Remember's
Ramblings – Volume 2, Article 2
Jamuary 8, 2025
To swing or Not to swing?
Some interesting data
In Tom Brennan’s article this morning he discussed what
pitchers and hitters can do to get better faster. This piece piggybacks on this, focusing on Tom’s
theory of swinging at the first pitch of each plate appearance.
A little research reveals that the Mets as a team struck out 1382 times in 2024. Broken down that is 382 times when they swung at the first pitch and 1000 times when they took the first pitch.
That does not tell us much, so for better context, they swung at the first pitch in 1886 plate appearances meaning they struck out 20.25% (382 of 1886) of the time following their first pitch swinging.
They took the first pitch 4280 times striking out 23.36% (1000 of 4280) of the time they looked at that first offering.
This correlated to Tom's thinking, although not significantly and certainly not to the results that Brent Rooker has found.
Digging a little deeper there is better data to support Tom’s argument.
When swinging at the first pitch (1886 plate appearances) they:
- struck out 20.25% of the time (382 strikeouts)
- walked 2.8% of the time (54 walks)
- had a .267 Batting Average
- had a .293 On Base Percentage
- had a .470 Slugging Percentage
- had a .763 OPS
When taking the first pitch (4280 plate appearances) they:
- struck out 23.36% of the time (1000 strikeouts)
- walked 10.7% of the time (460 walks)
- had a .236 Batting Average
- had a .331 On Base Percentate
- had a .389 Slugging Percentage
- had a .719 OPS
So if there are any conclusions about Mets as a team first pitch swinging, they are:
- lower K %
- much lower BB %
- higher Batting Average
- lower On Base Percentage (far less walks)
- higher Slugging Percentage
- higher OPS
OR simply put more hitting in general
Where runs can be attributable to swinging or taking the first pitch of a plate appearance:
When swinging at the first pitch, the Mets scored 327 runs, or one run in every 5.77 plate appearances.
When taking the first pitch, the Mets scored 427 runs, or
one run every 10.02 plate appearances.
(That data comes up 14 runs short of the total of 768 runs
they scored in 2024. I do not know why.)
This is a stark data point, which correlates to the better hitting and slugging when swinging at the first pitch.
Data from the players
For some additional data, two of the 2024 key Mets were analyzed with a similar focus – Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso. Like any good scientific experiment, a pre-experiment hypothesis is done. One might think that Pete would be more extreme than Francisco when first pitch swinging. Let’s see:
Francisco Lindor:
When swinging at the first pitch (177 plate appearances) he:
- struck out 14.12% of the time (25 strikeouts)
- walked 2.8% of the time (5 walks) (interestingly enough, the same % as the team
as a whole)
- had a .304 Batting Average
- had a .328 On Base Percentage
- had a .579 Slugging Percentage
- had a .907 OPS
- had 33 RBI
- had 11 HR
When taking the first pitch (512 plate appearances) he:
- struck out 19.92% of the time (102 strikeouts)
- walked 10.0% of the time (51 walks)
- had a .262 Batting Average
- had a .350 On Base Percentate
- had a .470 Slugging Percentage
- had a .819 OPS
- had 58 RBI
- had 22 HR
Lindor followed the Mets data points almost exactly, when swinging at the first pitch, his OBP was down, but BA, Slugging, and OPS was up, even more considerably than the team as a whole.
Now Pete Alonso:
When swinging at the first pitch (174 plate appearances) he:
- struck out 18.39% of the time (32 strikeouts)
- walked 2.3% of the time (4 walks)
- had a .299 Batting Average
- had a .328 On Base Percentage
- had a .677 Slugging Percentage
- had a 1.004 OPS
- had 48 RBI
- had 17 HR
When taking the first pitch (521 plate appearances) he:
- struck out 26.87% of the time (140 strikeouts)
- walked 12.67% of the time (66 walks)
- had a .219 Batting Average
- had a .330 On Base Percentage
- had a .378 Slugging Percentage
- had a .709 OPS
- had 40 RBI (8 less
than his first pitch swinging outcome RBIs in about 3 times the amount of plate
appearances).
- had 17 HR (again
in, in 3 times the PA)
Wow! I like those numbers when he went up there looking to take a hack at the first pitch. The slugging and OBP numbers are what Tom has been talking about. Let’s send this to him and then sign him with the provision that he swings at at least 50% of the first offerings he sees.
Finally, without posting the details, a quick glance at the numbers put up by Mark Vientos in 2024 shows a similar overall graph to Pete Alonso. Mark’s OPS when swinging at the first pitch was 1.047, dropping to .738 when taking it.
(I apologize for the readability of this data - someday I will figure out how to do a better chart).
-R69
