July 31, 2014

Feature Focus

Pitch f/x Matchup Tool

by Rob McQuown

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Lucas Duda sat out today with a "Hammy" strain today, that injury only a batter with Duda's extreme platoon bias can suffer; that is, of course, the strain suffered when contemplating facing tough lefty Cole Hamels. Okay, so it's not a perfect example because "Hammy" has a great changeup and shuts down righties as well. But Duda is hitting just .153/.242/.220 against Southpaws this season, and his career line is also far far worse than his "vs RHP" line.

In reading this news, it's easy to wonder exactly how Duda has faired against Hamels in his career. And the Pitch f/x Matchup Tool provides all the answers. To get started, simply pick the pitcher and batter in question from the pulldown menus:

Here's the overview of Cole Hamels facing Lucas Duda:

The interface has some subtle controls that offer some powerful dissection of the data. For example. clicking on the first plate appearance link (labeled by date, "2012-04-15"), the charts adjust for just that plate appearance. To wit, here's the Strikezone Location Plot for that single plate appearance:

Also, these Plots are powerful data visualizations, where simply moving the mouse over various data points reveals even more information, such as pitch locations:

And not only can the page be directly linked (see: "Direct Link to this Matchup to share with your friends! ), but the charts can be extracted in various formats by clicking on the options menu in the upper-right of each chart. For example:

Ready to see another matchup? Just select new players from the pulldown menus:

Remember to take breaks to eat and sleep, as it can be addicting!

Rob McQuown is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @robmcquown
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