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August 5, 2009 Red Light, Green LightHack or Hold Up?
Conventional wisdom dictates that a hitter take a pitch on a 3-0 count. The pitcher has thrown three straight balls, so why not make him throw a few strikes in a row? On the other hand, the 3-0 pitch is probably the easiest to hit, as the pitcher has no margin for error and can't afford to try anything fancy. Which is the more compelling argument? Let's begin with some descriptive analysis: who swings on 3-0 and who doesn't? I looked at all 3-0 counts between 2003 and 2008, excluding intentional walks; below are the 20 players who swung most often (minimum 50 PA). Player PA Swing % Sammy Sosa 57 25 43.9% Jeff Kent 127 46 36.2% Victor Martinez 144 50 34.7% Vladimir Guerrero 50 16 32.0% Matt Stairs 109 33 30.3% Jeff Bagwell 52 15 28.8% Ryan Howard 111 32 28.8% Luke Scott 63 18 28.6% Alfonso Soriano 89 25 28.1% Ben Broussard 80 21 26.3% David Ortiz 208 51 24.5% Jacque Jones 86 21 24.4% Torii Hunter 128 31 24.2% Jose Guillen 89 21 23.6% Mike Sweeney 65 15 23.1% Hank Blalock 112 25 22.3% Pedro Feliz 81 18 22.2% Craig Monroe 59 13 22.0% Matt Holliday 129 28 21.7% Jim Thome 180 38 21.1% Here we find some of the usual suspects when it comes to hacking: Soriano, Jones, Guillen, et al. Surprisingly, though, we also find some very patient hitters such as Bagwell, Ortiz, and Thome. On the other end of the spectrum, there were 53 players who never swung at the 3-0 pitch. Here are the 20 with the most PA: Player PA w/o a 3-0 swing Luis Castillo 153 Omar Vizquel 149 David Eckstein 141 Jason Kendall 140 Kevin Youkilis 136 Jose Reyes 132 Bobby Crosby 123 Scott Podsednik 123 Ray Durham 121 Mark Kotsay 117 Dave Roberts 105 David DeJesus 104 Frank Catalanotto 104 Juan Pierre 102 Mark Ellis 101 Kazuo Matsui 101 Darin Erstad 98 Ryan Freel 96 Curtis Granderson 95 Craig Biggio 90 Note that both groups feature some very good hitters, particularly the first. This is because a hitter needs to stay in a lineup and command a minimum of respect from pitchers in order to accumulate 50 PA with 3-0 counts. Next, let's look at 3-0 swing rates on the team level over that 2003-2008 period: Team 3-0 Swing % Astros 14.5% Angels 14.1% Rangers 10.2% Indians 9.6% Royals 9.3% Mariners 9.3% Phillies 8.9% Rockies 8.5% Cardinals 7.9% Dodgers 7.8% Red Sox 7.7% Rays 7.7% Tigers 7.4% Cubs 7.1% Twins 7.0% Braves 6.8% Orioles 6.8% Marlins 6.5% D'backs 6.3% Expos 6.0% Yankees 5.8% Brewers 5.7% Reds 5.7% Padres 5.7% Giants 5.2% White Sox 5.1% Blue Jays 4.5% Mets 3.5% Pirates 3.4% Nationals 3.1% Athletics 1.7% As you can see, there is considerable variation in swing percentage. Is this variation due to directives from the manager or front office, or because the teams with higher percentages just happen to have more 3-0 swingers on their rosters, as a matter of coincidence or design? I can't say for sure, but my guess would be a mixture of both. On to the normative question: should hitters be swinging 3-0? For starters, here are the overall batting lines for all 3-0 plate appearances from 2003-2008: Swing? PA AVG/ OBP/ SLG HR/PA HR BB wOBA Yes 2826 .347/.505/.685 .059 166 708 0.500 No 37666 .289/.742/.498 .016 603 23806 0.582 Total 40492 .297/.726/.523 .019 769 24514 0.577 First of all, it is clear that just getting to a 3-0 count is a huge win for a hitter; you really can't go wrong with either approach. That said, taking on 3-0 resulted in more production as measured by wOBA; a t-test confirms this increase as statistically significant. Most of this advantage, however, is due to the walks that are the result of 63.2 percent of PA with a take on 3-0. In other respects, swinging on 3-0 is advantageous; note the large increases in average, slugging, and home run rate. This suggests that there are many instances when giving the batter the green light makes sense. For a final perspective on this issue, let's return to the first group, our "rakers." Though taking is more productive on the whole, could it be that a free swinger does better with an approach on 3-0 that is consistent with his general approach at the plate? That is, should the rakers be raking? Here are the top 20 swingers, along with their wOBA when taking and swinging: Player Take wOBA Swing wOBA Difference Sammy Sosa 0.725 0.808 -0.083 Jeff Kent 0.664 0.498 0.166 Victor Martinez 0.541 0.468 0.073 Vladimir Guerrero 0.656 0.682 -0.026 Matt Stairs 0.618 0.490 0.128 Jeff Bagwell 0.637 0.501 0.136 Ryan Howard 0.677 0.565 0.113 Luke Scott 0.576 0.358 0.218 Alfonso Soriano 0.709 0.438 0.271 Ben Broussard 0.565 0.710 -0.144 David Ortiz 0.681 0.659 0.023 Jacque Jones 0.556 0.499 0.057 Torii Hunter 0.600 0.673 -0.073 Jose Guillen 0.607 0.773 -0.166 Mike Sweeney 0.528 0.442 0.086 Hank Blalock 0.674 0.403 0.271 Pedro Feliz 0.582 0.475 0.107 Craig Monroe 0.512 0.740 -0.228 Matt Holliday 0.553 0.507 0.045 Jim Thome 0.620 0.598 0.022 Only five of the 20 rakers benefited from doing so; the other 15 saw their performance suffer, in many cases dramatically. Perhaps the get-me-over fastball isn't quite as juicy as some of these hitters seem to think. This analysis seems to support the conventional wisdom: overall, it is better to take on 3-0. The difference, however, is not as big as I expected; indeed, one can think of many situations where giving a hitter the green light will increase run expectation. There's also a game-theoretic argument for the green light: if a hitter commits to taking on 3-0, then the pitcher has an incentive to lob a meatball over the plate. This, in turn, gives the hitter an incentive to swing away. Then the pitcher has an incentive to throw the ball a bit off the plate…and so on. By adopting the mixed strategy of swinging on occasion, a hitter might get the best of both worlds: more walks and some easy extra-base hits. Dan Malkiel is an intern with Baseball Prospectus.
Dan Malkiel is an author of Baseball Prospectus.
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Other than the team stats, which just sort of seem thrown in there, this is a very good and well put together article. Thanks. Instead of the team splits, it might be more interesting to see it by manager/year. It would be interesting if this is a management philosophy thing, or if you just make a decision based on the player at hand.
I'm a bit stunned that Howard has gotten to 3-0 111 though. That would require him to not swing at 3 bad pitches in a row. Stunning.