Are Swinging Strikes Better Than Called Strikes?

[L54]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/are-swinging-strikes-better-than-called-strikes/

 

Popular topic around here right now. Can Aaron Sanchez stick?

 

 

 

Everything you know to be true in your heart but hasn’t been proven by stats is worth hanging on to, even if just a little bit, and privately. The stats may catch up some day. This isn’t to say that all conventional wisdom is correct. This is to say that all “statistically-proven” wisdom is not always going to continue to be true.

 

Take swinging strikes, called strikes, and Vance Worley.

 

Vance Worley blew up in 2011. He struck out more batters on a rate basis than he ever had in the minor leagues. He did it with one of the worst swinging strike rates among starters that year. He did it with called strikes — he was fifth among starters with at least 2000 pitches that year. He did it with style, as you can see thanks to Zoo With Roy:

 

 

As 2013 approached, I was tasked with figuring out his fantasy value for the upcoming season. I had a personal preference for the swinging strike. To me, there’s no cleaner statistical happening in baseball — that the batter swung and missed is irrefutable. And the swinging strike as a moment is both triumphant and despondent, all in at once. It renders a one-nothing August game watchable. It’s beautiful.

 

But there were stats, and research, that outweighed my love for the swinging strike. Matt Swartz had found that the year-to-year correlation for swinging strikes (.77) was a little better than called strikes (.59), but he also found that swinging strikes didn’t improve our projections for strikeout rate much.

 

So I shrugged. I said Worley wasn’t going to be as good, probably, because his minor league stats weren’t great, and his swinging strikes weren’t either. But I did mention that called strikes were decently correlated year-to-year, and he was returning to his same team. All of this in a blog post for the now-defunct Getting Blanked blog that The Score has removed from the internets.

 

Whatever, the point was that context was huge. Because Worley’s followup wasn’t great, but he still managed to be close to league average despite a terrible swinging strike rate. Once again, he did well in called strikes — 13th this time among pitchers with 2000 pitches. I was right and I was wrong.

 

Worley threw to Carlos Ruiz those two years. According to StatCorner, Ruiz was a below scratch framer in 2011 (-0.7 calls per game) and above in 2012 (+0.4 calls per game), but never a league leader on either side. Worley also threw in the National League, to certain umpires, in certain parks. All of these things matter to called strikes.

 

When he moved to Minnesota, it all fell apart. The bad swinging strike rate got worse — he got fewer swinging strikes than anyone in baseball that year — but also the called strikes disappeared. He was 223rd among pitchers with at least 40 innings that year, with a 31.6% called strike rate, down from 36.5% the year before. He fell from atop the leaderboards to below league average (32.9%) that year.

 

He was throwing mostly to Joe Mauer then, and Mauer was a scratch framer almost literally that year (-0.01 calls per game). So he could’ve been called an upgrade, at least from 2012’s version of Carlos Ruiz. But that’s not the point, the point is that the entire context needed to be taken into consideration, and Worley’s context had changed radically.

 

Well, two guys have been doing some work on the framing side that has focused mostly on this context. Harry Pavlidis and Jonathan Judge recently debuted CSAA, or Called Strikes Above Average, and it’s great. By taking into consideration park, league, umpire, pitcher, and catcher context, they hope to really hone in on the framing skill of the catcher. It’s a real advancement of the conversation.

 

Nestled within this work is a CSAA for pitchers, naturally. Pitchers must have some skill at getting called strikes, and since they did all the work quantifying the context, it was easy for them to run the year to year spearman correlations for pitchers’ CSAA:

 

Now we see that much of the year-to-year strength of called strikes in pitchers is due to the catcher and park influence. If you hone in on just how well a pitcher can get called strikes year to year, it’s not a very strong skill. It’s just a little bit stickier, year to year, than Batting Average on Balls in Play, one of the least sticky and most volatile pitching statistics in baseball.

 

There’s still work to be done. As Judge points out, they haven’t specifically looked at swinging strikes with the context accounted for. But he agreed that there was less likelihood that context contributed as much to a swinging strike.

 

And really, that’s the whole point. There’s always more work to be done, when it comes to figuring out mechanics, best practices, or statistical truths. Nobody has it all figured out.

[L54]

Save us Russell!

[Angrioter]

Yes

[TheHurl]

Scrolled through for Spencer Estey references...didn't see any so I knew it must be a crap article.

[o2cui2i]

interesting read.

 

I'd say that a called strike 3 for the jays is always an adrenaline kick, but seeing a hitter cork screw themselves into the ground missing a great breaking ball can be awesome as well, again as long as it's not our guy at the plate.

[Rusty_Savage]

A swinging strike is better. All the same when a pitcher freezes a hitter, it's not bad either. Think Daniel Norris And Big Papi last year

[BigBounceyBlueBalls]

It all depends on optics and perspectives from who's view are we slanting this too or from?

 

If the batter doesn't swing can't hit, advantage pitcher!

 

If the batter is swinging he may hit advantage hitter although slightly as a .300 hitter still fails 7 out of ten times!

[jays4life19]

Swinging Strikes = Lots of pussy.

 

Pitch to contact = No pussy.

 

So you're saying swinging strikes are better? Or worse?

[L54]

I understand swinging strikes are better than called strikes (I'll admit I learned a lot about it in the last few weeks). Shared because a lot of people don't seem to agree. Plus, Eno is one of my favorite writers at Fangraphs.

 

 

Sanchez may very well end up being the biggest beneficiary of Martin.

[o2cui2i]

I understand swinging strikes are better than called strikes (I'll admit I learned a lot about it in the last few weeks). Shared because a lot of people don't seem to agree. Plus, Eno is one of my favorite writers at Fangraphs.

 

 

Sanchez may very well end up being the biggest beneficiary of Martin.

 

all the guys who can pitch to the edge of the plate will get help. Isn't Martin supposed to be really good at blocking the ball in the dirt too? It would be really nice to be able to get outs on strike 3 in the dirt too.

 

I doubt he helps Dickey because umps can't track the knuckle ball either and are just guessing according to where it is located 3 feet from the plate.

[L54]

In a perfect world if you can miss barrels thats what you want to do.

 

Just think about that for a second.

 

In a perfect world, wouldn't you rather miss the bat? That leaves essentially a 0% chance of reaching base. Missing the barrel does not equate to not reaching base.

[BigBounceyBlueBalls]

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Quote Originally Posted by Jonn View Post

Swinging Strikes = Lots of pussy.

 

Pitch to contact = No pussy.

So you're saying swinging strikes are better? Or worse?

 

Perspective and optics again at play depends If your straight, lesbian, bi or Gay.

[L54]

all the guys who can pitch to the edge of the plate will get help. Isn't Martin supposed to be really good at blocking the ball in the dirt too? It would be really nice to be able to get outs on strike 3 in the dirt too.

 

I doubt he helps Dickey because umps can't track the knuckle ball either and are just guessing according to where it is located 3 feet from the plate.

 

The entire staff should benefit. Sanchez's inability to miss bats (which is well documented) says to me he stands to gain the most from Martin's framing abilities (called strikes).

 

Can you guys imagine heading into the year with Sanchez in the rotation and Navarro slated to catch? That is an awful thought.

[BigBounceyBlueBalls]

In a perfect world if you can miss barrels thats what you want to do.

 

Tell you what you have your team not swing there bats and let's see how many games you win! No swing,no hits and no f***ing chance ! Lol

[L54]

I like quick outs. You know those innings where you can get out of an inning on 7 or 8 pitches. Efficiency is a thing.

 

You said nothing about getting quick outs originally.

 

You know those innings where you miss 9 bats? Those are efficient too.

[Gorlak]

Called strikes just as good as swinging strikes, Fly ball pitchers just as good as ground ball pitchers, Human sacrifice, Dogs and cats living together... Mass hysteria.

[Laika]

I don't hate the article even if it's pretty thin and lazy, but why call it Are Swinging Strikes Better Than Called Strikes? and then not even attempt to answer that question?

 

All he did was use Vance Worley and a tweet response to show that called strike rate doesn't have an overwhelmingly high year to year correlation when you remove catcher, umpire, park effects, etc. because these things have a big influence on it.

 

One Blue Jays take-away could be that Russell Martin could very well be the difference between whether Aaron Sanchez can sink or swim as a SP. We all know how important called strike rate will be for him.

[closetjaysfan]

More study required imo. How much does a pitchers control factor into a batter's aggression at the plate? If a pitcher cant paint the corners or get called strikes, batters are not going to swing at borderline pitches and will wait for good hitter counts to develop, sit on fastballs etc. Id like to see how often batters getting called strike 3 in early innings become overly aggressive in their next at bat.

[GD]

More study required imo. How much does a pitchers control factor into a batter's aggression at the plate? If a pitcher cant paint the corners or get called strikes, batters are not going to swing at borderline pitches and will wait for good hitter counts to develop, sit on fastballs etc. Id like to see how often batters getting called strike 3 in early innings become overly aggressive in their next at bat.

 

These things are definitely calculable using retrosheet. Take a look at it, I haven't tried it out yet but I know retrosheet has like all data ever.

[Spanky99]

Since swinging strikes are currently considered a more repeatable "skill" of a pitcher (and, therefore, adds more value to that pitcher), and since pitch framing is largely about a catcher turning a ball into a called strike (or keeping a called strike as a called strike), as a starting pitcher, I want a bad pitch framer. That way, there will be fewer called strikes, and more opportunities to get a swinging strike.

 

And stuff.

 

Wat?

[Spanky99]

What the wat?

 

Neither posts are funny.