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Pitch Characteristics, Selection, and Outcomes

I've put together this page (http://theuniverseas.com/baseball/conrate.html) to look at a number of different stats for a pitcher's different pitches (e.g. Santana's changeup, Barbaro's curveball). You can see who among the 50 or so I've listed gets the most whiffs on swings or what pitcher's pitch gets a lot of ground outs. There's also a look at situational selection such as in a 2-2 count, vs. lefties, or the 7th inning. There's also BABIP and SLGBIP stats and I was wondering if that would be preferable or not to regular old BA, averaging in when the pitch ends the at bat with a strikeout. There's more I could do with this data like creating pitch charts, seperating contact rates and BA between when facing lefties and righties, or looking at how close to the edges a pitcher pitches, but I ran out of columns in excel. Is there anyway to increase the number of cloumns? Or something like excel with more columns?

It's kind of hard to differentiate between a pitcher's pitches when he throws a splitter, but thankfully only a few do. I'm mainly uncertain about Smoltz's pitches. Is his slider that slow, or is that actually the curve I calculated and the splitter: the slider; changeup: splitter?

Also, what's a good pitcher I left off with a plus-plus offering? There's no data for Lincecum and just one start for Zito, but that should change as it appears the installed the pitch f/x system in San Francisco for the All-Star game.

Please voice any comments, suggestions, or reactions.

Also since this in a minor league blog, there's data from the futures game below. Unfortunately there was only 4 pitches for Deolis Guerra, so I had to ignore him:
http://theuniverseas.com/baseball/futures.html

Now hopefully MLB doesn't gun me down, then make this pitch f/x data unavailable to the public no matter your hacking abilities. I would think Scouting Agencies who sell this information would hate this adventure MLB is doing.

0 recs  |  Comment 10 comments

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I would love to see the data for
Aaron Harang.
http://www.redsminorleagues.com

by dougdirt on Jul 11, 2007 12:31 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Hughes
He's on there but it's only one start...  the no hitter start.

by ultxmxpx on Jul 11, 2007 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I couldn't find the data
Only a link to Jamie Shields.  Very cruel, like holding candy just out of reach of a toddler.  

by siddfynch on Jul 11, 2007 4:59 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

123
Seriously? You didn't see a huge table of data?

by ultxmxpx on Jul 11, 2007 10:59 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

data
The first time I loaded the page, it didn't seem to show up, but clicked the link for Contact Rate at the bottom of the page and it came up, guess it just didn't load the chart for some reason.

I think you've mentioned this before, but I couldn't find it, where do you pull the xml files from? Cool stuff.

"Baseball is dull only to dull minds." -Red Barber

by e 6 on Jul 11, 2007 11:06 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

xml
the xml files are here:
http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2007/
I just put them in wordpad and save them as .xml files.

by ultxmxpx on Jul 11, 2007 11:10 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

The table
The table is a huge file (over a MB with another {the name sorted one} being over 5), so it might just need time to load.

by ultxmxpx on Jul 11, 2007 11:07 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

time to load
Yep I think you're right, one of the other sorted tables just took some time to load.
"Baseball is dull only to dull minds." -Red Barber

by e 6 on Jul 11, 2007 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Great job
Analysis of this type is a tremendous tool for baseball researchers and anyone interested in pitching prospects. Although it was only two pitches, you can see from the data how much Buchholz's curveball breaks. I doubt we ever get these systems in minor league parks in the near future, but to have the data and an analysis like this done for the futures game when the stars of tomorrow are pitching in a major league park is fantastic. Keep up the great work.

by Badler on Jul 11, 2007 1:40 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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