Spoiling At-Bats Against Mike Wright

When I'm either datacasting a Tides game for Major League Baseball Advanced Media or recording a game for Baseball Info Solutions, something in the details of the game will catch my notice. For example, in one game several years ago I noticed that about 1/3 of Radhames Liz' pitches were to one specific batter. I shared this with the Tides' Media Relations director, who passed the information on to the radio broadcasters. Not only did that fact get mentioned on-air, but the broadcaster generously credited me with noting the fact.

I was datacasting the June 17 Norfolk game and I noticed that Tides' starting pitcher Mike Wright was allowing a lot of two-strike foul balls. I kept track and by the end of his five-inning, 94-pitch outing Syracuse batters had hit 16 two-strike foul balls. I had already thought that Wright's biggest weakness was an inability to put away hitters. The large number of two-strike foul balls shows two things - first, that Wright is able to get to two strikes and second, that he truly wasn't able to put batters away once he did get to two strikes. This inspired me to look at the other Wright starts I worked to see if this was a consistent pattern.

As the following table shows, the sixteen two-strike fouls in 94 pitches was unusually high for Wright. I've worked seven of Mike Wright's starts, and the following table shows what I've found:

Date	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	2-Strike Fouls	PCT
4/9	5	5	1	0	1	4	77	3	3.9
4/19	7	4	1	1	1	5	84	10	11.4
5/1	5.2	5	2	2	3	3	100	10	10.0
5/16	4	7	7	7	2	0	75	8	10.7
5/27	5.2	6	5	5	3	2	93	5	5.3
6/17	5	5	4	4	3	3	94	16	17.0
6/22	6	5	3	1	2	6	95	6	6.3

Overall, 9.5 percent of Wright's pitches were two-strike foul balls. It will be interesting to compare this percentage with other pitchers. What is more interesting is that there don't appear to be any correlations in his games:

• While his two highest-strikeout games measured by K/IP (April 9 and June 22) featured low percentages of two-strike fouls, he had a low strikeout rate in his May 27 game with a low percentage.
• He pitched well in two of the games in which he allowed a below-average percentage, but pitched poorly in one. He pitched well in two and poorly in two of the games in which he allowed an average-to-above average percentage.
• His walk rates don't show much of a pattern either.

At this time, this information is more curious than significant. What's the two-strike foul percentage for other pitchers? In general, are pitchers who allow many two-strike fouls more or less effective than pitchers who allow few? In general, do pitchers perform better in games in which they allow fewer, or more, two-strike fouls?

Batters are often praised for their ability to spoil pitches and when a batter gets a positive result after fouling off six, seven, or more pitches, it's noted. And it's similarly noted when those at-bats run up a pitcher's pitch count. But we don't know their true significance.