RP/SP Appropriation

GB% by Base State

An interesting question raised at Fangraph's Q&A: Does GB% go up with a runner on first?

I queried retrosheet event files and sorted their recorded batted ball types by Base State and found the answer is: Apparently not.

BASE_STATE	GB%	FB%	LD%	PU%*
0	44.9	36.9	18.1	7.8
1	43.7	37.5	18.8	7.8
2	46.3	35.8	17.8	7.7
3	44.7	37.2	18	8
4	45.3	36.9	17.8	8
5	44.9	37.2	17.9	7.9
6	46.1	36.6	17.3	7.9
7	44.2	37.9	17.9	8.5

2002-2011, includes post-season data. Pop-ups are included in FB%, all bunts are excluded. 

I expanded on this table in a full article at BTB here:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/9/6/3295298/do-pitchers-induce-more-ground-balls-in-double-play-situations

Interview with Jeff Samardzija

Recently UZR Illusion was given an exclusive interview with Cubs' right-hander Jeff Samardzija. The breakout Notre Dame alumnus happens to be my neighbor in the Wrigleyville area and on occasion we've crossed paths while walking our dogs. On this one particular morning I asked Jeff if he wouldn't mind answering a few questions for the blog, and he very kindly agreed and even welcomed me into his home.

UI2: So, Jeff, how is the season going so far?

JS: Good, we really have a great group of guys and a great coaching staff that's really made it easy for a lot of our younger guys to make the jump to the big league level. I think we all would have liked to win a few more games, but I don't think anyone here doubts the plan Dale [Sveum] and Theo [Epstein] and everybody has for the franchise going forward and we're all really excited about the future.

UI2: Wow, that was a really good answer.

JS: [laughs] Thanks.

UI2: Do you guys ever talk about how weird Dale's name is? Svay-um?

JS: [laughs] Let's just say, not to his face, haha.

UI2: So, do you ever do air guitar?

JS: [laughing] Uh, what?

UI2: Like, do you ever do your hands like there is a guitar there like this... [gestures playing guitar]

JS: I know what it is. I guess I just didn't understand what you--

UI2: Can I take a picture of you air guitaring?

JS: Um, I don't think so.

UI2: No prob, can I take a picture of myself doing an impression of you playing air guitar?

JS: Knock yourself out.

UI2: Jeff, would you say that we are 'best buds'?

JS: Um, probably not.

UI2: 'Close friends'?
JS: No.

UI2: But you've seen me before, right? That one time when you were like, 'what's up?' and I was like, 'hey'?

JS: This is the first time I've seen you in my life, dude. Is this going anywhere?

UI2: Sorry. I'll get back on track here. Um, earlier in the season I wrote an article about you where I noted that your drop in walk rate at the time was sort of an unprecedented accomplishment in the past 20 years. Only Randy Johnson in 1993 and Roy Halladay in 2003 have had control improvements that were as dramatic. Do you think this is an indication of how good you could be?

JS: Wow, I didn't know that. But, I mean, those guys are first-ballot Hall of Fame pitchers. I don't know if I'm ready to associate myself with that sort of talent right now, but thanks, I appreciate it!

UI2: Well, that was about your drop in walk rate at that time. It's since gotten a lot worse.

JS: Oh.

UI2: Can I pet your dog?

JS: I don't see why not.

UI2: Can I try some of that potato salad?

JS: I'd rather you didn't to be honest.

UI2: Do you ever watch Star Trek?

JS: Um, no. I'm pretty sure that show is just for nerds.

UI2: Well, I'm not so sure about that, Jeff. I mean some people think it's a pretty cool show. I've heard, I mean

JS: Oh, you've heard?

UI2: What is your favorite dinosaur? Mine is Sinornithosaurus.

JS: I don't know, man. Look, buddy, can we hurry this thing up?

UI2: Do you ever hang out with Geovanny Soto?

JS: Oh, Geo is great. He's a great catcher with a lot of natural baseball instincts and always had a knack for calling the right pitches and knowing how to handle a pitching staff. I still talk to him and Dempy [former Cub Ryan Dempster] even though they were both traded to Texas. Me and Geo had a lot of good times together-- both on the field and off the field.

UI2: When you say you had fun with Geo "off the field" what do you mean exactly?

JS: What are you getting at?

UI2: I mean, did you ever hang out with Geovanny Soto on weed?
JS: Ok, time to leave, dude.

Use of Southpaws since 1960

Percent of Plate Appearances from right-handed pitchers vs left-handed pitchers since 1960:

Year	RHP%	LHP%
1960	73.81	26.19
1961	71.59	28.41
1962	72.42	27.58
1963	70.26	29.74
1964	69.39	30.61
1965	68.58	31.42
1966	68.76	31.24
1967	70.06	29.94
1968	71.27	28.73
1969	71.28	28.72
1970	69.57	30.43
1971	69.14	30.86
1972	69.4	30.6
1973	66.78	33.22
1974	67.45	32.55
1975	67.92	32.08
1976	69.66	30.34
1977	69.24	30.76
1978	66.71	33.29
1979	69.05	30.95
1980	68.92	31.08
1981	70.58	29.42
1982	69.92	30.08
1983	68.77	31.23
1984	69.09	30.91
1985	68.56	31.44
1986	68.67	31.33
1987	67.59	32.41
1988	69.51	30.49
1989	68.14	31.86
1990	66.13	33.87
1991	67.98	32.02
1992	69.29	30.71
1993	70.89	29.11
1994	72.1	27.9
1995	72.86	27.14
1996	74.18	25.82
1997	73.61	26.39
1998	73.58	26.42
1999	74.95	25.05
2000	75.44	24.56
2001	75.81	24.19
2002	74.78	25.22
2003	72.93	27.07
2004	72.98	27.02
2005	73.28	26.72
2006	72.92	27.08
2007	72.56	27.44
2008	71.74	28.26
2009	72.44	27.56
2010	71.88	28.12
2011	73.27	26.73

 Baseball saw its most southpaws in 1990 with 33.8% of all PA's and its least in 2001 with just 24.2%. Lefties have seen less playing time since the mid-nineties, but have been slowly on the rise over the past decade.

Run Expectancy 2010-2011

As a follow-up to my post on Beyond the Boxscore, here is an updated Run Expectancy table generated from the 2010-2011 seasons:

BASE STATE	0 Outs	1 Outs	2 Outs
“---”	0.497	0.264	0.105
“1--”	0.888	0.518	0.236
“-2-”	1.110	0.689	0.330
“--3”	1.385	0.936	0.349
“12-”	1.441	0.893	0.460
“1-3”	1.810	1.118	0.486
“-23”	1.995	1.402	0.605
“123”	2.397	1.536	0.799

wBABIP by COUNT

We are all aware that different counts offer different advantages and disadvantages in the pitcher-batter match-up. But just how much of an advantage is a 3-1 count compared to an 0-2 count? 

Obviously these two situations offer different odds of a walk or a strikeout occurring, but I wanted to concern myself exclusively with how the count affects the ball off the bat.

Adding linear weights to the traditional BABip formula is something I think could be useful for this. For instance, if we took the 'generic' wOBA weights for total bases used in The Book, and then borrowed the denominator from the traditional BABIP formula, but included homeruns:

(0.90*1B + 1.24*2B + 1.56*3B + 1.95*HR) / (AB - SO + SF)

This gives us a better estimate of not only if the ball was converted to an out or not, but perhaps how well the ball was hit, by adjusting for extra bases, as well. We can then apply the results to the average wBABIP in all counts for reference:

COUNT	wBABIP	+/- AVG	% of AVG
“3-0”	0.466	0.106	1.29
“3-1”	0.414	0.054	1.15
“2-0”	0.405	0.045	1.13
“1-0”	0.378	0.018	1.05
“3-2”	0.378	0.018	1.05
“2-1”	0.376	0.016	1.04
“0-0”	0.375	0.015	1.04
AVG	0.360	0	1.00
“1-1”	0.356	-0.004	0.99
“0-1”	0.342	-0.018	0.95
“2-2”	0.341	-0.019	0.95
“1-2”	0.328	-0.032	0.91
“0-2”	0.318	-0.042	0.88

... from 2002 - 2011, includes post-season, excludes all pitcher's PA.

BASE STATES

A look at how base-state effects the batter-pitcher match-up.
...
PITCHERS 

Base State	PA	FIP*	BABIP	K%	BB%	HR%	GB%	FB%	HR/FB	PPA	IBB%
"---”	1045868	4.36	0.294	17.9	7.6	2.8	43	36.9	10.7	3.84	0.01
“1--”	342077	4.27	0.311	15.9	6.9	2.8	41.6	37.8	10.4	3.84	0.01
"-2-”	167165	4.53	0.293	16.9	10.3	2.2	44.4	35.9	9.5	4.03	3.71
“12-”	135831	4.21	0.290	17.5	7.7	2.6	42.7	37.5	10.2	3.77	0.05
“--3”	55109	4.67	0.301	17	10.7	2.2	43.7	36.8	9.1	3.98	3.58
“1-3”	58709	4.34	0.307	15.9	7.7	2.5	43	37.2	9.5	3.78	0.55
“-23”	42529	4.42	0.297	16.6	9.4	1.9	44.5	36.5	8.9	4	10.88
“123”	48959	4.06	0.296	17.9	6.7	2.6	42.8	38	9.5	3.69	0

*where FIP here is the 'generic' version of the metric, using 3.2 as the constant, and 'PPA' is pitches per plate appearance.
...


I was inspired to run this query after Tom Tango at The Book Blog mentioned that a pitcher is much more likely to walk a batter with a runner on 2nd rather than 1st. This is affirmed by the chart-- with the difference a little over 3%.  Similarly, pitchers attempt to avoid contact in the '--3' and '-23' base states when first base is also vacant and HR/FB drops as the pitcher is apparently living ouside-the-zone a touch more than usual.


This is naturally an advantage for the hitter as he sees a bump in his OBP and OPS therefore, but not so much with his SLG percentage:

BATTERS 

Base State	PA	wOBA*	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
"---”	1045868	0.323	0.258	0.32	0.413	0.734
“1--”	342077	0.327	0.277	0.325	0.433	0.759
"-2-”	167165	0.311	0.252	0.36	0.394	0.754
“12-”	135831	0.312	0.254	0.314	0.405	0.718
“--3”	55109	0.323	0.277	0.373	0.429	0.802
“1-3”	58709	0.330	0.296	0.338	0.459	0.797
“-23”	42529	0.292	0.273	0.412	0.423	0.836
“123”	48959	0.319	0.281	0.316	0.445	0.761

...
*where wOBA is also the 'generic' version of the metric and does not include IBB or SB/CS.

It's also worth noting that BABIP is at it's highest when the first basemen is holding the runner. BABIP jumps about 17 points from bases empty to a state of "1--", but GB-BABip, in particular, sees a 20 point surge once right side of the infield is opened up:

BABIP

Base State	GB_BABIP	FB_BABIP	LD_BABIP	wBABIP*
"---”	0.216	0.195	0.707	0.356
“1--”	0.236	0.199	0.721	0.369
"-2-”	0.210	0.195	0.701	0.346
“12-”	0.207	0.196	0.710	0.350
“--3”	0.221	0.192	0.728	0.352
“1-3”	0.226	0.189	0.747	0.360
“-23”	0.220	0.189	0.725	0.348
“123”	0.219	0.187	0.730	0.353

*wBABIP is (0.90*1B + 1.24*2B + 1.56*3B + 1.95*HR) / (AB - SO + SF), 
GB excludes bunts, FB includes "pop ups"

I'm uncertain why GB-BAbip would be lowest of all the base states during "12-", but I'm open to suggestions. The 1B may be behind the runner in most of these situations, and the SS/2B may play deeper with the double play an option, but none of this should be an advantage over the bases empty state.

FB-BABip seems to fall slightly as the bases fill up, especially with a runner on third, which leads me to wonder if this is the effect of a slight shift in positioning as the outfielders feel less inclined to prevent the extra base hit rather than the bloop single.

I'm also going to speculate that LD-BABip reaches it's peak with both the 1B and the 3B holding the runners in a state of "1-3". Unlike ground balls, line drives are pulled more often than not (WAG), and with the majority of hitters being right-handed, the hot corner would see more LD-BIP than a first baseman.

Blame Damon Berryhill

More on Perfect FIP Games

David Wishinsky over at Athletics Nation proposed the idea of a 'defensive independent perfect game," a concept which he proposed would simply be a standard Complete Game with no walks or homeruns allowed. Tom Tango over at the Book blog then expounded on the idea, lobbying that the feat also require no hit batsmen and a FIP of 0.00 (requiring K*2/ IP  to be greater than 3.2).
In 9 innings of baseball that would require at least 15 strikeouts. Using the B-Ref play index, I found 12 performances that met this criteria:

FIP PERFECT GAMES