The Myth of the Good At-Bat
Last week, watching Reggie Willits bat against Scott Kazmir, I literally bit my tongue. I’d just flipped on the game; Kazmir was pitching well; Willits stepped to the plate. With two strikes, Reggie just kept fouling off good pitches. Fastballs, sliders, changes–he hit them over the fence behind home-plate.
And the Angels’s announcers were ecstatic. Rex Hudler was smiling up in the booth. “What a great at-bat by Reggie! Oh, Reggie’s having a great at-bat.”
After about eleven pitches Willits ended up walking. And the great at-bat stuff started again.
I’ve always hated “good at-bats.” If we’re talking about a hitter who gets himself into a good count, then goes the other way for a hit, then I think the expression works. That is, in fact, a good at-bat. But if the hitter’s just not very good, and all he can is go up there and try to work a walk, then, no, that’s not a good at-bat. That’s a bad at-bad. That’s an at-bat that Billy Crystal, at sixty-five, could have six days out of seven.
Willits, who’s hitting .176 this season, had two walks in that Tampa game. He didn’t score a run. In 192 MLB games, he’s generated a career SLG % of .329. Is that low? Well, Julio Lugo’s slugging .314 this year. That’s nine doubles and zero home runs in 194 at-bats.
If we take a look at guys posting “good at-bats,” we’ll see that taking pitches, fouling off pitches, and looking to walk isn’t always such a good thing.
MLB’s leading pitch/appearance guy in ‘08: Nick Swisher. At 4.47 pitches seen per plate appearance, Nick Swisher is tenths ahead of Casey Blake, Jack Hannahan, Luis Castillo, Lyle Overbay, Daric Barton, and Fred Lewis. (In case you’re interested, Swisher’s hitting .218 this year. But he’s walking. He can’t hit hit, he can’t drive in runs, but he’s walking. Hurrah! for Nick and his contract extension. I wonder if the Sox knew they were getting an ‘05 Eric Hinske.) All of those guys are in the Top 20. They’re right up there with OBP machines like Adam Dunn, Jim Thome, Todd Helton, Bobby Abreu, J.D. Drew (career .392 OBP), and Kosuke Fukudome. (You might want to included Overbay and Barton in that latter group, but I want to stress the difference between good hitters who take pitches and bad hitters who find ways to get on-base. Barton is hitting .230 this year, and Overbay has really lost something at the plate.)
Getting on-base is a good thing, but ideally you’d like to do that via a hit. As Overbay’s proving for the Jays, walking isn’t good enough. Lyle’s hitting .180 with runners in scoring position. But his OBP with RISP is .377. He’s walking with RISP! That’s his approach. At the MLB level, you need guys to pick up base hits.
It’s amazing to look up and down the list of pitch-per-appearance leaders and see no-power singles hitters mixed in with intentionally-walked sluggers. There’s Alex Rios right behind Joe Mauer. Rios’s SLG % is down .128 points from his ‘07 number. He’s driven in twenty-five runs. He’s hitting .219 with RISP. But he’s taking pitches. He can’t hit ‘em, so he’s taking them, fouling them off.
Do these guys foul off batting practice fastballs? It’s scary to contemplate the gap between AAA and MLB. Here you’ve got guys like Willits just struggling to stay on a roster, and there you’ve got guys like Mauer playing games with the pitcher.
Really, just consider this statistic: Of the Top 20 pitch-per-appearance guys, thirteen have twenty or more extra-base hits in ‘08. Eight have more than twenty-five; seventeen have eighteen or more. Three have fifteen or fewer.
Sphere: Related Content
Print This Post
Loading ...
Comment by Red Sox Maniac on 25 June 2008:
I see what you are saying about the p/pa myth, but on both sides:
1. I don’t like the fact that the stat is in itself a generalization of the amount of pitches received, negating specifics such as a median value of pitches per plate appearance ( If a guy is batting .350 on the first pitch, the stat is useless, or if swinging on the 1st pitch against a guy with good command is needed, also negates the stat ), or how certain situations merit having more pitches per plate appearance ( which I am going to go against your argument here ).
2. On your side, you create an argument with the same generalization that somehow getting many pitches per plate is meaningless ( working a walk isn’t a good at-bat ) and that the ends of winning on offense doesn’t justify the means of creating it from seeing more pitches. The fallacy in your argument is that you think taking pitches to work a walk is a system that “bad hitters” only use, and that it is only one system.
Getting a high number of pitches is a great thing because:
1. Players, whether at-bat or in the dugout, have the ability to see the pitchers’ stuff, and has a sense of what to expect in future innings. More pitches means it is less likely players get deceived the 2nd and 3rd time around. This usually kills young pitchers who don’t have great game plans, and tend to struggle in the later innings early in their careers ( see: Felix Hernandez, Derek Lowe, Randy Johnson ).
2. You can break down a pitcher if you keep the heat on him, especially in the stretch position. It is one thing for a pitcher to throw 12 pitches in an inning, with one batter getting 5 pitches. Its another when a pitcher throws 23 pitches, and struck out a player after 11 pitches. The team has more of an advantage to wear him down within the inning; it is hard for the arm to throw consistently within an inning as each pitch is thrown.
3. The last statement can correlate along an entire game. If you have 11 players who are out, and they get 6 pitches in their at-bat, and you have 7 others that got on base on 3 pitches each, that looks like a good box score, especially when no runs are given up.
BUT think about it: 11 outs, 6 pitches average: 66 pitches; 7 players, 3 pitches: 21. 87 pitches in less than 4 innings isn’t good. And pitchers just don’t do as well after the 90 pitch mark.
Good teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians have players that wear out the pitcher, and they either get him out of the game, take advantage of his mistakes after throwing an abundance of pitches, or they get to him when he fatigues toward the end.
The leader board doesn’t place in the value of good at-bat hitters ( some are there in the top 30: Ramirez, Damon, Abreu, Thome, Giambi, Rios, Upton, Mauer ) since some hitters take advantage of first-pitch advantages ( Ramirez looks at the 1st pitch, but will at times swing at the 1st or 2nd pitch as an adjustment of pitchers getting ahead of the count ). I think a median value would make more sense to calculate the value of pitches-per-at-bat.
Good argument though. But 10 pitches is a good at-bat; that’s one-tenth of a starting pitchers game, and it could be a harbinger that he might not even last that long.
Comment by Red Sox Maniac on 26 June 2008:
Get in touch with me if you need box score evidence.