Tag: Mets

Dodgers hammer Diaz despite his “excellent pitches”

Posted on by metbaseball

During yesterday’s ninth inning loss, the Mets’ closer, Edwin Diaz, pitched batting practice for the Dodgers. As a result, his ERA in away games jumped to 4.50. At home, it is 2.19.

When he entered the game in the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers had a 3.4% chance of winning, according to FanGraphs. Then, seven batters and one out later, the Dodgers won the game 9-8.

The graphic below shows how the game’s Win Expectancy shifted in the bottom of the ninth.

Source: FanGraphs

Five of the seven batters that Diaz faced had batted balls: two homers, two doubles, an intentional walk, a single, and a sacrifice fly. The chart below shows the pitch location of five of the six batted balls. (Justin Turner’s double is shown. Cody Bellinger’s is not.)

Source: Baseball Savant

Here are Diaz’s pitches the Dodgers hit (data from Baseball Savant):
– Home run: Slider (Pederson)
– Home run: Four-seam fastball (Muncy)
– Double: Slider (Turner)
– Double: Four-seam fastball (Bellinger)
– Single: Two-seam fastball (Beaty)
– Sacrifice fly: Slider

Diaz threw 30 pitches, but only four- and two-seam fastballs and sliders. Three of the nine sliders were batted balls, but only three of the 21 fastballs were. Further, while 11 fastballs were fouled off only one slider was. But the average exit velocity of the fastballs was 100.1 mph, four mph faster than for the sliders.

Only 43.3% of the pitchers were in the zone; however, the Dodgers swung at 84.6% of them, showing excellent plate discipline: They made contact with 81.8 % of them.

Source: Baseball Savant

The next chart, a spray chart shows how spread out the Dodgers’ batted balls were.

Source: Baseball Savant

After the game, Diaz said,

“Today was easily the worst day of my career, the worst game of my career, the worst game of the season for me,” Diaz said through an interpreter. “I thought I threw excellent pitches.”

Anthony DiComo — Edwin Diaz blows save against Dodgers | New York Mets

What makes yesterday’s outing particularly surprising is that, after it, left-handed hitters are batting .188/.250/.531 against Diaz; whereas, right-handed batters are hitting .286/.344/.429. Six of the seven Dodger batters that Diaz faced were left-handed.

As, if not more, surprising is that in away games, batters are now hitting .310 against him versus only .196 in home games.

Yesterday, while Diaz was on the mound, Wilson Ramos was behind the plate.

Statcast School: Barrels

Posted on by metbaseball

Pete Alonso has quickly become one of the top power hitters in Major League Baseball, but unlike in days of old, how many homers a batter hits and how far he hits them are no longer the only measures of a slugger. Today, “barrels” has become a popular indicator.

In an article for Baseball Prospectus, Russell A. Carleton wrote that

Until Statcast, we didn’t have systematic (public) data on how hard a batter hit the ball. Now, we know how fast the ball was going when it left the bat and at what angle the ball was “launched.”

MLB defines a barrel as those

batted-ball events whose comparable hit types (in terms of exit velocity and launch angle) have led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage since Statcast was implemented Major League wide in 2015.

Further, “To be Barreled, a batted ball requires an exit velocity of at least 98 mph,” according to MLB.

Here is MLB’s definition of a batted-ball event:

A Batted Ball Event represents any batted ball that produces a result. This includes outs, hits and errors. Any fair ball is a Batted Ball Event. So, too, are foul balls that result in an out or an error.

To start, in Statcast I sought to answer this question: Which players have hit the most barrels this season. To do the search, I used the search settings below.

Player Type: Batter
Season: 2019
Season Type: Regular Season
Quality of Contact: Barrel
Min # of Total Pitches: 25 Pitches
Sort By: Pitches
Change Total Pitch Parameters: Click “Plate Appearances.”

Being a Mets fan, the third name in the results drew my attention: Pete Alonso. Up to May 13 he has 20 barrels in 165 plate appearances (12.1%). The radial chart below shows the exit velocity and launch angle of each barrel. The area in red contains the barrels. To see the “live” chart, click this link.

Position your cursor over the topmost circle in the Barrels area. When you do that, the information in the image below should appear.

The three black circles indicate outs, the 17 green circles hits, so not every barreled ball is a hit. “KC” is knuckle curve.

Some other facts:

  • The average distance of Alonso’s barreled balls is 386.5 feet.
  • The average launch angle is 23.69º.
  • The average exit velocity is 109.8 mph.
  • The hardest-hit ball traveled at 118.3 mph.
  • The lowest launch angle was 12º: the result, a line drive double to left field.

Statcast Primer: Whiffs in Chase Zone

Posted on by metbaseball

How many pitches in 2019 have Mets hitters swung at and missed that were in the Chase zone?

Statcast Search Settings
  • Pitch Result: Under “Group Select” click “Swing & Miss.” Four items will be selected: Foul Tip, Swinging Pitchout, Swinging Strike, Swinging Strike (Blocked).
  • Player Type: Batter
  • Team: Mets
  • Attack Zones: Under “Group Select” click “Chase.” Eight items will be selected (21-24, 26-29).
  • Season: 2019
  • Season Type: Regular Season
  • Min # of Total Pitches: 25 Pitches
  • Sort By: Pitches
  • Change Total Pitch Parameters: Click “Attack Zones.”
Search Results

Here are the qualifiers as of May 6, 2019 sorted by Pitches (results)

Mets Whiffs in Chase Zone — 2019 — ordered by number of whiffs
Analysis of Results

Pete Alonso whiffed on the most pitches (23) in the Chase zone, but Amed Rosario, who swung at and missed 22, had the highest percentage of whiffs — 20.2%. The lowest percentage belonged to J. D. Davis (5), but he also had the fourth-fewest qualifying plate appearances (67).

A narrowing of the results by limiting the search period to the last two weeks (i.e, starting from April 22) revealed a change. Alonso still whiffed on the most Chase zone pitches (13) and now had the second-highest whiff percentage (18.3%), but Wilson Ramos had the highest percentage (21.4%) and the second-most whiffs (9).

Mets whiffs in Chase zone — 2019 — ordered by whiff percentage

Good news was that Rosario’s percentage dropped about eight points to 12.0%, meaning he was likely showing more plate discipline.

Note: To limit the search to the last two weeks, for “Game Date >=” select April 22 from the calendar that appears, a sample of which is shown below.

Statcast Primer: Finding Hits on 2-Strike Count — 2018

Posted on by metbaseball

In 2018, what Mets pitcher gave up the most hits when the batter faced a two-strike count (0-2, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2)?

Statcast Search Settings

  • PA Result: Home Run (4) — single, double, triple, home run
  • Season Type: Regular Season
  • Count: 2 Strikes
  • Season: 2018
  • Player Type: Pitcher
  • Team: Mets
  • Min # of Total Pitches: 100 Pitches
  • Sort By: Pitches
  • Change Total Pitch Parameters (2): Count and Plate Appearances

Results

Steven Matz gave up the most hits on a two-strike count, 70, while tying for second in the percentage of hits given up (per plate appearances) on a two-strike count, 17.8%.

Among the starters, Jacob deGrom had the lowest percentage of hits given up (per plate appearances) on a two-strike count, 10.5%. That was also the lowest percentage in Major League Baseball among pitchers who faced at least 400 batters. Only two other pitchers had a percentage under 11%. Blake Snell was at 10.8% and Gerrit Cole was at 10.8%. The League average was 15.7%.