Goldschmidt Defines his Strikezone

Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks hit down the stretch as he helped the team to the NL West title.  Goldschmidt's strength is his power.  His hits and walks are low enough, however, that is OBP has room for improvement.  Luckily for Goldschmidt, there's a path to improving his ability to get on base.

Goldschmidt likes to swing at inside pitches, which shows up in his ball rate:

Paul Goldschmidt, called ball rate, all pitches, 2011.Where there should be yellows and reds inside, there are only blues and greens.  Look what happens when he takes those pitches:

Paul Goldschmidt, called ball rate, taken pitches, 2011.You can see how he's not getting the calls well off the plate inside.  Those are pitches that should be going his way.  He needs to re-teach umpires by starting to take those pitches rather than swing at them.  That will lead to more favorable counts, and more balls in the strike zone that he can crush.