Toledo 3 Louisville 13
There was only one Tiger affiliate playing today, and it didn’t go well. Yorman Bazardo started and got shelled leaving in the 3rd inning He walked 4 and combined with 6 hits gave up 7 runs. Cory Hamman came on in relief and didn’t walk anyone in 3 innings work, but surrendered 6 runs on 3 homers.

The offense was mostly Ryan Raburn who had 2 hits and a walk. Timo Perez homered. Chris Shelton walked twice. Brent Clevlen was 1 for 3, but added 2 strikeouts.

In my last post I pointed out that Kenny Rogers, Nate Robertson, and Justin Verlander were the beneficiaries of some combination of good defense and good luck. Basically I was trying to point out that while all 3 had solid seasons, there were some breaks that were beyond their control that went their way. But I as thought a little more, specifically about gold glover Rogers, how much did the pitchers help their own cause?

Fortunately, Pinto has already published the individual PMR numbers for pitchers. By subtracting the pitcher’s contribution from the total team’s defense when he was on the mound, we can see who was leaning on the guys behind him the most.

The order of the list gets shuffled. Kenny Rogers accounted for a third of the plays above expected. And Justin Verlander had pretty much neutral defense behind him. Meanwhile, Nate Robertson got the most help.

In the comments to the other post Brian questioned why some pitchers consistently exceed or lag their fielding independent stats. The pitcher’s ability to help his own cause may – emphasis on may – in some cases be a part of the reason.

I think it is pretty common knowledge at this point, that in large part the Tigers pitchers results exceeded their performance last year. If you subscribe to the DiPS theory, that pitchers have limited ability to control whether balls in play turn into hits, then in general the Tigers pitchers got by without striking out a lot of guys because the defense was so good behind them. Part of me wondered it the pitchers still deserved some of the credit. That perhaps they were allowing more “fieldable” balls, thus having better defense behind them.

Well David Pinto at Baseball Musings has answered the question.

Using the probabilistic model of range, which looks at a number of factors (type of hit, direction of hit, hardness of hit, handedness of batter/pitcher) calculates the likelihood that a ball in play with each of those parameters is converted to an out. The summary table below is just for the Tigers starters and contrasts the predicted rate of turning balls into outs (DER is defensive efficiency ration, or the percentage of balls in play converted to outs), and the actual rate.

It’s pretty easy to see that Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander, and Nate Robertson all benefited from some extra defense – or perhaps extra luck. Kenny Rogers had 18 more balls converted to outs than expected, which is another reason to expect that he might not be as good this year. It wouldn’t necessarily be because he’s older, or even unlucky – simply that he’s not as lucky.

If you look at the last name on the list, Jeremy Bonderman, he got the least help from his defense. Bonderman already has the great peripherals, and with a little better luck could easily shave off enough ERA to become a legitimate Cy Young contender.

On another note, David Pinto runs his blog as his job. He relies on ad income, and donations, for his livelihood. He always produces great analysis and makes the data available for everyone. I use it frequently on this site. Right now he’s running a pledge drive and asking for donations. If you enjoy this type of data, I’d encourage you to click through the link above and drop a little in the tip jar.

Just cleaning out some leftover data from the pitch-by-pitch analysis from the last couple weeks. These are a couple things I calculated along the way, that never made it into a post. These data are from 2006.

Tiger data

While delving into Curtis Granderson’s strikeouts, I calculated many of the same stats for the rest of the team. Here they are:

Team Data

If you were curious at which teams made the most contact (Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, Arizona Diamondbacks) or which teams saw the highest percentages of balls (Yankees, A’s, Red Sox), who who was most likely to avoid a 2 strike count (Orioles, Angels, and Dodgers), the table below is for you.

I’m not trying to imply this means anything, this is just for informational purposes only.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at “www.retrosheet.org”.

Here’s a fascinating post looking at Kenny Rogers stellar playoff performances.

The author uses video to break down Kenny’s mechanics and demonstrate the extra effort and the quicker tempo Rogers was throwing with against the Yankees. Particularly interesting was the video comparison showing a regular season start and the Yankees playoff start. Rogers rushed his delivery considerably in the playoffs and the result was a significantly faster fastball.

Now I’m pretty sure that Kenny Rogers couldn’t throw like this and make it through a whole season. So don’t be looking for crazy-angry-emotional Kenny in a midseason tilt against the Royals. But in the process he probably learned something about himself that he can draw on in tough situations.

Following up on yesterday’s look at 2 strike hitting, now we’ll look at what individual Tigers did in on the brink of striking out.

The following table lists the Tigers hitters performance in all situations after the plate appearance reaches 2 strikes

The table is sorted by K-rate and lo and behold Neifi Perez comes out on top. There’s no surprise to see Polanco high on the list because he just doesn’t strike out. He also benefited from a pretty high BABIP. As did Carlos Guillen who had by far the best results.

Now if I understand Jim Leyland correctly though, he’s not looking to have people shorten up in all situations. Just those times when the ball really needs to get put in play. Like maybe when there are runners on base.

Placido Polanco posts and impressive line here with a pretty hefty BABIP. His bat handling ability is evident with a low strike out rate, and a tiny walk rate. Sean Casey was excellent in these situations when the ball was in play, but his strike out rate doesn’t really differ substantially.

On the other end – in a small sample – Brent Clevlen struck out 2/3 of the time.

The ultimate get it in play situation though is runners in scoring position with less than 2 outs.

It’s easy to see why Placido Polanco got his rep for coming up with the big hit last year. His BABIP of .500 screams luck, but it’s easier to be lucky when you get the ball in play. On the other hand, Sean Casey put the ball in play but had horrible luck with a .200 BABIP.

The most interesting element in this chart might be the increase in walks. Marcus Thames, Curtis Granderson, Brandon Inge, and Sean Casey all saw big increases in their walk rates in this situation. Part of this may be sample size issues as we move towards more granularity. Another possible explanation is guys being given the open base. But I doubt pitchers are being too delicate if they’ve already reached 2 strikes. Perhaps it’s on the pitchers who have it tougher in those situations. In any case, while the Tigers strike out rate doesn’t vary much, they do make less outs overall.

Battling

As for who hangs in there the longest, this last table shows the average number of pitches Tigers hitters see after that 2nd strike.

Among the regulars, Carlos Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, Chris Shelton, and Brandon Inge all had comparable staying power. Curtis Granderson and Placido Polanco wrapped up their at-bats quickest after getting to 2 strikes – but as we saw above with very different results.

It will be interesting to see whether an emphasis on approach will translate to better results, or if the players are who they are.

In today’s mailbag Jason Beck answers questions about the Tigers aggressiveness on the basepaths. Beck notes:

I think what you’ll see this season is an emphasis on more aggressive baserunning aside from stolen bases, such as going from first to third or second to home on singles more often. They have the personnel to improve in that area. Guys like Placido Polanco and Ivan Rodriguez aren’t speedsters, but they’re intelligent baserunners, and their stats on taking the extra base back it up. Brandon Inge and Craig Monroe also have potential in that area.

This makes the perfect reason for me to link to the detailed work that Lee has been doing on the Tigers and baserunning.

Lee’s stats definitely support Beck’s hypothesis that Rodriguez is solid on the basepaths. He rates as one of the top Tigers on taking an extra base on hits, advancing on fly balls, and gaining bases without the ball being put in play.

That a 35 year old catcher is arguably the team’s best baserunner speaks equally of the lack of speed on the Tigers, and the fact that Rodriguez is pretty remarkable.

In terms of the other players that Beck mentions, the results are mixed. Inge tends to be above average, and Polanco overall is pretty average.

In the 2007 Bill James Annual Carlos Guillen, Ivan Rodriguez, and Curtis Granderson rate as the top baserunners on the team.

After taking a look at how hitters did as plate appearances grew longer, it seemed easy enough to see how the pitchers fared.

I decided to take a look at two Tigers with contrasting styles, Jeremy Bonderman and Kenny Rogers

The MLB 2006 norm was for OBPs to start increasing once the plate appearance went beyond 4 pitches. However, Bonderman’s stayed relatively flat throughout. This could be indicative of Bonderman’s unwillingness to “give in” to an opposing hitter. It was an approach that had pretty good results for Bonderman, but the rise in slugging percentage may indicate he got burned this way on occasion.

Now with Kenny Rogers there seems to be an opposite effect. The OBP rises while the slugging percentage tapers off.

If I had to speculate on the big reason for the difference it is style brought about by “Stuff.” Rogers relies on location and the corners to compensate for an 86mph fastball. If he has to put the ball over the plate he’s at a disadvantage. His game is to get hitters to chase borderline pitches and hit them weakly. If a hitter lays off, or fouls off, those offerings early in the count, they are probably disciplined enough to lay off them later in the count as well.

On the other hand, Bonderman’s fastball let’s him stay int he zone and his slider probably induces quite a few swings on pitches out of the zone.

One thing the two had in common was an ability to end at-bats after 3 pitches. For both pitchers half of the PAs ended by the 3 pitch mark and the MLB average wa 47%.

Now whether or not any of my speculation has any merit remains to be seen. I looked at two pitchers in one season who’s numbers happened to play out like I would have expected. Way too little data here to say how much tendencies/style/stuff impacts these numbers. Regardless, I still thought it was interesting enough to play around with.

As I did with the hitters, I’m making the Excel files available(padepth_pit.zip) . Please let me know if you find anything of interest.

Hitter Files: Pitches per Plate Appearance
Related: Examining Depth of Plate Appearances

After examining the depth of plate appearances for the Tigers and MLB as a whole, I wanted to take a look by individual Tiger at what happens as a plate appearance grows longer. Of course this would prove to be a massive post because each player would need their own table and or chart.

Instead, I decided to invest the time in dumping the data into a usable format in Excel so others can look up their favorite players, or teams.

There are 2 files, one for teams and one for players. There’s a simple front end where you can select teams or players via a drop down and the calculations and graphs will be generated for you. The data is also accessible if you want to play around. One word of caution though, the calculations in the player file aren’t exactly speedy.

Now because this is a Tiger blog, I did break out a file with just Tiger players.

If anyone comes across something or someone interesting, please let me know.

File: padepth.zip (570k) contains all teams and all players
File: padepth_player_det.zip (30k) contains just Detroit Tigers

Fox Sports Net Detroit is certainly going to warm Tiger fans up as we wait for pitchers and catchers to report to spring training. The station will be airing the Tigers 7 consecutive playoff wins in the ALDS and ALCS. The games will be shown in their entirety along with some of the postgame reactions and press conferences. For someone like myself who watches the Ordonez homer about once a week, this will be a treat.

The schedule is below so get your DVRs ready.

Mon. Jan. 29, 7:00 PM – ALDS Game 2 at New York (Tigers 4, Yankees 3 – played 10/5/06)

Mon. Feb. 5, 7:00 PM – ALDS Game 3 at Detroit (Tigers 6, Yankees 0 – played 10/6/06)

Mon. Feb. 19, 7:00 PM – ALDS Game 4 at Detroit (Tigers 8, Yankees 3 – played 10/7/06)

Mon. Feb. 26, 7:00 PM – ALCS Game 1 at Oakland (Tigers 5, Athletics 1 – played 10/10/06)

Mon. March 12, 7:00 PM – ALCS Game 2 at Oakland (Tigers 8, Athletics 5 – played 10/11/06)

Mon. March 19, 7:00 PM – ALCS Game 3 at Detroit (Tigers 3, Athletics 0 – played 10/13/06)

Wed. March 21, 7:00 PM – ALCS Game 4 at Detroit (Tigers 6, Athletics 3 – played 10/14/06)

Certainly there is more to plate discipline than first pitch swinging. We’ve seen that the Tigers aggressiveness in that regard actually pays dividends. We also know that the Tigers strike out more than any other team in the American League and walk less than only the Cubs and Mariners. One hazard of first pitch swinging is that it short circuits long at-bats, but is there a benefit to working deep into the count?

Once again through the magic of Retrosheet we can delve into the data from 2006. The following two charts reflect batting performance based on the length of the plate appearance (I removed intentional walks altogether from the following). The first chart is for MLB in its entirety. The second is just for Detroit.

The first thing to notice on both charts is the dramatic shift in favor of the pitcher in 3 pitch PA’s. Part of this might be the ability for a batter to fan and not walk, but the isolated power also takes a hit here. Batting average and slugging percentage dip as the swings get more defensive late in the count. In terms of the Tigers, the biggest thing to notice is that when an at-bats get longer for the rest of baseball, say more than 6 pitches, OBPs exceed .400. However that isn’t the case for Detroit.

It seems that while the Tigers are aggressive on good pitches early in the count (as evidenced by their success), their aggression late in the account certainly hurts their ability to draw walks. They do generally maintain a slugging advantage, but that advantage is entirely negated by the hit they take late in the count getting on base.

Not surprisingly, a look at the walk and strike out rates by at-bat length compared to the rest of the league shows the Tigers to be at a disadvantage as well.

Lynn Henning had an interesting article indicating that the Tigers were focusing on cutting down on strike outs. Though the data shows that even with the strike outs, the Tigers can hold their own in terms of hitting and slugging. Of course situations call for different circumstances and new hitting coach Lloyd McClendon seems to have a feel for this.

“It also depends on the situation. If there are two outs, nobody on and you’re down a run, and a guy who’s hitting 30 home runs is up, I don’t think you need to have him protecting the plate in a two-strike situation. You want him to hit the ball out of ballpark. But in the eighth inning with a runner at third and you’re trying to tie the game, it’s going to be important to put the ball in play.”

As for the distribution of plate appearances, the Tigers are in line with the league for longer PA’s matching the mark for PA’s greater than 4 pitches (~34%). The Tigers have more 1 and 2 pitch at-bats of which they have success in exchange for fewer 3 pitch at-bats in which hitters don’t fare so well.

		MLB			DET
		====			====
Pit	% of PA's	Cum %	% of PA's	Cum %
---	--------	-----	---------	-----
1	12%		12%	13%		13%
2	17%		29%	18%		31%
3	18%		47%	17%		48%
4	18%		66%	18%		66%
5	16%		82%	16%		82%
6	11%		93%	11%		93%
7	5%		97%	4%		97%
8	2%		99%	2%		99%
9	1%		100%	1%		99%
>9	0%		100%	1%		100%

The biggest difference comes down to walks. Some of it may be aggressiveness and some is probably recognition. Strikeouts aren’t the problem, and short ABs aren’t the problem. As rudimentary as it seems the Tigers just need to get better at taking a walk when the opportunity presents itself.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.

In the comments to the first first pitch swinging post Nate asked about the differences in the time of game reasoning that the value in wearing down a reliever is minimal. It was easy enough to break it down by starter versus reliever.

The Tigers swung at the first pitch slightly more against relievers going after 32.6% of first pitches as opposed to 30.7% for starters.

Below are the results from those swings:

					BA	OBP	SLG	Ball	Strike	In Play
					----	----	----	----	----	----
Starter - 1st pitch - Take - Full AB	.274	.339	.441	1591	1192
Starter - 1st pitch -Swing - Full AB	.316	.330	.542		718	524
Starter - 1st pitch -Swing - In Play	.400	.393	.652			524

Reliever - 1st pitch -Take - Full AB	.244	.331	.384	847	559
Reliever - 1st pitch -Swing - Full AB	.271	.294	.452		433	254
Reliever - 1st pitch -Swing - In Play	.348	.345	.530			433

The Tigers fared much better against the starters. So much for that theory of getting to the weak part of the bullpen.

One area of disparity was the in-play rate of the first pitch. Against the starters the batters put the ball in play 42% of the time versus 37% against the relievers meaning that they found themselves down in the count more often against the pen. However, starters were more effective at getting that first called strike getting ahead on the takers 43% of the time against 40% for the relievers.

Make of this what you will.

Context

One of the things that would make all this more useful is some context. While I could examine all of baseball, or at least all of the American League I don’t see that happening. I run into some technical limitations in that I’m capped by Excel’s row count. The number of events simply blows out the max number of rows. While I could do this in a database (and a chunk of the work I do in Access), I’m much more nimble in Excel.

Fortunately, today I came across some work that was already done by Larry Borowsky of Viva el Birdos. He took a look at National League first pitch data from 2004 and found some similar trends -but with varying magnitudes. One element that you may find interesting is the median team first pitch strike rate was 48% in that sample. The 2006 Tigers checked in at 47.5%.

Larry came to this conclusion which I can’t help but agree with:

On the contrary, from this study — admittedly limited, one league one year — it appears that aggression is an essential component of discipline. You have to keep the pitchers honest, take the get-me-over fastball out of their kit and force them to work the corners from the beginning of the at-bat. That’s how you get favorable counts — make the pitchers work fine on 0-0, take part of the plate away from ‘em. So it’s not all about running deep counts and waiting for your pitch; it’s about knowing the strike zone and recognizing your pitch — even if it happens to come on 0-0.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.
–
For the sake of completeness, here are the links to the other 2 articles done here: First Pitch Swinging and More on First Pitch Swinging – Runners on Base

While I dispelled some of my issues with the Tigers and first pitch swinging, I still had some questions. I think many Tiger fans can remember what seemed like all those times there were runners on base only to see Magglio Ordonez (or any host of other Tiger hitters) take a swing at the first pitch and pop out to first base. So did first pitch swing rates, as well as success, hinge on whether or not there are runners on base?

First we’ll take a look at if the rate of first pitch swinging varies whether or not there are runners on base:

First pitch swing rates
		Overall	Bases Empty	Runners On
		Sw Rate	Sw Rate	PA's	Sw Rate	PA's
		-------	-------	-------	-------	-------
Casey		22%	13%	104	32%	92
Clevlen		26%	32%	19	22%	23
Gomez		42%	46%	61	38%	50
Granderson	24%	17%	424	37%	252
Guillen		33%	31%	346	35%	276
Infante		33%	23%	144	48%	101
Inge		22%	21%	344	24%	257
Monroe		40%	37%	301	44%	284
Ordonez		39%	40%	349	38%	298
Perez		41%	40%	40	43%	30
Polanco		21%	19%	283	23%	212
Rodriguez	39%	37%	304	42%	276
Santiago	36%	29%	48	45%	38
Shelton		18%	16%	227	21%	185
Stairs		34%	36%	25	32%	19
Thames		37%	37%	217	36%	173
Wilson		36%	30%	98	46%	70
Young		42%	45%	101	39%	83
---------------------------------------------------------
Total		31%	28%	3435	35%	2719

The first thing that surprised me was that Ordonez was less likely (marginally so) to swing at the first pitch with runners on base. This is just another example where facts show the fault in relying on memory. He was actually an anomaly amongst the players with significant plate appearances. Most saw at least moderate increases. Curtis Granderson was more than twice as likely to offer at the first pitch with a runner on base. Craig Monroe’s already high rate went up to 44% with ducks on the pond.

One thing to note here about Pudge Rodriguez and Vance Wilson is that there swing rates were effected by sacrifice bunts, which commonly would occur on the first pitch. Rodriguez bunted, or attempted to bunt 14 times on the first pitch and Vance Wilson did 10 times. Backing that out Pudge swung 39% of first pitches with men on base and Wilson 37%. No other players were close to them in attempts/bunts on the first pitch so any adjustments would amount to less than a percentage point.

Now it’s not surprising the rates go up. I haven’t done the research, but my gut would tell me that pitchers aren’t going to want to fall behind with men on base. Hopefully the Tigers weren’t overeager and chasing, but actually teeing up easier to hit pitches. If this is true it should play itself out in the results.

Tiger results based on first pitch
						BA	OBP	SLG
						----	----	----
Runners On - 1st pitch - Take - Full AB		.273	.350	.444
Runners On - 1st pitch -Swing - Full AB		.303	.317	.499
Runners on - 1st pitch -Swing - In Play		.388	.376	.579

Bases Empty - 1st pitch -Take - Full AB		.258	.326	.407
Bases Empty - 1st pitch -Swing - Full AB	.297	.316	.520
Bases Empty - 1st pitch -Swing - In Play	.378	.378	.642

Now the theory doesn’t play out as I would have expected. Putting the ball in play on the first pitch does result in a higher batting average with runners on, but a lower slugging percentage. So a few more hits are dropping, possibly because fielders are holding runners on or playing in double play depth. But slugging percentage is .063 points higher with the bases empty.

Also take note of the disparity in on base percentage when taking the first pitch with runners on base. A possible explanation is that instead of pitchers being more agressive in the strike zone with runners on, the opposite holds true. When the Tigers took the first pitch with the bases empty it resulted in a called strike 45% of the time. With runners on that number drops to 37% (not counting intentional balls, but including pitchouts). Taking the first pitch with runners on leaves the batter with a better count than otherwise.

I don’t have a lot of explanations or meaning for the data, just that I thought it was interesting.

A couple other notes of interest related to first pitch swinging:

• With the bases empty Detroit hit 21 homers on the first pitch and 13 with runners on base.
• Pudge Rodriguez, Carlos Guillen, Marcus Thames, and Magglio Ordonez each hit 5 homers swinging on the first pitch
• Eleven of the team’s 36 sacrifice flies came on the first pitch.
• Eleven times Tigers were hit by the first pitch, thus making the decision easier.
• Pudge Rodriguez only found himself in a 1-0 count 34% of the time meaning that 2 out of every 3 at-bats found him immediately behind in the count or the at-bat had already ended after the first pitch.
• Brandon Inge was the Tiger most likely to be in an early hole starting 52% of his plate appearances down 0-1.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.

For the sake of completeness, here are the links to the other 2 articles done here: First Pitch Swinging and Even More on First Pitch Swinging – Starters vs Relievers

There were a couple ways to describe the Tigers approach at the plate in 2006. The optimist might say they were aggressive, the pessimist might say they were hack-tastic. I guess one measure of this might be their propensity for swinging at the first pitch.

Now with the first pitch, 4 things can happen. There are two take events, a called ball or a called strike. There are also two swinging states, the batter can have put the ball in play or be sitting with an 0-1 count. At various times during the season I saw stats on TV broadcasts or in the paper that show how well certain Tigers did when hitting the first pitch, but that data neglected to take into account the swings and misses (or fouls).

The table below shows the frequency of the 4 first pitch outcomes for the Tigers:

First Pitch Results

			Called	Swinging	Swing	In Play Rate
Tiger		Ball	strike	strike	In Play	rate	(when swinging)	1-0%	0-1%
————————————————————————————-------------------------------------------------------
Shelton		187	149	48	27	18%	36%		45%	48%
Polanco		197	195	40	62	21%	61%		40%	48%
Inge		242	224	88	45	22%	34%		40%	52%
Casey		78	72	27	16	22%	37%		40%	51%
Granderson	298	213	109	56	24%	34%		44%	48%
Clevlen		21	10	8	3	26%	27%		50%	43%
Infante		81	82	40	41	33%	51%		33%	50%
Guillen		254	153	127	77	33%	38%		42%	46%
Stairs		19	10	11	4	34%	27%		43%	48%
Wilson		56	51	38	23	36%	38%		33%	53%
Santiago	32	22	14	17	36%	55%		38%	42%
Thames		163	82	98	45	37%	31%		42%	46%
Ordonez		257	133	139	113	39%	45%		40%	42%
Rodriguez	197	152	131	95	39%	42%		34%	49%
Monroe		222	126	152	82	40%	35%		38%	48%
Perez		21	20	12	17	41%	59%		30%	46%
Young		74	32	48	29	42%	38%		40%	44%
Gomez		39	25	21	26	42%	55%		35%	41%
————————————————————————————-------------------------------------------------------
Team		2438	1751	1151	778	32%	40%		40%	47%

As you can see the Tiger hitters swing at first pitch on roughly one out of every 3 plate appearances. This varies widely throughout the team though with Pudge Rodriguez and Craig Monroe swinging twice as often as Chris Shelton and Placido Polanco.

Now first pitch swinging isn’t necessarily a bad thing. All hitters putting the ball in play on the first pitch hit 341/341/555. As a team the Tigers bettered this mark significantly by hitting 395/377/615.

Results when first pitch is put in play:
Tiger		BA	OBP	SLG
——————————————----------------------
Shelton		.370	.370	.741
Polanco		.368	.362	.404
Inge		.395	.372	.628
Casey		.400	.375	.533
Granderson	.491	.463	.679
Clevlen		.000	.000	.000
Infante		.500	.463	.550
Guillen		.408	.390	.724
Stairs		.750	.750	1.750
Wilson		.263	.263	.526
Santiago	.438	.438	.563
Thames		.318	.311	.727
Ordonez		.360	.345	.550
Rodriguez	.411	.396	.622
Monroe		.413	.390	.688
Perez		.250	.250	.250
Young		.379	.345	.690
Gomez		.400	.360	.480
———————————-------------------------
Team		.395	.377	.612

So putting the first pitch in play seems to work for pretty much the whole team. But what happens in the rest of the at-bat when swinging at the first pitch? Putting the ball in play on the first pitch only accounts for 13% of the plate appearances. It turns out that the Tigers have better results when swinging at the first pitch, even when they don’t put the ball in play.

Full PA results when swinging at first pitch
Tiger		BA	OBP	SLG	K-Rate	BB Rate
——————————————————--------------------------------
Shelton		.310	.347	.507	21%	4%
Polanco		.344	.347	.385	3%	0%
Inge		.282	.300	.532	21%	3%
Casey		.317	.326	.415	9%	2%
Granderson	.290	.304	.465	30%	1%
Clevlen		.200	.200	.200	36%	0%
Infante		.346	.358	.436	11%	2%
Guillen		.342	.373	.600	13%	4%
Stairs		.357	.400	.714	33%	7%
Wilson		.283	.309	.491	13%	2%
Santiago	.241	.241	.310	13%	0%
Thames		.272	.301	.735	27%	3%
Ordonez		.282	.294	.461	14%	2%
Rodriguez	.330	.333	.514	12%	1%
Monroe		.302	.312	.547	20%	2%
Perez		.143	.143	.143	3%	0%
Young		.264	.312	.583	14%	6%
Gomez		.244	.261	.356	21%	2%
——————————————————--------------------------------
Team		.300	.317	.510	17%	2%


Full PA results when  taking first pitch
Tiger		BA	OBP	SLG	K-Rate	BB Rate
——————————————————---------------------------------
Shelton		.265	.338	.457	27%	9%
Polanco		.282	.324	.359	6%	4%
Inge		.244	.317	.443	21%	8%
Casey		.224	.275	.350	11%	6%
Granderson	.251	.346	.432	24%	13%
Clevlen		.310	.355	.793	35%	6%
Infante		.238	.307	.401	22%	7%
Guillen		.309	.414	.476	14%	15%
Stairs		.185	.241	.333	24%	7%
Wilson		.277	.295	.406	23%	1%
Santiago	.216	.245	.235	18%	2%
Thames		.245	.352	.429	22%	13%
Ordonez		.310	.386	.489	13%	10%
Rodriguez	.280	.331	.387	16%	7%
Monroe		.222	.293	.437	23%	9%
Perez		.243	.300	.270	7%	7%
Young		.242	.283	.283	25%	6%
Gomez		.293	.359	.414	17%	8%
——————————————————--------------------------------
Team		.264	.336	.422	19%	9%

While the walk rate takes a huge hit when swinging at the first pitch, the slugging percentage and batting average are significantly higher. What’s more, there isn’t a significant different in strike out rates when swinging on the first pitch.

This actually meshes somewhat with work that Sal Baxamusa did for the Hardball Times. Sal took a look at what happens on 1-1 counts, and found that it matters how you get to the 1-1 count:

Consider the above case of the 1-1 count. When the first pitch is a ball and the second pitch a strike (called, swinging, or foul), batters have a line of .243/.312/.378. Curiously, batters perform better when the all-important first pitch is a strike and the second pitch is a ball; they hit at a .257/.314/.402. That’s a 25-point difference in OPS; not world-breaking but statistically significant (p<0.001 for you stat wonks) nevertheless. The path taken to reach the 1-1 count is important: better to throw a first-pitch strike in general, but better to throw a second-pitch strike if the count is going to 1-1 regardless.

He also found that hitters getting that first strike via a foul rather than a swing and a miss had the advantage. Looking at the Tigers and their swinging 0-1 counts, they were the result of fouls 65% of the time.

Now of course this data doesn’t mean it is a good idea to always swing at the first pitch. For one thing, chasing pitches outside the strike zone isn’t going to help the cause. If batters swing early every time it takes the pressure off the pitcher to get that first pitch strike so getting those good pitches to hit on the first pitch will become tougher. Then there is the issue of working the pitcher, and running up pitch counts, and waiting for those mistake pitches. Although with a slugging percentage over .500 one could make the case that a pitcher will get chased early anyways.

Now this isn’t to say that the Tigers lack of patience is okay. There very out-of-whack K:BB ratio is still evidence of that. What we do see is that the first pitch swinging didn’t have the adverse effect that many of us (myself included) thought it did.

UPDATE: Noticed that Guillen & Infante’s names were reversed in the tables. This has been corrected.

References:
The Book Blog has all the data on performance by pitch count, including pass through counts. And the bulk of the data of course came from Retrosheet, so here’s the blurb: The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at “www.retrosheet.org”.

For the sake of completeness, here are the links to the other 2 articles done here: More on First Pitch Swinging – Runners on Base and Even More on First Pitch Swinging – Starters vs Relievers

There’s a new Tiger blog, Dtown Baseball. It is authored by DTW commentor Eric Jackson. Eric did some further investigation into Tiger lineup configuration and examined the assertion that the Tigers used 120 different lineups.

Eric raises a great point that there are many distinct lineups, but that there was still considerable consistency.

He looked at the top 5 spots in the lineup and found that the sequence of Granderson-Polanco-Rodriguez-Ordonez-Guillen started 51 times and averaged 4.76 runs per game. He also found a bunch of other stuff and it’s definitely worth a read (plus there’s a graph).

Now considering the Tigers averaged 5.07 runs per game, a third of the time they were trotting out a lineup that performed less than optimally. The next most frequent occurrence of the top 5 was 9, so we can’t really say what was a better set-up.

A couple notes on this…

First, compared to Eric’s analysis I feel I need to add something of my own, so I’ll just say that in terms of complete lineups, there were 101 games which featured lineups that were only used once. And that the most common lineup was deployed on 6 times (Granderson-Polanco-Rodriguez-Ordonez-Guillen-Thames-Monroe-Shelton-Inge). Yes this pales in comparision, but hey at least it’s something.

Second, batting Polanco and Rodriguez in front of the 2 best hitters in the lineup (Guillen & Ordonez) that frequently probably had an adverse effect on run scoring. This of course isn’t a surprise, but the run production with those top 5 further confirms what the conventional wisdom says.