Most left-handed hitters in the majors aren’t truly left-handed. They are naturally right-handed and learned to bat left-handed. From 2002 to 2013 only 43% of all left-handed plate appearances were from left handed throwers.

I thought the there may be a somewhat different batted ball profiles for the two groups such as right-handed throwers are more fly-ball prone. After totaling the values from 2002 to 2013, the results are almost identical:

And here is the percentage mix for hits:

The only possible differences would be in FB% and K% being higher for right-handed throwers.

Padres CEO, Tom Garfinkel, stated the following in an interview:

Garfinkel told the crowd he saw a heat map, which highlights the locations a pitcher has targeted in the past, and that it showed over the last three years Greinke had not thrown a single pitch on a 3-2 count to right-handed hitters on the inner half of the plate.

 

Since 2007 until his last start, here are the locations off every pitch Zack Greinke has thrown on a 3-2 count against right-handed hitters:

Zack definitely comes in side about 1/3 of the time (36.7%). If the definition of inside is pushed to the inner quarter of the plate, the percentage drops to 13.5%. I would love to see the heat map Mr. Garkinkel was examining.

I have always figured pitchers have an early advantage in the season because balls hit in cold weather don’t travel as far. After watching teams try to pitch in the miserable weather of the last few days, I was wandering if there was a point where the cold weather affects the pitchers also. The main item I noticed was the pitcher’s in ability to consistently throw strikes. I decided to look at the Zone% for all pitches depending on the temperature. Here are the results:

Hitters don’t hit the ball as far in colder temperatures, but when the temperature is under 50 degrees, pitchers have issues throwing strikes.

On 3/24/13, the Rays put the following shift on Kevin Youkilis of the Yankees.

I decided to the Batted Ball Location application to see how often he pulls the ball which would cause the Rays to put on such a shift. Dividing the field into fifths, here is how often he hit ground balls into each area:

Location: GB%
LF: 29%
LF-CF: 45%
CF: 15%
RF-CF: 9%
RF: 2%

89% of Youkilis’s batted balls went to the center to left side of the field. The extreme shift, especially against a right-henaded hitter, makes sense considering the heavy pull nature and the lack of speed from Youkilis.

I decided to see what the chances were for Adam Wainwright’s contract working out for the Cardinals. The main issue is Wainwright’s age. He will be 33 when the contract starts. Past pitchers have produced almost to the level of the contract signed.

First, I plugged Wainwrights contact into my salary calculator (contract calculator tab) with some aggressive salary growth values of 10% salary inflation and the WAR/$$ amount of $6M/WAR. With those values, Adam would need to produce 13.6 WAR.  With a little more conservative numbers of 5% inflation and a 5.5 WAR/$$, the total ends up at 16.1 WAR

Next, I used the Marcel pitcher similarity tool here at BBHM to find pitcher who had similar age-32 projections from 1990 to 2007. After finding nine such pitchers, I looked at how they performed in their age 33 to 37 seasons and here are the results:

Using aggressive price increases, the salary looks fairly valued. The Cardinals are banking on the same level of production they got from Carpenter over the same seasons. Using a conservative price increase, the Cardinals looked to over pay. Only time will be able to tell.

I was able to see D.J. Peterson at Arizona State on March 13th. Here are my thoughts on the right handed junior.

Notes:
• Primarily pitched outside with nothing inside. I was too far away to get good readings on types, but he seemed to fed a nice mix of pitches.
• Displayed good line drive power, but no elite power during the game. I missed batting practice, but I heard he showed good power then.
• His swing is good, good base, keeps hands in tight, shoulder up, compact.

Continue reading →

I combined Jeff Sagarin’s rankings with Ken Pomeroy’s rankings to create an NCAA basketball tournament overall ranking. The top team (Louisville) will likely win the whole thing.

All of the teams are after the jump with the teams’ ranking next to their name.

Continue reading →

Eno Sarris need me to update some graphs I published a few years ago for an article at Sports on Earth. Pitchers account for half of the DL trips, but almost 60% of the days.

A few years back, I compiled all of the Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect lists into one master list. Then MGL at The Book Blog added the MLBIDs to all the players. I just went back and updated the list with the 2011, 2012 and 2013 prospects and their MLBIDs.

Link to combined BA top 100 prospect list.

OK, I have finalized the 2013 Marcel’s data which Tom Tango may or may not release this season:

http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/marcel-database-download/

Also, the data has been added to the Marcel comparison tool (looks for similar players and how they produced in the year of the projection – a way good to find % chance of under or over performed).

http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/batter_marcel.php
http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/pitcher_marcel.php

With the default values, Trout had no comparable 22-year-olds. By spreading out the criteria, I got 3 comps since 1952, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson and Miguel Cabrera. Not a shabby list.