Jose Bautista Adjusting to the Changeup

Jose Bautista(TOR) hasn't shown any signs of letting up from his powerful 2010 season.  He is currently tied for the HR lead with 7, and his on base percentage of .506 leads all major league players.  Pitchers are now treading carefully when Bautista comes to the plate.  His walk rate is up from 14.6% in 2010 to 22.9% this season, highest in the majors.

One pitch that gave Bautista trouble last season was the changeup.

Jose Bautista vs. 2010 Changeups (304 pitches)

	AVG	OBP	SLUG	OPS	wOBA
Totals	.115	.258	.288	.547	.254
Expected	.195	.357	.400	.756	.343

The right-handed slugger has apparently made some adjustments and is hitting changeups much better early in the 2011 season. Three of his home runs have come off changeups with a total of 5 hits in 11 ABs decided on the pitch. He's seen 55 changeups so far this year and has made contact on only 47.4% of his swings (72.4% contact rate in 2010). So while he's not making as much contact, his swings are producing much better results so far.

This tells me that he's recognizing the pitch better, and as a result is swinging harder. While he may miss the pitch completely more often, the changeups he does connect on will go a long way. Even the one triple he hit off a change (a broken bat looping liner on April 22nd) shows Bautista's patience. He recognized the change out of Jeremy Hellickson's(TB) hand, which fell away from him off the outside corner of the plate. Bautista waited on it and got the end of his bat on the ball, dunking it in front of a diving Ben Zobrist in right field.

Given that changeups were the one pitch he had trouble with last year, if he continues hitting them hard, he could put up as good, if not better overall power numbers this season.

Roy Halladay's Change Up

Roy Halladay (PHI) struck out 14 Padres on Sunday, April 24, 2011, tying a career high.  He tied San Diego in knots due to his change up.  The Padres had no problem recognizing his fastball.  They swung when the pitch was in the strike zone:

Roy Halladay, swings at fastball, April 24, 2011.San Diego batters also did a good job of deciding when to take the pitch:

Roy Halladay, taken fastballs, April 24, 2011.Roy's change up came in ten miles an hour slower than his fastball.  It showed the same horizontal movement, but dipped more.  The Padres got that pitch backwards:

Roy Halladay, swings at change up, April 24, 2011.Note the huges concentration of swings below the strike zone.  Now look where the opposition was taking the pitch:

Roy Halladay, taken change ups, April 24, 2011.I suspect that once a batter takes one of those change ups in the heart of the strike zone, he's more likely to swing at one down further.  Halladay is a master at messing up a batter's timing, changing speeds and locations.  This allows him to work efficiently, going deep in games.  All those skills were on display Sunday.

Jason Kubel's Improvement

Jason Kubel (MIN) collected two more hits Sunday afternoon to raise his batting average to .347 after hitting .249 in 2010, an off year for him.  In 2010 pitchers tried to work him away and down as much as possible:

Jason Kubel pitch frequency, 2010.That was the right thing to do, as Jason hit for a high average on pitches in the middle of the plate:

Jason Kubel, in play average, 2010.So far in 2011, pitchers are working to Jason's strength:

Jason Kubel pitch frequency, 2011.With all those pitches in his wheel house, Jason keeps collecting hits.

Jason Kubel, in play average, 2011.Jason is pretty locked in as even when pitchers go down and away, he's making solid contact.  With Joe Mauer (MIN) and Justin Morneau (MIN) off to slow starts due to injury, Kubel picked a perfect time to lead the team in offense.