In The Zone: Twins Among Best At Avoiding Bad Pitches

Interesting.  Regarding Rosario, I was curious how his 40% rate in 2017 compared with 2016?  With 2015?

Considering he had a great year at the plate in terms of all the traditional numbers, we have to accept he is who he is.  Personally, I'll take it!

I fully understand this stat, but I wonder if it has the same meaning for all the hitters.  I can imagine that Puckett and Vlad G.'s O-Swing% was very high, but that was part of their strength.  Not saying any of the current Twins have the same ability, but to me Rosario is the closest.  There have been times when he has burned opposing pitchers by successfully hitting close, but out of the zone pitches.

It would be informative to know a swing-and-miss percentage outside the zone and to know how batters fared when making contact with a pitch outside the zone.

I fully understand this stat, but I wonder if it has the same meaning for all the hitters.  I can imagine that Puckett and Vlad G.'s O-Swing% was very high, but that was part of their strength.  Not saying any of the current Twins have the same ability, but to me Rosario is the closest.  There have been times when he has burned opposing pitchers by successfully hitting close, but out of the zone pitches.

I liked the point on Grossman. True he walks, and it's basically the factor in his OBP, but there are stretches where he seems to think he is calling the balls and strikes. I know there are others, but I always wondered why pitchers nibble on guys like RG. There offensive abilities don't merit that respect. Why walk a guy who basically can't hurt you with his bat. Meaning if he gets to a three ball count, belt high fast balls until he proves he can really take advantage of them.

In the fifties and sixties I would watch Yogi Berra come in to town with the Yankees.  He was always described as a bad ball hitter, but he was also described as MVP and HOF.  He was my favorite Yankee.  Now we have elected Vlad Guerrero and we have another bad ball HOF. 

In this article - https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/leaderboarding-these-were-the-best-bad-ball-hitters-in-baseball-in-2017/ - our own Brian Dozier is among the bad ball leaders. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=yosted01

What I want to know is what happens when a player swings - Grossman needs to walk to have value.   He was a poor version of Eddie Yost who used foul balls and a good eye to make a very good career - 

This is interesting, and I wouldn't want to see a high o-swing% from the Twins, but more context is required here.  Generally, the Twins have a low o-swing%, because they have a low swing%.  Grossman does a good job of watching balls go by, but also has a much higher tendency to watch strikes go by.  The Twins had the second lowest z-swing% (61.6%) in the MLB, the percentage of strikes swung at.  And, as a result, the Twins therefore had the highest Zone% (48.6%), the % of pitches thrown to them in the zone in the MLB.

 

I'd say the more important stat here is still an old-fashioned, BB/K, which the Twins did fairly well at 0.44 (7th in MLB). 

Grossman is a good example of the entire issue of plated discipline, including shrinking your swing zone. Yes, he does let more strikes go by, along with balls outside the zone. The benefit for Grossman is a very high OBP. The benefit of having several disciplined hitters is that the opposing starter can't get off that easy throwing out-of-zone junk, which elevates pitch counts and tends to get more guys on first base. 

Grossman reveals that not swinging the bat is another way to apply pressure. It's also interesting that Rosario's way is not a disaster, either. Rosie pounds baseballs in all directions with power, driving in guys like Grossman. A good manager can play to the strengths of both approaches to produce runs. 

It's going to be fascinating to watch how Molitor tries to order bats this season, given the mix of disciplined and aggressive hitters in the lineup. Obviously you don't want Rosario leading off, but if you went

Buxton

Grossman

Rosario

Sano

That might work pretty well. Or,

Buck

Mauer

Grossman

Sano

Rosie

might work pretty well, too.

Why do I find myself hoping that Molitor's lineup construction is the product of rather forceful suggestions and not his intuition?

Out of zone pitches are not the same as bad ball pitches.   The context that gives any of this meaning is the woba of o zone contact.

I always refer to them as 'bad ball' hitters. My memory of Tony Oliva is he was one of the best of them. It's not necessarily a talent one would encourage, but some players do possess it.

Call me nuts, but I've always liked those "ball ball" hitters like Vlad. If I'm a batter and see a pitch that I like, one that I think I can do some damage with, who cares if it's in the strike zone or not? Take a swing and let some magic happen!That said, I also admire the patient batters with a "good eye," the ones who know the strike zone and tend to draw more walks, thus getting on base more often. Why not embrace both "talents" ?