Sam Fuld's Selective Aggressiveness

Sam Fuld (TBA) is off to a great start, hitting for a high average and getting on base at a great clip, just what the Rays want from a lead-off hitter.  Through Friday's games, however, Fuld's .395 OBP was based almost entirely on his .366 BA, as he drew just four walks.  Often, a lack of walks indicates a hitter is a free swinger, but that does not seem to be the case with Fuld.

Pitchers try to keep the ball away from Fuld, but they also tend to keep their pitches, mostly fastballs, in the strike zone:

Sam Fuld pitch frequency, 2011.So far, Sam is doing a good job of distinguishing balls from strikes.  His swings tend to be in the strike zone:

Sam Fuld pitch frequency on swings, 2011.The pitches he takes are good pitches to take, out of the strike zone or on the edge:

Sam Fuld pitch frequency on taken pitches, 2011.In fact, Sam is a selective hitter.  Since he doesn't have much major league experience at the age of 28, the opposition rightly assumes he's not that good a hitter.  Rather than pitch him carefully, they challenge Fuld.  With a long minor league career behind him, Sam is experienced, and that is paying off with him killing the fastballs pumped into the strike zone.  At some point, pitchers will realize this is not the way to approach Fuld, and we'll see how he adjusts when he sees fewer fastballs and more pitches on the edges.

Marlins' Josh Johnson: No Need for Sinkers

Back in spring training, there was talk coming out of Marlins camp that pitcher Josh Johnson(FLA) was tinkering with a sinker.  PitchFX has yet to track any sinkers from Josh so far this season.  However, he's off to a tremendous start with a 3-0 record in 4 starts, and a 1.00 ERA and 0.593 WHIP.  Part of his great start could be due to his ability to keep his pitches down consistently.

Josh Johnson Pitch Location (Click to enlarge)

Josh has successfully managed to locate his pitches away to both lefties and righties so far this season.  Against RHB especially, he's sniped that down and away zone very efficiently.  In 36 plate appearances, opposing right-handed batters have hit only .086 versus Johnson with a 36.1% strike out rate and a 2.8% walk rate.  Against 61 sliders so far, opposing righties have not managed a single hit.

For now, adding a sinker doesn't seem necessary for Josh Johnson.

Why is Offense Down?

Three weeks into the major league season, scoring dropped half a run per game through the same point in the previous season.  What caused this drop?  It could be the umpires, but looking at heat maps of called balls and strikes, there is no discernable difference in the frequency of strikes called outside the strike zone and balls called inside the strike zone.  The same errors exist in the same locations.

Batter selectivity then came into question.  Again, looking at heat maps, the only bit that looked different was that maybe batters were taking more strikes down the middle of the plate, and maybe they were taking more high strikes.  These were minor differences at best, probably accountable due to the sample size early in the season.

Combing through the data, the one thing that stood out was a change in the frequency of certain pitches:

Through the first 22 days of the season.

Pitch Type	2010	2011
Fastball	51.4%	46.4%
Change	12.5%	12.3%
Curve	9.5%	9.5%
Slider	14.6%	14.9%
Cutter	4.7%	5.5%
Sinker	6.3%	9.7%

Fastballs are down, and pitchers are replacing them with cutters and sinkers.  Batters are chasing those pitches out of the strike zone.

Batter swings at cutters and sinkers outside the strike zone, 2010 on the left, 2011 on the right.This season, when batters swing at pitches outside the zone they produce a .191 wOBA. When they swing at pitches inside the strike zone, their wOBA jumps to .323.  Pitchers as a whole changed the way they approached batters, and that caused them to swing more at pitches with a low probability of success.

The changes hold up across the two leagues as well, although the AL is substituting more sinkers and the NL more cutters. 

Batters are seeing a different mix of pitches than usual, and they'll need to adjust if offense is to recover.