Baseball's Best, Worst Strike Zone Fishermen

Mark Simon at ESPN's SweetSpot Blog popped the hood on Ichiro's down 2011 season, pointing out that the longtime hitting Jedi didn't get as many hits as usual on pitches thrown outside of the strike zone. Ichiro has been one of the game's better batters on out-of-zone pitches, posting a .262 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) when he has gone fishing over the past three years (the league average wOBA when swinging at pitches off the plate is .191).

Ichiro didn't crack the top 10, however. Who did? Here's a look at baseball's best strike zone fishermen:

Highest wOBA when swinging at out-of-zone pitches, 2009-11

Hitter	wOBA
Pablo Sandoval	.319
Troy Tulowitzki	.299
Michael Young	.294
Ryan Zimmerman	.287
Victor Martinez	.287
Albert Pujols	.286
Marco Scutaro	.285
Jose Bautista	.281
Miguel Cabrera	.280
Dustin Pedroia	.273

San Francisco's Pablo Sandoval has a full twenty point lead on Troy Tulowitzki for the top spot, and he doesn't get a Rocky Mountain boost like Tulo. Panda has popped a major league-best 24 home runs on outside pitches since '09, besting Miguel Cabrera by four. Check out Sandoval's in-play slugging percentage by pitch location on outside pitches, compared to the league average. He's primarily a high-pitch hacker:

Sandoval's in-play slugging percentage on out-of-zone pitches, 2009-11Average in-play slugging percentage on out-of-zone pitches, 2009-11So, who are the game's worst strike zone fisherman? Here are the batters with the lowest wOBA from 2009-11 when chasing pitches off the plate:

Hitter	wOBA
Juan Uribe	.136
Brandon Inge	.140
Alex Gonzalez	.140
Andrew McCutchen	.143
Miguel Olivo	.145
Franklin Gutierrez	.145
Jason Bay	.146
Nick Swisher	.147
Lyle Overbay	.147
Kosuke Fukudome	.150

Uribe, Inge and Gonzalez have been among the worst overall hitters in the majors, but you might be surprised to find Andrew McCutchen and Nick Swisher on this list. Happily, neither 'Cutch nor Swish goes fishing often: both are in the bottom ten in the majors in chase percentage over the past three seasons.

Pat the Bat Calls it a Career

It's a sad day for Burrell's Girls: Pat Burrell has retired due to a lingering right foot injury, according to MLBTradeRumors' Tim Dierkes. The Bat, now 35, hangs 'em up with 292 career home runs and a 116 OPS+. That adjusted OPS ranks 24th among active hitters with at least 5,000 plate appearances, sandwiched between Matt Stairs and Carlos Lee. Burrell's best years came in Philly, where the number one pick in the '98 draft popped 251 of those homers and posted a 119 OPS+.

It looked like Burrell was headed for forced retirement following the 2009 season after he tanked as the Tampa Bay Rays' DH (81 OPS+ in 476 plate appearances). Tampa cut him after a dreadful start to 2010 (74 OPS+ in 96 PA), but Burrell rediscovered his bat and won a World Series ring by the Bay, putting up a 127 OPS+ in 560 PA with the Giants over the 2010-2011 seasons.

With the Rays, Burrell struggled with a neck injury and didn't put solid swings even on pitches thrown down the middle..

Burrell's in-play slugging percentage by pitch location with Tampa Bay, 2009-2010

But he found his power stroke in San Francisco:

Burrell's in-play slugging percentage by pitch location with San Francisco, 2010-2011

As a guy considered the best amateur player in the country when he came out of Miami, Burrell's 18.7 career Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement might seem like a disappointment. After all, number one picks are supposed to become superstars. But Burrell's career value actually matches up pretty well with that of other number one selections. Baseball-Reference's draft page shows that #1 picks reaching the majors have averaged 19.5 WAR (though the total will increase as guys like Stephen Strasburg, David Price and Justin Upton turn in star-level seasons).

It's a shame The Bat was forced to put his down before he wanted to, but he can be proud of his hitting exploits in Philly. Now, he can enjoy his nearly $71 million in career earnings in, erm, any way he so chooses.

Will Melky Bring His Bat to San Francisco?

Frustrated with Jonathan Sanchez's walks and injury woes and looking to resuscitate the National League's worst offense, the Giants traded the lefty to the Kansas City Royals a couple of days ago for outfielder Melky Cabrera. The switch-hitter, released by the Braves following a 2010 season in which his bat was skimpy and his belt, well, wasn't, rebounded in K.C. this past year. A .267/.328/.379 career hitter prior to 2011, Cabrera batted .305/.339/.470 in 706 plate appearances, establishing new highs in home runs (18) and Isolated Power (.164).

The question now becomes, can he maintain those offensive gains? He probably won't revert to being the slap hitter who aggravated both the Yankees and Braves, but I wouldn't fully drink the Melk-Man's Kool-Aid, either.

Cabrera did do a much better job of putting forceful swings on pitches thrown low in the strike zone. Pitchers like to hammer Melky at the knees from both sides of the plate:

Opponent pitch location to Cabrera in 2011

In the past, Cabrera struggled on low pitches. He slugged .305 on low pitches from 2008-2010, well below the .342 average for non-pitchers. That changed in 2011:

Cabrera's in-play slugging percentage by pitch location, 2011Cabrera had a .476 slugging percentage on low pitches with the Royals. Given the sample size involved, we can't just toss aside Melky's power display. Cabrera's 2011 Isolated Power was 52 points above his career average entering the year, and changes in ISO become reliable at about 550 plate appearances. That said, you can't just expect this is the new norm for him -- past performance does matter. The Hardball Times' Oliver projection system expects Cabrera to split the difference in 2012, posting a .139 ISO.

There's another reason to be skeptical that Melky will continue to hit as well as he did in 2011: his .332 batting average on balls in play was 42 points above his career average entering the season. You'll note that BABIP isn't on the list of stats with sample sizes linked to above, and that's because BABIP changes don't stabilize over one season and show much less of a year-to-year correlation. Cabrera's 2011 BABIP was in the 87th percentile among MLB hitters; his BABIP the previous three years was in the 62nd percentile. Odds are, he doesn't benefit from as many bloops and bleeders in 2012.

Overall, THT's Oliver forecasts a .279/.322/.418 line for Cabrera next season. That's close to the cumulative 2011 triple-slash for center fielders of .261/.326/.410, but there's also the issue of whether Cabrera is really someone you want patrolling the middle pasture (he has been a little more than seven runs worse than the average CF per 150 defensive games, per Ultimate Zone Rating). If he's going to be an asset for the Giants, Cabrera will need to prove the projections wrong and keep more of his power and contact gains.