Few stories gripped me as much in the first half of 2010 as the meteoric rise of Brennan Boesch. The Tigers outfielder hit .342/.397/.593 in the first half, was a huge All-Star snub, and looked to lead the Rookie of the Year race by a mile.
In spite of Boesch’s success, many warned his over-aggressive approach would catch up to him in the long run. They were quite right, as he hit .163/.237/.222 the rest of the way, a line many pitchers would be ashamed of.
Word is that once pitchers realized that a) Boesch could crush mistakes and b) he’d chase anything they threw, they stopped throwing him strikes and he started flailing.
That’s all well and good, and it makes sense, but I have another question: Why’d it take them 65 games to adjust? Heck, I’m just sitting here in a room, and I knew Boesch would swing at anything. I saw the stats. It would seem to me that after two weeks, and certainly a month, pitchers preparing for Boesch would have to know this; their starts against the Tigers depend on it, after all.
Then, several months after my Boesch hysteria had died down, I was looking at stuff on Lorenzo Cain after he was traded in the Zack Greinke deal, and I noted lots of analysis to this effect: “Cain walked a lot in the minors, but that vanished in the majors.”
That made me think back to Boesch and wonder: Does every rookie get like a 90-day probation period from pitchers where they see a ton of strikes? Both Boesch and Cain walked less and struck out less in the majors than they did in the minors, which would point to that–they saw more hittable pitches in the bigs. Are they anomalies or do they signify a trend? I decided to find out.
Of the 442 players who received at least 100 plate appearances in 2010, 68 were rookies.
Overall, 46.4% of pitches were in the strike zone last year. Against rookies, that number does jump, but only slightly, to 46.7%. Ten of the 68 rookies saw at least 50% in the zone, while only 44 of the other 374 hitters did–that’s 14.7% of rookies vs. just 11.7% of non-rookies.
Of course, that makes a certain amount of sense, though, without worrying about the rookies themselves. Obviously, rookies in general are worse hitters than those in their primes–they’re just starting out and haven’t adapted to MLB pitching yet.
What really gets interesting is that while rookies do see more pitches in the zone than most, many saw very few–a whopping five of the ten lowest zone percentages were to rookies Boesch, Chris Carter (the Mets one), Justin Maxwell, Ike Davis, and Brett Wallace.
It’s interesting that both Davis and Carter, Mets first basemen, got pitched to less than just about anyone; only Pablo Sandoval had a lower zone percentage than Carter, and only Sandoval, Carter and Prince Fielder had a lower rate than Davis.
A couple of trends jump out when looking at the rookies who did see very few strikes in 2010:
1.) Most were first basemen or left fielders, playing premium offensive positions. Davis, Carter, Wallace, Boesch, Mitch Moreland, Logan Morrison, Kila Ka’aihue, Mike Stanton, Jason Heyward, etc. were generally plopped into power-oriented positions that perhaps clued pitchers in as to what sort of approach they brought. It’s worth noting that pitching around a guy like Ka’aihue or Morrison makes little sense, signifying a general “OMG HE PLAYS FIRST HE MUST HAVE POWER” approach to pitching to these guys.
2.) Most played the majority of the season, meaning the league figured them out by the end of 2010. Boesch is the most obvious example, but obviously Davis played for most of 2010, Tyler Colvin was on the Cubs all season, Morrison was up quickly, Brooks Conrad was around (albeit on the bench) all season, John Jaso was the starting catcher and leadoff man for Tampa Bay most of the year, and Stanton was crushing homers most of the season. They and others had enough time in the majors that pitchers adapted to them; some hitters (Jaso) adapted back better than others (Boesch).
On the flipside, let’s look at the ten rookies who each saw over 50% of pitches in the zone last year. They are:
1.) Peter Bourjos
2.) Drew Butera
3.) Tommy Manzella
4.) Lou Marson
5.) Danny Worth
6.) Brad Davis
7.) John Hester
8.) David Freese
9.) Craig Tatum
10.) Jose Tabata
Here, we have a whole host of backup catcher/infielder types, with three notable exceptions: Bourjos, Freese, and Tabata. Beyond those three, attacking the zone makes sense: none of them are top-tier hitters or heralded prospects. If I were pitching against Butera, Manzella, Marson, Worth, Davis, Hester, or Tatum, I wouldn’t want to pitch around any of them, as they’re not the sort of hitters you avoid.
But what of Bourjos, Freese, and Tabata? All were fairly heralded prospects who played regular roles, and Freese and Tabata both played well.
With Bourjos, I suppose the pound-the-zone approach makes sense–after all, it worked, as he only hit .204/.237/.381. The .177 ISO does jump out as high, thought, for a player who was known as more of a contact-and-speed guy in the minors. Still, Bourjos showed no ability to square the ball up (9.9% line drives), so pitchers challenged him. That wound up costing them the occasional homer, but worked more often than not.
Freese showed little willingness to chase bad pitches, and since he only hit four homers in 70 games, pitchers also went after him. Tabata also lacked power, so even though he was a good hitter all-around, pitchers saw no need to get cute to a leadoff guy with modest pop. Of course, both Freese and Tabata didn’t stick around all season, either–Freese only played 70 games, Tabata 102. The only full-season regulars with very high zone percentages were Manzella, Alcides Escobar, and Austin Jackson; Manzella and Escobar didn’t hit at all, so that’s understandable for them. Jackson is a bit more surprising, although he was a moderately patient leadoff man on a good team, so pitchers probably didn’t want to fall behind him too much; he struck out a lot even with the high percentage of in-the-zone pitches, although he put together a fantastic 24.2% line-drive rate.
So what do those 1000 rambling words tell us? It seems that pitchers in general do seem to be more aggressive against rookie hitters, although it’s clearly not a hard-and-fast rule, as Chris Carter certainly exemplifies. Still, it does provide a good argument that guys like Freese, Tabata, Bourjos, and Jackson shouldn’t necessarily be judged on the basis of their rookie seasons–pitchers may well adapt to them by avoiding the zone more, and they’ll have to adapt back. And let’s not forget Jeff Francoeur‘s early performance with the Braves back in the day. Clearly, we should reserve judgment on young hitters until they’ve not only proven they can hit major league pitching, but also until they’ve proven they can hit MLB pitching that’s ready for them.
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