Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Pictures
Have you learnt what number of leaderboards we have now right here at FanGraphs? I don’t. I genuinely don’t. Simply in our primary offense, protection, and pitching leaderboards, I counted 78. That’s earlier than you get into staff stats, league stats, splits, spring coaching, the postseason, mixed WAR leaderboards, NPB, KBO, the minors, school, the BOARD, and on and on. We now have lots of of leaderboards since you, the residents of planet baseball, deserve them. If you wish to know who’s main the Florida State League in groundball-to-fly ball charge, it’s your proper to study that Kyle Henley of my beloved Daytona Tortugas is by some means hitting a mind-boggling seven grounders for each ball he hits within the air. I didn’t assume it was doable for a baseball participant’s offensive profile to undergo from acrophobia, however right here we’re studying new issues from the leaderboards on daily basis.
We now have three plate self-discipline leaderboards as a result of we pull information from Sports activities Data Options, Pitch Data, and Statcast. The strike zone is (for now) three dimensional, and so is our protection of it. I got here to essentially recognize this truth on Monday, after I bought interested by which hitter was doing the very best job of avoiding whiffs. In line with SIS, Chicago Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner is main all of baseball with an ideal, shining 100% contact charge contained in the strike zone. Let’s cease for a second and replicate upon this achievement. We now have been enjoying baseball for over a month now. Over greater than 100 plate appearances and almost 400 pitches, Hoerner has but to swing at a strike and miss. He’s the one participant in baseball who could make such a declare, and but that declare is disputed nonetheless.
In the event you enterprise over to the Statcast leaderboard, you’ll see that Hoerner remains to be in first place, however he’s at a measly 98.4%. Statcast thinks that Hoerner has swung at and missed two pitches within the zone, whereas SIS thinks he’s been excellent. Whence arises this disagreement? It’s not concerning the swings and misses, the definitions of that are properly established. It’s concerning the strike zone, which exists in a perpetual state of border disputation. Listed here are the 2 whiffs in query:
Jiminy Christmas. This is the reason Hoerner’s not at 100%? As a result of he missed two completely positioned pitches that caught a mixed eyelash or two of the nook? This robotic strike zone has an awfully chilly coronary heart. No surprise SIS, which is logged by flesh and blood people, has Hoerner at 100%. As for Hoerner, the sensation of swinging and lacking at a pitch anyplace close to the imaginary rectangle was so unfamiliar that he regarded genuinely confused after each of the whiffs.
Right here’s the place issues get actually bizarre. Pitch Data’s leaderboard doesn’t even have Hoerner in first place. Pitch Data has Luis ARCEERZ in first place at 98.3% and Hoerner in second at 97.6%. I’m unsure what’s occurring right here. Arraez is the premier contact hitter in baseball and has been for years, however let me present you his pitch chart. Bear in mind Hoerner’s? It had these two pitches that simply barely, barely caught a tiny piece of the zone. They simply breathed too loudly as they crossed the plate, and the Hawk-Eye cameras bought wind of it. Bear in mind? Nicely, right here’s the identical chart for Arraez.
Take a look at these strikes! They’re proper down the center of the plate! Considered one of them is a fastball. Hoerner’s misses bought marked down as contained in the strike zone as a result of you recognize, possibly their shadows crossed it, however we’re not precisely speaking about the identical factor right here. These are proper over the very coronary heart of the plate. Furthermore, Arraez has additionally foul tipped one other fastball proper over the center of the plate.
I visited Brooks Baseball, which makes use of Pitch Data information, and in the event you add up the info on the warmth maps beneath, you’ll discover that they really have Arraez lacking 4 pitches out of 145 swings within the zone, for a 97.2% contact charge. Hoerner’s two misses out of 114 swings works out to a 98.2% charge.
So I’m unsure why I can’t make that match our Pitch Data information, however I’m able to cry foul. Nonetheless, it’s time to transcend amount, as a result of there’s a qualitative distinction right here too. Hoerner has swung and missed simply 16 occasions this season. Sixteen! Right here’s what that appears like.
I imply, that’s nuts. That’s each time Hoerner has missed the ball this season. He’s chased a number of sliders and cutters. The underside dropped out of 1 splitter. He bought beat by one excessive four-seamer. He simply barely did not test his swing on a heat-seeking 92-mph changeup.
In actual fact, 4 – actually 1 / 4! – of his whiffs this season have come on failed test swings. Hoerner has solely actually tried to hit a pitch and missed it 12 occasions this season. That’s it. That’s everything of his misses up to now. By the use of distinction, check out Rafael Devers’ whiffs up to now this season, however earlier than you do, some protecting eyewear may be so as.
Devers has missed so many pitches. Simply that record of pitch sorts on the suitable has greater than half as many dots as Hoerner’s precise chart! And as I’m positive you recognize, regardless of whiffing within the zone actually 12 occasions as typically, Devers has been a a lot better hitter than Hoerner general, even in a down 12 months, as a result of he offsets his strikeouts with loud contact. Baseball is a bizarre sport, is all I’m saying.
In line with SIS, Hoerner ran the very best zone contact charge of his profession final season, when he put up a 95.1% mark. Since SIS began monitoring these items in 2002, that ranks 122nd amongst batters who certified for the batting title in a full season. Juan Pierre holds the report with a 98.1% zone contact charge in 2006. I went again and reconstructed the numbers primarily based on the odds. Pierre noticed 1,486 pitches within the zone that 12 months, swung at 880 of them, and made contact with 863. He performed in each single sport for the Cubs, made a daft 750 plate appearances (the Twenty ninth-highest complete ever), and he whiffed on simply 17 pitches within the zone. Furthermore, the strike zone was greater again then!
It’s exhausting to think about anyone approaching Pierre’s mark in right this moment’s sport, and I do not know if Hoerner can hold this up all season. There’s a lot baseball left to play. He would possibly run into Mason Miller or Kirby Yatesin opposition to whom one plate look may simply be sufficient to double his whiffs within the zone. However so long as Hoerner has a 100% mark in at the least one in all our three leaderboards, I might be watching him intently.
All the stats on this article are as of Tuesday morning. If it seems that Nico Hoerner whiffed on a pitch contained in the strike zone Tuesday night time, I say all of us riot.
UPDATE: Within the seventh inning of Tuesday night time’s sport in opposition to the Pirates, Hoerner foul tipped a Hunter Stratton fastball within the zone, due to course he did. SIS categorized it as a foul, so Hoerner remains to be at 100%. Nonetheless, each Statcast and Pitch Data categorized the pitch as a whiff. That drops Hoerner to a 97.6% zone contact charge in accordance with Statcast (forward of Arraez by two hundredths of a proportion level), and a 96.9% charge in accordance with Pitch Data (nonetheless good for second place). Right here’s the foul tip in query.
