Too Fast for Pat

Pat Burrell's move from the Rays to the Giants seemed to help his batting stats.  He posted a .202/.292/.333 slash line with the Rays, raising that to .266/.364/.509 with the Giants.  Looking at his performance against the fastball with both teams, however, I would venture that the improvement might have been skin deep.

First, look how Pat performed against various fastball speeds in 2010.

Pat Burrel vs. fastballs by velocity, 2010.This graph shows that Pat could hit a slow fastball well, one in the high 80s.  His in play average also went up on very fast pitches, but he saw fewer of those.  Now looking at a time line of the 2010 season, look what happened when Pat arrived in the National League:

Pat Burrell, timeline vs. fastballs, 2010.During his time with the Rays, the fastballs he saw were fast.  When he started with the Giants, he tended to see lower speed fastballs, and he hit those well.  As time went on back in the NL, however, he started to see speeds similar to the AL, and his average on balls in play took a hit, not recovering until the end of the season.

Pat hit .338 for the month of June in a Giants uniform, getting on base at a .405 clip.  He hit .246 the rest of the way with a .352 OBP, his ability to draw walks keeping him valuable.  It certainly looks like Burrell can't catch up to the heat anymore, which is why we may see Brandon Belt playing for the Giants sooner rather than later.

Uggla's Power Shift

Dan Uggla is coming off arguably his best offensive season.  Over the past three seasons however, he's started to lose his power stroke on outside pitches.

Dan Uggla (Click to enlarge)

The large drop in power on pitches in the outer half of the zone did not take any major toll on his overall numbers last season.  He put up his highest OPS season and absolutely crushed inside pitching.  On anything thrown over the inside 3.5 inches of the strike zone and in, Uggla hit .326/.413/.722 for a .467 wOBA (4th best among all RHB, min. 500 pitches). 

His ability to turn on inside pitches essentially made up for the lackluster .302 SLG% he posted on outside pitches.  Most of his issues can be attributed to his inability to hit outside sliders and curveballs, against which he collectively hit .155 with a 44.4% strike out rate.

The Curve's the Thing

One reason for Roy Oswalt's success is his command of the curve ball.  Over the last three years, batter found it difficult to square up, as they managed a meager .252 BABIP against Roy on the pitch.  That puts him in the 83 percentile among pitchers in that time.  Why is his curve ball so difficult to hit?

First, Roy offers consistent movement:

Roy Oswalt, curve ball movement, 2008-2010.That nice big red zone indicates Roy can put Uncle Charlie in the intended spot.  Against right-handed batters, that almost always away and low:

Roy Oswalt, curve ball location against RHB, 2008-2010.

The pitch sweeps away from the righties, and they end up striking out in 37% of the plate appearances that end on the pitch.  When a batter has a tough time making contact with a pitch, he's unlikely to hit it hard when he does make contact.  That makes it easier to turn into an out.

With left-handed batters, Roy takes a different approach with the same pitch:

Roy Oswalt, curve ball location against LHB, 2008-2010.Roy uses more of the strikes zone against lefties.  Given the platoon advantage, lefties get a better look at the pitch, so Roy keeps them guessing where it will be in the strike zone.  Lefties only strike out 29.5% of the time on the pitch, but do no better when they put it in play.  Note that Roy does a good job of avoiding the hanging pitch.  When he's inside to lefties, it's almost always low.