Prince Fielder's HR off Tommy Hanson

In Wednesday's game between Milwaukee and Atlanta, Brewers' slugger Prince Fielder took Tommy Hanson deep in the 4th inning.  It was the second lefty HR yielded by Hanson this season, and the 7th HR for Fielder.

Hanson attempted to work Fielder very carefully and for the most part his pitch location wasn't bad.  He started Fielder off with a fastball that just caught the low outside corner for a strike, followed by a curve that he seemed to get a bad release on, floating it up and away for a ball.  His next pitch was a fastball outside of the strike zone that Fielder fouled off.  On his fourth and final pitch, Hanson tried to slip a slider down and in on Fielder.  However, he didn't get it down as much as I suspect he wanted to, and it came into the bottom portion of Fielder's power zone.

Tommy Hanson vs. Prince Fielder 4/5/2011, 4th Inning Prince Fielder's SLG% heat map Data from 2008 to Present (Click to enlarge)

From the video, you can see that Fielder was sitting on an off-speed pitch.  Since his debut in 2009, Hanson has gone to either his curveball or slider with two strikes 50.2% of the time.  On 1-2 counts, that number jumps to 58.7%.  It wasn't necessarily a bad strategy for Hanson.  In fact, when throwing the slider with two strikes, he's held opposing batters to a .193 batting average with a .272 slugging percentage.  And before yesterday, he'd yet to yield a HR on any of the previous 460 two strike sliders he's thrown.

But this particular slider was thrown to a spot in Fielder's wheelhouse, and he was waiting for it.  Just a great piece of hitting from an excellent power hitter.

Top Two Strike Hitters

Top Two Strike Hitters by wOBA (Click to enlarge) (All Games through April 25th)

So far this season, Prince Fielder(MIL)is mashing with two strikes. While he does have a pair of two-strike homers this season, it's his league leading 7 two-strike doubles that have separated him from the rest. He's making great contact with a 35.7% line drive rate with two strikes. That's nearly double his overall line drive rate since 2008. And all 10 of his line drives this season have resulted in hits, 5 for doubles.

"Old Player Skills"

Matt Klaassen over at fangraphs.com recently looked at which players under the age of 27 in 2010 displayed "old player skills"; that is, players who tend to have high walk and power numbers, with low speed and batting average. Any player in the top 25% of walk rate, a speed score in the bottom 25 percent, ISO in the top half, and batting average in the lowest half made the cut. He found only three players in 2010: Prince Fielder, Brian McCann, and Ike Davis.

The first name that popped into my head when reading the article was Geovany Soto. Given that he turned 27 last year, he missed Klaassen’s cut for the study. However, his walk rate (16.0%), Speed Score (1.1), and ISO (.217) all put him in range of that "old player skill" category. His .280 batting average was a touch high, but not enough to totally disqualify him from consideration.

All three of Klaassen’s 2010 old skill players (and Soto) had below league average contact ratings last year as well. I’m not sure a low contact percentage fits the mold for "old player skills." However, older hitters, specifically power hitters, do tend to lose some quickness in their swing; this can certainly lead to more missed balls. And there is some evidence that players with power swings that hit for low average (like Adam Dunn) tend to have lower contact percentages.