White Sox Pitch Type Data
Prompted by a recent article at The Hardball Times, and the easy to use Pitch f/x tool created by Josh Kalk, I decided to see what we could learn about some White Sox pitchers.
Before we go any further, I have to point out two rather large caveats.
- The linked tool and the linked THT article use different algorithms to determine pitch type. Do to the size of the sample (270K pitches), however, I feel we can still draw some useful info from comparing the two.
- This pitch data is incomplete for each player. MLBAM's pitch f/x system was available at USCF all year long, but had yet to be installed at every park. The linked pitch data (for the White Sox players) represents about 2/3rds of their pitches thrown. I listed each players total pitches thrown under the total captured by the pitch f/x system. (By chance, we have about 85% of Gavin Floyd's pitches available, but we miss fully 1/3 of his HR allowed.)
Click read more for further discussion, and even more caveats
References: [Hardballtimes] [Kalk's Blog] [White Sox Pitch Type Data]
If you're going to play with Kalk's pitch f/x tool, make a mental note that the lefty/right code is flipped. If you select a pitcher vs. lefties, you get his righty data and vise versa.
- Whiff% is the percentage of pitches thrown at which the batter swung but came up with nothing but air.
- "In play" should probably be hidden, but I'd have to break apart a bunch of cells on each page to make that happen. It could be labeled "Non-HR hits." I was just using it to make BABIP calculations.
- I included (In play + HR)% because it was used in the THT article.
- I probably should have included a percentage breakdown of pitch selection. All the data is there in the first column of data. You can do the math.
- In order to easily put the data on the web, I used Google spreadsheets. So the formatting isn't the prettiest.
- I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the data.
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No mention of money...
Actually, that number of years might be OK if the money per year isn't too high. He'll probably need a year in AAA before he could contribute, if he ever will.
Here's hoping Ramirez beats the odds and can play some big league ball.
by hitlesswonder on
Dec 21, 2007 5:23 PM CST
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Any chance you can add ISO or SLG and GB/LD/FB?
Danks and Floyd both have one plus pitch, but I was disappointed to see how bad Floyd's curve was in the recorded ABs. He couldn't throw it for a strike, didn't get that many whiffs, nor does it look like the GB generator it might be otherwise. Danks has control issues with the pitches that are easiest to throw for a strike, but I think we might be able to call his change elite. He rarely throws it for a ball (30% for him, 40% on average) and gets a lot of whiffs that way (13% on avg, 17% for him).
by colintj on Dec 21, 2007 6:34 PM CST 0 recs
GB/FB/LD = no can do
ISO and SLG, there is at least partial data for. H, 2B, 3B, and HR are displayed when you run each report, but since you don't have at-bat data you can't really come up with a proper percentage.
I'll just list the extra-base hits in a final column.... The link should be updated in a few minutes.
by The Cheat on
Dec 22, 2007 12:49 AM CST
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Hardball Times piece
Thank you for the interesting information all year and Merry Christmas to all.
by Florida Jim on Dec 22, 2007 11:36 AM CST 0 recs
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas to all!
by ChicagoPete on
Dec 22, 2007 6:08 PM CST
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