Singles Versus Power

Atlanta's Brian McCann shows different hot zones for getting hits as opposed to hitting for power.  His hot spots, as represented by his in-play batting average looks like this:

Brian McCann, in play batting average, 2008-2010.Note how many of his hits are concentrated in the lower, outside half of the plate.  Now compare that to his slugging percentage:

Brian McCann, in play slugging percentage, 2008-2010.Brian is hotter higher on the outside part of the plate and in the middle.  It turns out over the seasons pitcher worked Brian more and more down and away.  McCann is very good at turning those pitches into line drives.

Brian McCann line drives, 2008-2010.Line drives are an excellent way to produce hits.  Since 2008, McCann hits .773 on line drives (including the post season), but only 48 of his 187 hits have gone for extra bases, nearly all of them doubles.  Pitchers have adjusted to the spot where McCann still hurts them, but with the least amount of damage.

Cutting it with Jon Lester

Jon Lester's cutter is his most valuable pitch.  Fangraphs has it at 17.9 runs above average in 2010.

Jon Lester's 2010 Cutter (Click to enlarge)He keeps it away from lefties and in on righties.  Lester only gets into trouble when occasionally leaving one up in the zone. His cutter was almost equally effective against both righties and lefties, although he obviously faces far more RHB as a left-handed starter. Jon Lester's 2010 Cutter

	P	AVG	OBP	SLG	K%	BB%	wOBA
vs. Left	187	.179	.191	.209	36.2%	1.4%	.177
vs. Right	541	.188	.270	.248	31.1%	7.4%	.244
Total	728	.185	.245	.235	32.7%	5.5%	.223
Expected	-	.203	.296	.291	32.9%	10.7%	.274

The cutter slightly outperformed it's expected value last season, but the inflated xBB% is probably more an indication of how good his cutter really is as an out pitch.

Lester's fastball has begun to give him trouble over the last couple years, and we'll dive into that in a future post.

Kennedy's Ks

The Arizona Diamondbacks named Ian Kennedy their opening day starter for 2011.  Kennedy excelled at getting batters to swing at pitches low in the strike zone in 2010, helping him improve his ERA from his time with the Yankees. 

Ian Kennedy swing and misses against 2010.The most concentrated area for these pitches is below the strike zone, where even if a batter makes contact, the result for the pitcher is likely to be positive.  Kennedy is able to pull this off by using two pitches with similar movement that can trick batters.

The change up represents his predominant pitch for getting low swings:

Ian Kennedy swings and misses against the change up 2010.

So Ian gets downward movement in on a left hander with this pitch.  He can also release the curve ball, which is even move extreme.

Ian Kennedy swings and misses against the curve ball 2010.

If batters look for the change, Ian can unleash the curve, which falls more and move in on lefties (away from righties) much more than his change up.  His two off-speed pitches keep batters guessing, and swinging over the top.