Adrian's Approach

Adrian Gonzalez of the Boston Red Sox talked to the Boston Globe's Peter Abraham about how he changes his approach to hitting with men on base:

Gonzalez explained how having runners on base helps make him a better hitter.

“They’re going to pitch the way they’re going to pitch. But when you have people on base, the pitcher doesn’t want to walk you and put you on base,’’ he said.

“They’re still going to pitch to you. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to throw fastballs down the middle. You just know that if you get to a situation where it’s 2-0 or 3-1, he might throw an offspeed pitch and it’ll be a strike.’’

You can see that in the pitch frequency against Gonzalez with the bases empty and men on:

Adrian Gonzalez, pitch frequency with the bases empty, 2011.Pitchers work him away.  They continue to do so with men on base, but they work more in the strike zone.

Adrian Gonzalez, pitch frequency with men on base, 2011.Mostly pitchers avoid going low out of the strike zone more.  Gonzalez, however, makes another adjustment that he doesn't talk about in the article.  Look where he takes pitches with the bases empty, or more accurately, where he doesn't take pitches:

Adrian Gonzalez, take percentage with the bases empty, 2011.With the bases empty, Adrian looks dead red.  If there's a ball in the middle of the plate he swings, and he usually clobbers it.

Adrian Gonzalez, in play average with the bases empty, 2011.

In fact nine of his thirteen home runs came with the bases empty.  With men on base, his non-take zone moves inside:

Adrian Gonzalez, take pecentage with men on base, 2011.Now he's taking the pitch down the middle quite often, but he's going after the inside strike.  Again, he hits those hard:

Adrian Gonzalez, in play average with men on base, 2011.With men on base, the right side of the infield opens up.  Going after inside pitches allows Gonzalez to pull the ball more, taking advantage of the bigger hole between second and first.  With the bases empty, he swings for the fences.  With men on, he goes for the hit to try to bring them home.  So far, this approach is working as his 60 RBI lead the majors.

The So "called" Strike

Earlier this week Jonathan Scippa highlighted pitchers that appear to be getting "squeezed" based on MLB Pitch f/x pitch location data. Now let's take a quick look at hitters that appear to be hindered by "strike calls" when taking pitches outside the zone.

While Daric Barton has had the most "balls" called "strikes", Ike Davis (NYM) has been impacted the most with 9 pitches outside the zone resulting in strike outs. Other hitters hurt by the called third strike looking include Mark Teixeira (6), Stephen Drew (6), Brett Gardner (5) and Adrian Gonzalez (5).

We will keep an eye on this as the season progresses and the sample size becomes a bit more statistically relevant. 

Adrian Gonzalez: Home Sweet Home?

Nick Carfardo's recent Boston Globe article "It's all in place" focuses on the history of left-handed hitters benefiting (or not benefiting) from Fenway Park's dimensions.  Much of the article centers on how Adrian Gonzalez will fit in and whether he can use the left field wall to his advantage, as did many successful left-handed Red Sox batters before him.

A while back, David Pinto noted in a post how Adrian Gonzalez can hit for power to all fields.  Petco park most definitely suppressed his offense, unsurprisingly, as it is one of the best pitching parks in the league.  At Fenway, Gonzalez should see a decent boost in his power numbers.  In Cafardo's article, he notes that pitcher's will likely try to bust Gonzalez in this year at home in order to limit his use of the wall in left.  Gonzalez's response: "They’ve been doing that to me for years anyway. I’ve always been able to inside-out it the other way.’’

On pitches inside (anything from the inside 3.5" of the plate and in) Gonzalez has actually hit very few balls to left field.  In fact, since 2008, he's hit no HRs to left, one HR to left center, and 19 HRs to right or right center on pitches inside.

Adrian Gonzalez vs. Inside Pitches - 2008-2010
(Click to enlarge)

In the 689 plate appearances represented in the graphic above, Gonzalez produced a .740 OPS on 154 hits, with 29 doubles and 20 HRs.  However, all but 8 of those extra base hits fell right of dead center field.  His 105 singles over that period were fairly spread out across all fields, however the majority fell in what would be well short of the wall in left, as did his 119 fly ball outs.

Of course, Gonzalez will be successful regardless of whether or not he's banging balls off the wall in left.  Even if pitcher's come in on him, a .740 OPS over the past 3 years is nothing to scoff at. Considering that Gonzalez's expected OBP on pitches inside since 2008 is .388, he's likely to be successful even if pitchers try to jam him.