastball is still the way to go. A-Rod will take more often than on other counts, but try to get it on the inside part of the plate, where he's less likely to swing. Perhaps in subsequent at bats, if he's keyed into the first-pitch strike, fool him with a slider down and away (righties) or a changeup up and away (lefties). He's not likely to chase a pitch out of the zone, but has done so on those outside sliders.

1-0 Count

So you, the pitcher, failed to take my advice above and tried to get A-Rod to chase a high heater or inside pitch. What does A-Rod like to see in 1-0 counts? The short answer is almost everything-- with the exception of the ultimate "hitter's count" (3-1), this is A-Rod's best count, TB/Swing-wise, at .372. Number 13 particularly crushes splitters (1.286) and changeups (.571), but quizzically not fastballs (.143). The tables have turned since the first pitch; Rodriguez is much less likely to take a pitch than before (18.1% versus 30.7% first-pitch taking). His foul and out rates seem about average. So what's the deal with that fastball?



Two patterns jump right out at me: he's only chased one fastball outside the zone, and most tellingly, pitchers are far more likely to send that 1-0 fastball up and in. While A-Rod rarely chases, if the ball is hittable, A-Rod just doesn't do much with it. His lone hits on 1-0 fastballs came on pitches that were not elevated. We cannot tell from this data the kinds of outs A-Rod made, but it looks like going right after Rodriguez on 1-0 with some heat is a good idea. In support of the "up and in" strategy is A-Rod's performance on 1-0 sinkers, which are lower in the zone and hit much more frequently.

Advice: It is certainly risky to throw off-speed stuff on that 1-0 count: A-Rod has crushed two changeups and two splitters out of the park on this count. All of A-Rod's hits on 1-0 have come on the outside part of the plate... so don't pitch it there. Go with the up and in fastball.

0-1 Count
A-Rod steps out of the box and smooths the dirt beneath him after watching a fastball coast right down the middle for strike one. What should the next pitch be? The good news is that A-Rod is in trouble no matter what is thrown; his .250 TB/Swing is below average, and he swings a lot on 0-1, 40.7% of the time. This season, pitchers have been tossing A-Rod a healthy dose of fastballs on 0-1, with a varying level of success:



Once again, A-Rod almost never chases a bad pitch, but has been victim to the up-and-in fastball, missing a bunch of them and fouling off another bunch. However, he does have an 0-1 fastball homer that was up and in. Rodriguez is most likely to swing at an 0-1 changeup than other types of pitches, and he misses about 50% of the time when he does swing. He does not yet have a hit on an 0-1 curveball or sinker, and will go out of the zone to chase these pitches.

Advice: This is a well-known pitcher's pitch. The strategy should be based upon what happened in the opening effort. If it was a fastball on the inside part of the plate, perhaps it's best to try and get A-Rod to chase something off-speed out of the zone. If you ventured to the outside part of the plate or tried a first-pitch breaking ball, then up and in is the place to pitch.

1-1 Pitch
Perhaps there has been some varying success with the first two pitches; the count is now even. This is an interesting count for A-Rod. By the rate at which he swings, A-Rod likes his chances with the 1-1 count. The results, however, are just not there, with only .284 TB/Swing, compared to .452 overall. Breaking it down by pitch runs into the first of the sample size issues- though he has faces 70 fastballs on 1-1, every other pitch is at 30 or fewer. At the various kinds of fastballs, A-Rod is extremely likely to swing: 57% on fastballs, 70% on sinkers, 71% on cutters, 73% on splitters. He's had varying success with these pitches, but lumped together it's about average in terms of TB/Swing.

We cannot tell from here how well struck those fouls and outs were, but interestingly he has failed to record a hit on the 10 curveballs thrown on this count as well. Speed does not seem to be the issue, as he has faced 24 changeups, recording 3 hits in 13 swings.
Advice: Clearly, A-Rod is looking to swing on a 1-1 count. Most of the time he's getting some kind of fastball, and he's had success with that. If a breaking pitch is in your arsenal, consider using it, especially sliders outside the zone from righties.

2-0 Count
Or, perhaps you tried, unsuccessfully, to get A-Rod to chase fastballs out of the zone on both of the first pitches. The catcher than trotted out to remind you what he read on the Immaculate Inning about A-Rod's pitch selection. No matter- those transgressions will be pass if you buckle down on this hitter's pitch. Surely, A-Rod has his best numbers on the 2-0 count, right?



Wrong. His .243 TB/Swing is one of his lowest, far below the .305 average. This isn't for a lack of trying; A-Rod also swings a at a higher rate on this count, he just fouls off a ton of pitches. In 2008, he has just seven hits off of 71 pitches on 2-0, and no home runs. So, the pitchers must be scared of making a mistake in the zone on this count, right?

Wrong. Sample size is the enemy again, but there are still some interesting trends. The foul-balls are one interesting one. A-Rod's top fouling counts

2-2: 34.9% (166 pitches)
3-1 26.8%
3-2 25.5
2-0 25.4%

The two strike counts make sense. As we'll see in the next part, A-Rod definitely changes his approach when there's two strikes. But what's the deal with the 2-0 and 3-1 counts, and the high foul percentage? It happens with every pitch type. Do we have evidence of A-Rod "pressing" in the batter's box? Clearly, this is one of the issues that needs further examination, by looking at the league average foul percentage.

And so that's where I'm going to stop. There's more than enough information to go wild with, although how significant it is remains to be seen. In the next part, I will look at A-Rod's performance in 3-ball and 2-strike counts. At this point I will solicit any suggestions on how to improve the method and analysis. Clearly, many fans like to heap a bunch of blame on good hitters, calling them "stat-padders" or disparaging their performance in the clutch. Hopefully, with this kind of analysis we can finally take a look at this on a pitch-by-pitch basis.