04/19/24
August 17, 2005
A peak at baseball scouting in the information age.: Barry Zito might want to know that of 1277 pitches thrown to Derek Lee (pdf) 61% of the pitches he takes for strikes are curveballs, but he's very strong (batting 0.523) given fastballs early in the count and batting only 0.133 on pitches high and inside. On the other hand, Derek Bell might want to know that Barry Zito (pdf) throws a fastball 68% of the time when he is behind in the count and misses the strike zone with 44% of his curve balls. You know, should the Cubs play the Athletics at some point.
This is really neat stuff.
posted by daddisamm at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2005
Derek Bell He's still in the middle of "Operation Shutdown", now in it's 4th exciting year!
posted by grum@work at 11:29 AM on August 17, 2005
Nice (post and grum's follow-up).
posted by yerfatma at 11:57 AM on August 17, 2005
Nice post. I wonder what Edward Tufte would think of the design of these player cheat sheets. Do you think we could get him to weigh in on the subject? I'm going to pull a Tammy here: maybe I'm stupid, but what's "Operation Shutdown"?
posted by qbert72 at 12:28 PM on August 17, 2005
Operation shutdown was D. Bell's ill-advised tactic in negotiating a contract with the Pirates. He said he would shut down unless given a new contract. The baseball world and the Pirates collectively shrugged and said, "isn't that what you've been doing already?".
posted by trox at 12:43 PM on August 17, 2005
MAN! that second word should be PEEK and the proper spelling is two Rs in DERREK.
posted by gspm at 12:44 PM on August 17, 2005
That "Derek Bell" typo is pretty good, though.
posted by qbert72 at 01:05 PM on August 17, 2005
I must say that Derek Bell has inspired me in ways I couldn't have predicted. Right now, for instance I am engaing in Operation: Lunchtime.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 01:15 PM on August 17, 2005
I'm going to pull a Tammy here: maybe I'm stupid, but Hey bertie, put a lid on it...and while you're at it, why don't you learn how to type bigger, huh?
posted by tommysands at 01:46 PM on August 17, 2005
He's just whispering and respecting my desire to not want to draw too much attention to the fact that I SHOULD BE MUCH MORE CAREFUL WHEN PUTTING TOGETHER THREADS ABOUT THINGS THAT WOULD PERHAPS EXPOSE THE FACT THAT I AM ONLY A CASUAL BASEBALL FAN.
posted by gspm at 03:03 PM on August 17, 2005
Derek Lee has a really fine eye on what is a ball and strike. When he looks at the umpire with frustration, it's because he knows the strikezone. At least what it's supposed to be anyway. Umpires all seem to have their own zones which as We all know wasn't how the little leagues taught us. Barry Zito is a great pitcher although just getting stride now after a less than stellar start. If this match-up took place, it would be a typical good hitter/good pitcher match-up and who would come out on top would be whoever makes the right guess.