Have you learnt what number of leaderboards now we have right here at FanGraphs? I don’t. I genuinely don’t. Simply in our fundamental offense, protection, and pitching leaderboards, I counted 78. That’s earlier than you get into group stats, league stats, splits, spring coaching, the postseason, mixed WAR leaderboards, NPB, KBO, the minors, faculty, the BOARD, and on and on. We’ve got a whole bunch of leaderboards since you, the residents of planet baseball, deserve them. If you wish to know who’s main the Florida State League in groundball-to-fly ball charge, it’s your proper to study that Kyle Henley of my beloved Daytona Tortugas is one way or the other hitting a mind-boggling seven grounders for each ball he hits within the air. I didn’t assume it was attainable for a baseball participant’s offensive profile to endure from acrophobia, however right here we’re studying new issues from the leaderboards day by day.
We’ve got three plate self-discipline leaderboards as a result of we pull information from Sports activities Information Options, Pitch Information, and Statcast. The strike zone is (for now) three dimensional, and so is our protection of it. I got here to actually respect this reality on Monday, after I acquired inquisitive about which hitter was doing the perfect job of avoiding whiffs. In accordance with SIS, Chicago Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner is main all of baseball with an ideal, shining 100% contact charge contained in the strike zone. Let’s cease for a second and mirror upon this achievement. We’ve got been enjoying baseball for over a month now. Over greater than 100 plate appearances and practically 400 pitches, Hoerner has but to swing at a strike and miss. He’s the one participant in baseball who could make such a declare, and but that declare is disputed nonetheless.
When you enterprise over to the Statcast leaderboard, you’ll see that Hoerner remains to be in first place, however he’s at a measly 98.4%. Statcast thinks that Hoerner has swung at and missed two pitches within the zone, whereas SIS thinks he’s been excellent. Whence arises this disagreement? It’s not in regards to the swings and misses, the definitions of that are properly established. It’s in regards to the strike zone, which exists in a perpetual state of border disputation. Listed below are the 2 whiffs in query:
Jiminy Christmas. This is the reason Hoerner’s not at 100%? As a result of he missed two completely situated pitches that caught a mixed eyelash or two of the nook? This robotic strike zone has an awfully chilly coronary heart. No surprise SIS, which is logged by flesh and blood people, has Hoerner at 100%. As for Hoerner, the sensation of swinging and lacking at a pitch anyplace close to the imaginary rectangle was so unfamiliar that he appeared genuinely confused after each of the whiffs.
Right here’s the place issues get actually bizarre. Pitch Information’s leaderboard doesn’t even have Hoerner in first place. Pitch Information has Luis Arraez in first place at 98.3% and Hoerner in second at 97.6%. I’m unsure what’s happening right here. Arraez is the premier contact hitter in baseball and has been for years, however let me present you his pitch chart. Bear in mind Hoerner’s? It had these two pitches that simply barely, barely caught a tiny piece of the zone. They simply breathed too loudly as they crossed the plate, and the Hawk-Eye cameras acquired wind of it. Bear in mind? Effectively, right here’s the identical chart for Arraez.
Take a look at these strikes! They’re proper down the center of the plate! One in all them is a fastball. Hoerner’s misses acquired marked down as contained in the strike zone as a result of you recognize, perhaps their shadows crossed it, however we’re not precisely speaking about the identical factor right here. These are proper over the very coronary heart of the plate. Furthermore, Arraez has additionally foul tipped one other fastball proper over the center of the plate.
I visited Brooks Baseball, which makes use of Pitch Information information, and for those who add up the info on the warmth maps under, you’ll discover that they really have Arraez lacking 4 pitches out of 145 swings within the zone, for a 97.2% contact charge. Hoerner’s two misses out of 114 swings works out to a 98.2% charge.
So I’m unsure why I can’t make that match our Pitch Information information, however I’m able to cry foul. Nevertheless, it’s time to transcend amount, as a result of there’s a qualitative distinction right here too. Hoerner has swung and missed simply 16 occasions this season. Sixteen! Right here’s what that appears like.
I imply, that’s nuts. That’s each time Hoerner has missed the ball this season. He’s chased a couple of sliders and cutters. The underside dropped out of 1 splitter. He acquired beat by one excessive four-seamer. He simply barely didn’t test his swing on a heat-seeking 92-mph changeup.
In truth, 4 – actually 1 / 4! – of his whiffs this season have come on failed test swings. Hoerner has solely actually tried to hit a pitch and missed it 12 occasions this season. That’s it. That’s the whole lot of his misses to date. By means of distinction, check out Rafael Devers’ whiffs to date this season, however earlier than you do, some protecting eyewear could be so as.
Devers has missed so many pitches. Simply that checklist of pitch varieties on the precise has greater than half as many dots as Hoerner’s precise chart! And as I’m certain you recognize, regardless of whiffing within the zone actually 12 occasions as typically, Devers has been a a lot better hitter than Hoerner general, even in a down yr, as a result of he offsets his strikeouts with loud contact. Baseball is a bizarre sport, is all I’m saying.
In accordance with SIS, Hoerner ran the perfect zone contact charge of his profession final season, when he put up a 95.1% mark. Since SIS began monitoring this stuff in 2002, that ranks 122nd amongst batters who certified for the batting title in a full season. Juan Pierre holds the file with a 98.1% zone contact charge in 2006. I went again and reconstructed the numbers based mostly on the odds. Pierre noticed 1,486 pitches within the zone that yr, swung at 880 of them, and made contact with 863. He performed in each single sport for the Cubs, made a daft 750 plate appearances (the Twenty ninth-highest whole ever), and he whiffed on simply 17 pitches within the zone. Furthermore, the strike zone was larger again then!
It’s exhausting to think about anyone approaching Pierre’s mark in in the present day’s sport, and I do not know if Hoerner can preserve this up all season. There’s a lot baseball left to play. He may run into Mason Miller or Kirby Yates, towards whom one plate look may simply be sufficient to double his whiffs within the zone. However so long as Hoerner has a 100% mark in no less than one among our three leaderboards, I will likely be watching him intently.
All the stats on this article are as of Tuesday morning. If it seems that Nico Hoerner whiffed on a pitch contained in the strike zone Tuesday night time, I say all of us riot.
UPDATE: Within the seventh inning of Tuesday night time’s sport towards the Pirates, Hoerner foul tipped a Hunter Stratton fastball within the zone, due to course he did. SIS categorised it as a foul, so Hoerner remains to be at 100%. Nevertheless, each Statcast and Pitch Information categorised the pitch as a whiff. That drops Hoerner to a 97.6% zone contact charge in accordance with Statcast (forward of Arraez by two hundredths of a proportion level), and a 96.9% charge in accordance with Pitch Information (nonetheless good for second place). Right here’s the foul tip in query.
