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.
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.
1 comment:
I always wondered about the effectiveness of fouling pitches off. Certainly with two strikes, wasting pitchers pitches that are strikes is a good idea.
But many times I see players who are unwilling to commit to swinging for hits on good hitters pitches with two strikes because they are too defensive.
Kind of leaves them in a no man's land where they extend an at bat and everyone loves the battle (except the pitcher and his team) but is it really an effective strategy for getting on base?
Maybe a thought for a statistical analysis:
What's the OBP on at bats where the hitter fouls off a given number of two strike pitches verses swinging away on two strikes and either striking out or putting the ball in play.
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