I did a couple of quick calcs for Monroe and Granderson where I looked at their batting averages without strikeouts (which is essentially what Gage was measuring). Granderson was at 370 and Monroe was at 349. So at least for those 2 batters, there does appear to be an advantage to getting the first ball in play. Now of course sample size rears it’s ugly head, but it is safe to say that for a handful of guys on the team, swinging early hasn’t been detrimental so far.

I’d also agree that the number for Inge, Thames, and Ordonez are hardly compelling.

DET 12.2%
NYY 11.8%
CHW 12.2%

Not much difference between the highest scoring teams and the Tigers.

Individual players:
Maggs 17.0%
Pudge 16.4%
Granderson 7.8%
Inge 7.4%
Shelton 6.6%

On the Tigers at least, the people striking out the most tend to not put the ball in play on the first pitch.

But like others have said, the Tigers problem is that they can’t seem to tell the difference between a good pitch and a bad pitch.

My point is a larger one–that we take everything bad that happens and magnify it while ignoring anything good that happens. The stats on BA on first pitches put in play doesn’t necessarily prove anything about the overall approach. But it does point out that often times good things do happen on the first pitch.

A week or so ago, Casey swung at a first pitch and flew out. Someone posted something complaining about it. Next time up, Casey swings at the first pitch and drives in a run with a hit. That, of course, goes without note.

Absolutely agree that the Tigers are prone to swinging at bad pitches. I just wonder whether (1) this is really something new and (2) it can be changed.

Obviously you can’t just take every first pitch, you just have to make sure you swing at good pitches when you do swing at the first pitch. The Tigers problem isn’t that they swing at to many first pitches, it’s that they swing at to many bad pitches (regardless of the count).

Our approach at the plate is certainly part of the problem, and it has been part of the problem all year long. When we are pitching and fielding like the best defensive team in baseball, it doesn’t matter because we’ve got alot of power and can generate enough runs to overcome that. When our pitching and/or defense slumps a bit we’re going to have problems. That combined with a very tough part in the schedule leads to a rough month or so of baseball. I still think we’ll be fine, not only making the playoffs but also playing well in them.

I’m as big a fan of high OBP as anyone, I just think:

1) Taking the first pitch is not going to automatically result in high OBP. Eventually, pitchers will start throwing fastballs down the middle of the plate (like they did to Shelton) and you’ve just put yourself automatically one strike behind in the count.

2) We don’t have hitters naturally prone to getting walks. Hopefully, this is something that will be corrected going forward. (And, of course, we should have doubled Abreu’s salary to come to Detroit, right Jeff M?) For now, though, I don’t think you can chalk all our problems up to swinging at first strikes. I suspect our hitters haven’t changed much in their approaches from the first 120 games of the season to the last 30.

A FC is not a success in OBP, it’s an out and it counts against you the same way it does in BA. Also, while sac flies count against the batter, sac bunts do not. This is because a sac fly is mostly a random event, while a sac bunt is intentional.

G4 that advances a runner from 2nd to 3rd doesn’t count for you because it’s not actually a good thing (just better than some of the alternatives). You could count the number of times they occur and call it a swinging sacrafice or something, but I’m not sure anyone would actually care. I do agree that OBP could include advancing on errors. It doesn’t make much difference to the end result though, since errors are infrequent and the biggest factor in determining the number of times someone reaches on an error is batting right handed.