Did Pitchers Adapt to Alex Rios?

I’m starting on requests for the pitch database now- first on the list is Alex Rios. One of the things that was overshadowed by the rest of the Blue Jays offensive nightmares this season was that Rios had a significant power drop-off in the second half, with no sign of a staph infection in sight. Although his slugging percentage only dropped 50 points, he hit 17 home runs before the all star break and only 7 afterwards. Was it the dreaded curse of the Home Run Derby, or did pitchers start approaching him differently? Let’s take a look at the pitches he made contact with this year, starting with the first half:

CONTACT

First I’m going to look at the balls he put in play, and then examine those that he watched either for balls or strikes separately. First, here’s what happened when Rios put the ball in play in the first half:

First thing to note is this is a pretty terrible sample size. Pitch f/x was still being installed in parks in the first half, so there is less data that the second half even though they played more games. Still, notice how Alex is waiting for his pitch. He can serve pitches low and away into the opposite field for singles, but lets most pitches low and inside go- which makes sense since he’s hitting .158 there. His power is mostly on anything left high in the strike zone. How did pitchers get him out? By getting him to hit pop ups on pitches at his eyes and grounders on balls away from him.

There’s a lot more data here, but look at how much more it’s spread through the strike zone. Of course this could be because he’s not getting into counts where pitchers have to groove one, but it certainly looks like he’s swinging at and making contact with “pitcher’s pitches”. He’s also flying out on pitches high and especially away in the strike zone, which he didn’t do at all in the first half. And his doubles and HR power is all middle-in, instead of up and over the plate. Maybe Brantley was right when he said he wasn’t moving enough since the Home Run Derby- that looks like someone trying to yank the ball over the fence.

PITCHES TAKEN

Now let’s look at the pitches he didn’t swing at and what the umpire called them. I’ve split them into over 88 and below 88 mph as a crude division between breaking pitches and fastballs, to get an idea of if they were pitching him soft away and hard inside or anything like that. From the first half:

The first thing this tells me is I probably need to tweak my strike zone (based on John Walsh’s measurements of the actual strike zone) up a few inches, or that pitch f/x was set a little low. As you’ll see, it doesn’t look that bad for the second half, but almost all the pitches on the bottom fringe of the zone as I have it were called as balls. It’s also strange that pretty much nothing came in on the inside wall of the strike zone. I’ve checked the data several times though- there were almost no pitches a foot off the middle of the plate, and he swung at all of them.

In the second half, Rios had more low strikes and strikes on the bottom outside corner (or just plain off the plate) called. Maybe that’s why he had to become less selective. There is also a noticeable concentration of more pitches (both fastballs and offspeed pitches) belt high and away – the pitches that from the first set of graphs you can see Alex is grounding out on. In the second half he was getting more hits than grounders on pitches away, but they’re all singles.

The word must have gotten out to keep everything on the outside half of the plate and low to sap his power. Despite more data, there are fewer pitches being hit or taken at the top or just above the top of the zone. I am reminded of the last home run he hit, which was high and out of the strike zone- if you’re going to go up on Rios, go way up (I guess I should chart swing-and-misses next, but they’re pretty much exactly what you would expect from this data- away, away, away, more as the year goes on).

From looking at both diagrams, it also seems that pitchers were also having some success coming up and inside with soft stuff- a lot of called strikes and a not a lot of contact (except for the occasional home run on a mistake left a little too much of the plate). But the biggest difference in pitchers facing Alex Rios in the second half was they worked the outside half of the plate heavily- and started getting the calls.

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The Saddest Day Of The Year…

… is the day after the MLB All-Star Game.

With professional sports on hiatus for nearly 48 hours, the most ardent fans of the pastime consider suicide. For those who manage to disentangle from the interweb and brave direct sunlight, it is a rebirth.

Which is why this moment is so symbolic for Major League Baseball (and the Blue Jays, in particular). It’s not simply that baseball’s second season brings with it a cliched new hope. As Gibreel Farishta said while tumbling from the heavens, “to be born again … first you have to die.”

And so, for a chance at rebirth, we must first put to death the pre-all-star half of the Jays season. Easier said than done. Even after death, things linger in the memory.

Take, for instance that:

• We’re one game under .500
• Roy Halladay, A.J Burnett, B.J Ryan, Reed Johnson, Lyle Overbay, Gregg Zaun, Troy Glaus, and now Aaron Hill have missed significant time to injuries (not a bad “All-DL team”).
• John Thomson, Victor Zambrano, and Tomo Ohka are no longer with the team.
• Our team batting average is .257, which ranks 11th of 14 teams in the AL. In terms of hits, we’re 13th.

The disabled list fiasco makes me wonder if JP Ricciardi is the Pharaoh, his “first born” Jays succumbing to the plagues of Egypt. Make no mistake about it, this is a curse. These feelings of angst do not simply go away.

Remember. This isn’t losing the 1985 AL Championship Series to the Royals after being up 3-1. This isn’t Dave Stieb, having two consecutive no-hitters broken in the 9th. And this isn’t being swept by the Tigers during the last week of the season to lose the 1987 division race.

If we can calmly put the first half of the season behind us, there is solace.

Rest In Peace.

Five O’clock Power

Everyone knows the home run derby is silly. It takes the art of hitting and reduces it to the most meaningless of spectacles. Hitting floaters down the middle with consistency is so irrelevant to what makes a great slugger that it’s almost funny watching the big boppers struggle with it. Ryan Howard provided some legitimacy last year, but before that:

• Bobby Abreu – Smashed the record with 41 in the derby and has hit 26 in the two years since then.
• Miguel Tejada – Great power for a SS, but a HR king? He’s never hit 35 in his life.
• Garret Anderson – Has only hit 30 HR once in his career

And then we had a bunch of juicers (Giambi, Gonzalez, Sosa) before Griffey Jr. again injected (pardon the phrase) some legitimacy into the event. In an indictment of the appreciation of modern fans for the nuances of the game it is far and away the most watched event of the summer, but I watch the derby with the same mix of excitement and revulsion as a shootout in Soccer or Hockey. C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas le Jeux.

That being said, I really wish Alex Rios had not gotten tired and won the thing yesterday, because you could almost hear the commentators waving their arms frantically at interns to try to get something intelligent to say about him. They even cut to an interview with Holliday while Rios was eliminating him and getting a standing ovation with the biggest streak of the event.

Seriously, this is the internet age- “he plays in Canada” is no longer an excuse. There are only 8 players out there and you’re telling me you haven’t done enough research to say something more informed than “I can’t see him keeping this up- he’s already hit more home runs this season that he did all of last year”?? If Alex played for New York the commentators wouldn’t be standing around chuckling that he slipped into the finals, they’d be raving about him being one of the most exciting young players in the game who can also steal bases and has the best arm in the League.

But while he may have impressed everyone who watched the event, second place isn’t enough for big media to admit their ignorance and start splashing his name around like they were old friends. Just ask Jason Stark, who managed to write an entire piece on the event while only mentioning Rios’ name once, in passing. At least the hometown paper saw fit to give him a pat on the back (sorry, I just had to slip this picture in somehow).

The other big reason I wish he’d won is then everyone could agree that he should never bat leadoff again.