Balls In Play Charts Options

[Hairps]

Dan Fox, of Baseball Prospectus and Dan Agonistes, made a really cool feature available today:

a new version of the BIPChart Windows application I wrote a couple years ago for my own research has been updated with data from 2003 through 2006. The software displays the percentages and directionality of ground balls, fly balls, line drives, and pop ups for both hitters and pitchers for each year with hitters broken down by side of the plate they hit from (switch hitters getting two entries) and pitchers shown against both left and right handed hitters.

A further explanation can be found here, and instructions on how to download it can be found here.

Here's an example, taken from Marc Normandin's recent Juan Pierre Player Profile (2004/2005/2006):



Access to these charts led Normandin to the following insight:

There was a significant moving away from his slapping the ball to the third base side in 2005, with a slight return in 2006. It's tough to say exactly how things shaped up, especially considering he only had six additional ground ball outs than he had in 2004, but the trend towards pull hitter on the ground is one that will eventually hurt Pierre’s already dwindling value.

Whatever caused the fluctuation-–and I'd love to hear reader feedback on the matter--was reduced somewhat in 2006, when Pierre's line drives and infield flies both dropped by a few percentage points while his FB% recovered. This was not enough to make him productive, and although he was below his expected BABIP, I'm certainly not confident it will remedy itself in 2007. Whereas his groundball tendencies earlier in his career appear to have helped him out significantly in the BABIP department, Pierre is now going to be 29 years of age, and while not old, he's certainly not getting any younger.

If I had any idea how to take snapshots of Red Sox players' charts, I'd do it here and now.

Have at it.

EDIT: Also, I meant to start this topic in the General MLB Forum. Sorry, feel free to move it.

This post has been edited by Hairps: Dec 14 2006, 07:43 PM

[Todd Benzinger]

Anyone care to check out the left-field breakdowns for JD Drew? Is there any way to check how long and high flyouts were?

[OttoC]

If I had any idea how to take snapshots of Red Sox players' charts, I'd do it here and now.

If you are using Windows, hold down the ALT button while you press PrtScn (upper right-hand side of your keyboard). That will copy the BIP window to your clipboard. Then, you have to paste it into a graphics program. Since I don't know what you have on your system, I can't give you instructions other than you need to open a new, blank canvas. Depending on your graphics program, you may need to tell it what size canvas to open (some programs will automatically size it to the contents of the clipboard (1083x727 pixels). Pressing CTRL+V will paste the image. Save as JPEG or GIF (you may need to experiment to find which fomat gives the best quality at the smallest file size).

If you need a graphics viewer, IrfanView is a very good, free one that has some editing capabilities and handles a great many different files formats.

[absintheofmalais...]

Here is the one from Dodger Stadium for 2005. It doesn't give the height of course, but you can estimate the distance. Most of his 2B were to left and left center.. AO were to all fields and his HRs were from CF to RF. The field dimensions are 330' down the lines and 395' to CF. 385' to the alleys. Most of his HRs look like they cleared the fence by at least 10-15'.
mlb.com
Comparing park dimensions it looks like all but 4 or 5 of his HRs that he hit at Chavez would be out at Fenway. Using just guestimation it looks like most of his 2B from Chavez would be the same at Fenway. Most of his AO to LF would have been at or off the wall.
I can't figure out how to take screenshots of the hit charts either.

This post has been edited by absintheofmalaise: Dec 14 2006, 11:33 PM

[javaisfun]

Here's Drew's for 2006.


Edit: Any other requests?

This post has been edited by javaisfun: Dec 15 2006, 12:01 AM

[templeUsox]

All of Drews' charts show a drastic split the opposite way on fly balls. I had known he was adept at going the other way, but not to this extent. This portends good things for him at Fenway. Of course, we all know people who go the other way are in general passive hitters and don't have enough heart to swing a split second earlier and pull the ball like a real man.

This post has been edited by templeUsox: Dec 14 2006, 11:49 PM

[absintheofmalais...]

Here is his AO chart from Chavez 2006

[Hairps]

Mike Lowell.

I thought I'd take a look at Lowell's 2005 season in Florida, and his resurgence with us last year.

Lowell BIP

	GBs	GB%	FBs	FB%	LDs	LD%	Pops	Pop%	Balls In Play	BABIP
2005	142	0.316	164	0.381	79	0.183	54	0.12	439	0.254
2006	200	0.388	143	0.315	107	0.21	45	0.087	495	0.291

What's that telling us?

First, that I can't figure out how to convert %s in Excel to the SoSH Tables.

Second, Lowell put roughly 13% more ball in play last year than he did in 2005, in roughly 13% more PAs.

Third, he reduced the rate at which he popped up, decreased the rate at which he hit fly balls, increased the rate at which he drove the ball, and increased the rate at which he hit ground balls.

Fourth, his BABIP spiked back up from 2005.

Let's see if the new-fangled Balls In Play Charts show anything worthwhile.

2005 (GB/FB/LD/Pop)



2006 (GB/FB/LD/Pop)



Looks like a pretty dramatic increase in the number and rate of Ground Balls hit to the left side. Flyballs look about the same, maybe a few more scattered to center and right. Actually, it looks lke a pretty steep drop off in FBs to center. Line Drives, looks like the additional LDs hit last year were hit to left and right, rather than up the middle. Pop Ups, looks like a few less to the left and more to center and right.

One other thing of note. Lowell's HR/FB%.

2005: 4.1%
2006: 9.7%

So, while the overall number and rate at which he hit flyballs in Fenway last year went down, when he did hit them, they left the park at more than double the rate they did the year before.

Also, looking back at Lowell's 2006 again. GBs Up. FBs Down. LDs Same-ish/Up. Pops Down. BABIP Way Up. Could it be his high 2006 BABIP was a function of a lot of the new GBs he hit last year (almost all exclusively pulled to the left side) sneaking through for hit? Or did his increased number and rate of LDs help? Or was his 2005 just a fluky year for his BABIP, or a season he just didn't hit the ball hard (2001-2004 BABIPs: .304/.293/.272/.300)? Combination of any of these? None of these? I don't know.

EDIT: Other random BABIP musings.

This post has been edited by Hairps: Dec 15 2006, 02:23 PM

[Todd Benzinger]

Thanks tons for the Drew stuff... How do you guys with more informed eyes interpret how these charts would translate to fenway? Looks like maybe three HR and a few wallballs to LF, which would balance rather than increase the power numbers he would supposedly lose to RF in fenway, right??

D'oh, I missed absinthe's post which answers this question. Sorry, & thanks absinthe.

This post has been edited by Todd Benzinger: Dec 16 2006, 09:49 AM

[absintheofmalais...]

Lurker richard sent me this which has an overlay of Fenway over DS for Drew's AOs.

My guessing in the previous post was wrong about the number of AOs that would've been hit to or off the wall it looks like.
edit:added clarification

This post has been edited by absintheofmalaise: Dec 16 2006, 04:34 PM

[absintheofmalais...]

Overlay of Drew's HR, 2B, 3B and AO from DS from lurker richard.

[gator92]

A week or so ago I posted some analysis I did on Drew's 20 home runs in 2006 in one of the Drew super-threads, where I said that if you took those 20 homers and put them in Fenway Park on a 70 degree, no wind day, he'd only get 11 homers. This was also put up in the wiki: SoSH wiki - Effect of Weather on Drew

That is still the case, but at the time I hadn't analyzed the other non-homers that might have also turned out differently in Fenway vs. Dodger Stadium and the other parks Drew played in last year. Now I've done that, and the results are quite a bit more optimistic:

Overall, Drew hit 62 balls over or "near" the fences in 2006 (in all parks, not just Dodger Stadium), broken out like this:

- 20 Home Runs
- 4 Triples
- 11 Doubles
- 27 Flyouts

For each one, I watched the video, analyzed the hit with the atmospheric conditions it occurred in, and then plugged that hit into Fenway Park with what I call "standard" conditions of 70 degrees and no wind (which is not really very common at Fenway, but you have to choose something, and it's as good a choice as any since the weather varies so much in Boston month to month and day to day).

When I put each of those 62 hits into Fenway, here's what I got:

For the 20 homers: 11 HR's, 7 Flyouts, 1 Triple, 1 Double

For the 4 triples: 1 HR, 1 Double, 2 Flyouts

For the 11 Doubles: 10 Doubles, 1 Flyout

For the 27 Flyouts: 6 HR's, 7 Doubles, 14 Flyouts


The overall net effect was -2 HR's, -3 Triples, +8 Doubles and -3 Flyouts. So, you lose 17 bases and pick up 16 - practically a wash.

I found myself a bit surprised that the Green Monster would do so much for Drew, but in 2006 he hit a lot of high fly balls the opposite way that would hit or clear the Monster. This is a very promising sign for Drew in a Sox uniform!

Because the weather at Fenway tends to start out bad, get good and then head for bad again (from a hitter's perspective, anyway), we should expect Drew's hitting numbers to follow the same pattern. I for one am not going to worry too much if he starts out slowly...

For anyone who's interested, I have a ton of detail on this, but not a lot of it is easy to display here. The overlays of Dodger Stadium and Fenway that Absinthe posted are somewhat helpful, but you have to watch out: the symbols shown on the MLB.com hitting charts show where the ball was fielded, not where it landed. Example: the triple that you can see on the Dodger Stadium chart up against the CF wall was actually a sinking liner that skipped past a diving Ken Griffey and rolled to the wall. Drew got nailed at the plate trying for an inside the park homer. There are some other doubles on the chart that show where they rolled to, not where they flew to...

[Noah]

The overall net effect was -2 HR's, -3 Triples, +8 Doubles and -3 Flyouts.  So, you lose 17 bases and pick up 16 - practically a wash.

That's amazing, work, gator, and it confirms exactly what we'd expect. Fenway takes away some home runs, and adds some doubles.

[Diehard]

Tremendous work Gator. It's good to know that we'll probably see no dropoff in Drew's preformance. However, I really do expect Drew to have great numbers this year. As shown in your study, I expect his HR to decrease, but his doubles to increase significantly. I am currentley doing a study on Drew's numbers using the Park Indicies from the Bill James Handbook 2007. It'll be interesting to see how your study matches up with mine. Thanks again!

[Hairps]

The Hardball Times' John Walsh Weighs In with Even More Cool BIP Charts

He begins with a link to the SoSH thread, and now we've linked to his link of the link of the SoSH thread...

I suppose many Red Sox fans will read this article and say, "Well, duh!" They know that Ortiz and Ramirez and, especially, Millar have put the Green Monster to good use. Of course, it's nice when the data support our perceptions, plus I like to make those plots with the colored dots and stuff.

Next time I hope to uncover something interesting about players on other teams and how they might be expected to perform at Fenway, at least as regards the Green Monster. Stay tuned.

[paulftodd]

The Hardball Times' John Walsh Weighs In with Even More Cool BIP Charts

He begins with a link to the SoSH thread, and now we've linked to his link of the link of the SoSH thread...

Seems the article is somewhat less useful since they do not know how many balls actually hit the wall on a fly or line drive. The only thing I could find was data from 2005 Red Sox in the Fielding Bible which indicated they hit 30 balls off a LF wall and opponents hit 42 balls, but these were home and away (most likely most were hit at Fenway as the MLB avg was 10). Does anyone know if there are any records available on how many balls are hit off the wall in Fenway, by whom, and if they are FB or LD? IF HBT does not have them I guess they are not available, maybe this is classified information by the DHS or the Fielding Stat Profiteers

Also in the article they diss Manny a bit on only getting 1 double off 6 balls off the wall (actually he does not even know that, just that they were fielded near the wall). Line drives off the wall (medium or high) are homers in most parks but if hit hard enough are singles. Not saying Manny couldn't of hustled one or more of those singles into a double, but the data is not sufficient to conclude anything.

[OttoC]

See newer post on this subject.

This post has been edited by OttoC: Jan 27 2007, 10:26 AM

[Eric Van]

The overall net effect [of moving Drew to Fenway] was -2 HR's, -3 Triples, +8 Doubles and -3 Flyouts. So, you lose 17 bases and pick up 16 - practically a wash.

In fact, it's a gain of 0.4 runs (on an average team), because you're eliminating 3 outs.

Tremendous work, BTW.

[paulftodd]

The number of ground balls in 2006 is higher than other years, which tends to supports the belief I had during the season that the club was hitting a lot of doubles that did not hit the wall on the wall in the air. Also noteworthy is the decrease in fly balls, which suggests fewer wall-ball doubles (subject to subjectivity). There is no way of telling whether the line drives hit the wall first, or not.

The Sox hit 45 more doubles at home than on the road (186 vs 141). From your data 94 of the 186 were hit to LF. It would be interesting to see the road splits for LF as well if that is easy to do.

In 2005, there were 67 Sox doubles fielded by LF from your numbers, and an estimated 25 off the wall from FB numbers (30 off the wall home and away, 10 league average) so about 38% of doubles to LF in Fenway by the Sox were off the wall. Not sure this ratio holds year to year and it may be lower because some number of balls off the wall are singles.

It would be nice if information on balls hitting the wall were recorded AND released, as it seems very relevant to understanding how Fenway impacts Sox hitters and on Sox LF defensive ratings, and would supplement the information from Hit Tracker on HR's (he has plans to record all BIP events at some point)

This post has been edited by paulftodd: Jan 27 2007, 04:16 AM

[gator92]

The Sox hit 45 more doubles at home than on the road (186 vs 141). From your data 94 of the 186 were hit to LF. It would be interesting to see the road splits for LF as well if that is easy to do.

In 2005, there were 67 doubles fielded by Sox LF from your numbers, and an estimated 25 off the wall from FB numbers (30 off the wall home and away, 10 league average) so about 38% of doubles to LF in Fenway by the Sox were off the wall. Not sure this ratio holds year to year and it may be lower because some number of balls off the wall are singles.

It would be nice if information on balls hitting the wall were recorded AND released, as it seems very relevant to understanding how Fenway impacts Sox hitters and on Sox LF defensive ratings, and would supplement the information from Hit Tracker on HR's (he has plans to record all BIP events at some point)

For 2007, I am hoping to make this sort of info available, by using Hit Tracker to analyze and post data for the following:

• all home runs (same as 2006)
• all balls that fly "near" the fence, for all teams
• all batted balls of any type, including grounders, for a selection of teams

Naturally, the Red Sox would be the first team on the list for tracking all batted balls, so in 2007, we should be able to see an exact trajectory for every ball hit in a Red Sox game, both home and road, and we will be able to "transplant" those hits into any park and any conditions, to satisfy any and all "what-if" scenarios.

After the Sox, I am planning to cover the Yankees and then probably the Cardinals. How far down this list I may be able to get will depend on whether I can recruit any volunteers to help me. I've already got two who are going to help me make observations, but could use some more.