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How well do hitters protect the
plate with two strikes?
John Dewan's Stat of
the Week™
June 22, 2007
Doesn't it seem like hitters take that called-third
strike way too often? For heaven's sake, these are professionals. They
should know how to protect the plate. It's the first thing that every
ballplayer is taught. You've got two strikes: protect the plate. Don't
take anything close to the strike zone.
What is the reality in Major League Baseball? First we have to define
what is meant by "protecting the plate." Here is how we're looking at
it. When a hitter has two strikes we consider it a failure when he does
one of two things: He takes the third strike, or he swings and misses.
But it's all relative and we have to adjust for that. Adam Dunn is a
power hitter and he swings and misses quite often, but does he does so
less often when he's protecting the plate with two strikes. To account
for this, we are going to compare how hitters perform when they have two
strikes compared to how they perform with less than two strikes. Here is
the Major League Baseball average for 2007:
| Less Than
Two Strikes |
|
|
With Two
Strikes |
|
|
Difference |
| Total Pitches |
Missed Swings Plus Taken Strikes |
Pct. |
Total Pitches |
Missed Swings Plus Taken Strikes |
Pct. |
Pct. |
| 226,205 |
66,444 |
29.4% |
82,310 |
13,842 |
16.8% |
12.6% |
Looking at this data overall, hitters do adjust significantly with
two strikes. They swing and miss and take a third strike far less often
with two strikes than they do with less than two strikes. And it's the
taken strike that is the big difference. Swing-and-misses are actually
up from 7% to 12% of total pitches (excluding bunt attempts) when the
count gets to two strikes. But taken strikes are way down, from 22% down
to less than 5%.
Let's look at some individual players. Here are the top five players
who protect the plate, and the bottom five.
| Top Five |
| Less Than
Two Strikes |
|
|
|
With Two
Strikes |
|
|
Difference |
|
| Player |
Total Pitches |
Missed Swings Plus Taken Strikes |
Pct. |
Total Pitches |
Missed Swings Plus Taken Strikes |
Pct. |
Pct. |
| Kevin Youkilis,
Red Sox |
891 |
337 |
37.8% |
370 |
36
|
9.7% |
28.1% |
| Reggie Willits,
Angels |
692 |
271 |
39.2% |
277 |
28
|
10.1% |
29.1% |
| Luis Castillo,
Twins |
757 |
268 |
35.4% |
263 |
18
|
6.8% |
28.6% |
| David Eckstein,
Cardinals |
577 |
177 |
30.7% |
180 |
7
|
3.9% |
26.8% |
| Johnny Damon,
Yankees |
746 |
270 |
36.2% |
357 |
36 |
10.1% |
26.1% |
| Bottom Five |
| Less Than
Two Strikes |
|
|
|
With Two
Strikes |
|
|
Difference |
|
| Player |
Total Pitches |
Missed Swings Plus Taken Strikes |
Pct. |
Total Pitches |
Missed Swings Plus Taken Strikes |
Pct. |
Pct. |
| Miguel Olivo,
Marlins |
588 |
195 |
33.2% |
198 |
60
|
30.3% |
2.9% |
| Vladimir
Guerrero, Angels |
782 |
138 |
17.6% |
188 |
28
|
14.9% |
2.8% |
| Geoff Jenkins,
Brewers |
559 |
138 |
24.7% |
221 |
52
|
23.5% |
1.2% |
| Juan Uribe, White
Sox |
592 |
153 |
25.8% |
195 |
49
|
25.1% |
0.7% |
| Miguel Cabrera,
Marlins |
836 |
192 |
23.0% |
254 |
62 |
24.4% |
1.4% |
The top five are not surprising. It's a group you would expect. It's
the bottom five that jump out. Miguel Cabrera -- it would appear that he
does absolutely nothing different with two strikes than he does with
less than two strikes. It seems to be working for him, the great hitter
that he is. Juan Uribe, who finally got his average up over .220 with
three hits in his last game, needs to take a different approach with two
strikes, it would appear.
However, what we need to look at next is two-strike performance (i.e.
batting average, OPS, etc.) relative to this new measure of protecting
the plate to get a better idea of how well players are doing. We'll do
that in a future installment.
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