DAT 6/25 Who Cares? (Part 6)

Feels like a 13H 1R kinda day

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Part 6

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Article from Chandler that puts into numbers what we've bitched about if any of yall want to cherry pick some quotes to post.


Basically coaches and players are aware of it. Part of it is by design, the coaches don't like our hitters chance in 2 strike counts so they're encouraged to be aggressive early. This correlates to low pitches per plate appearance, low strikeouts which is tied to seeing the fewest 2 strike counts in baseball. Only 2 teams have swung at more first pitches.

Chandler notes, as the chart above shows, the aggressive plate approach isn't new. We've had low PPPA for years but there's been a decline in walk rate, this would he our lowest walk rate since 2013 but there's also a high chase rate. We've got the 3rd highest chase rate at pitches out of the zone. ..

You would expect that in combining an aggressive plate approach with less skilled zone hitters like Pena, Diaz, among others. But it's no5 t just them. Generally disciplined hitters like Yordan and Bregman are chasing more than ever and famous bad ball hitter Altuve is striking out more than ever while posting the lowest outside contact percentage of his career .


So basically the aggressive approach isn't new but generally we've had disciplined hitters and selective hitters who force pitchers into the zone and get good pitches to hit rather than indiscriminately hacking at the first pitch you see in the zone.

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Michael Brantley, The Sequel

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How dare thee? I resemble that remark.

It's good to have not only through data but through the team that confirmation of what we see. That there was clearly a specific team emphasis on being aggressive early. From a birds eye view of the offense, the numbers are good. They are at or near the top in average, make contact, don't strike out.


The problem I see, is that the early swinging is not controlling the at bat particularly when a pitcher gets into a jam. Contact is great, things cant happen if you don't get the bat on the ball and put it in play. But it seems like there's more emphasis on simply making contact rather than making contact with a pitch you can do damage with.


It's interesting to me that Bregman was talking about the chasing etc he was doing when things were going poorly and talks like he's gotten out of it and it's true he is hitting better. But he's still striking out and a career high rate and he's not walking. He's hitting, I'll take it. But he's still not Alex Bregman. Since that May Oakland series, his full season pace would be 105 strikeouts to 48 walks. This is a guy that walks almost 100 times a year. So he's still not rediscovered the peak of his skills

Checking in from section 156 tonight.

Are we going to win?

Did Tuve hurt himself on the slide?