Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Charting Felix

Over at the Hardball Times, David Cameron charted all of Felix Hernandez's pitches this season and entered them into a database. The data by pitch count is especially interesting, and probably the type of data we'll see on regular web sites in a few years:

Pitches FB CB CH FB%     CB%    CH%   Opp. OPS
1-15 48 5 5 82.76% 8.62% 8.62% 1.342
16-30 29 15 11 52.73% 27.27% 20.00% 0.662
31-45 31 14 11 55.36% 25.00% 19.64% 0.606
46-60 33 15 9 57.89% 26.32% 15.79% 1.008
61-75 30 18 6 55.56% 33.33% 11.11% 1.054
76-90 25 24 9 43.10% 41.38% 15.52% 0.543

Batters are really teeing off on Hernandez in the first inning, and it may be because they know he throws over 80% fastballs at the start of the game.

I love reading this stuff because it's the type of data we normally don't get to see, but is probably the type of information that opposing hitters get from their advance scouts.

1 comment:

Ross said...

You would think the Mariners would have changed his first inning pitch selection by now.

I can only think that he's scared to fall behind in counts early in the game, but what's the difference if everybody is hitting him anyway.