Tex seeing more fastballs?
Written by Joe Veno on May 28, 2009 – 12:27 PM -Last night, on the ESPN broadcast of the Yankees/Rangers game. Rick Sutcliffe said that Mark Teixeira has been getting more fastballs since Alex Rodriguez came back from a torn labrum.
I know that I have written about this before, about how Tex was a great hitter and was going to get hot about that time anyway, as he does every single year. But now I have some evidence.
Dave Allen over at The Baseball Analysts wrote a good piece questioning whether or not Milton Bradley was in fact getting balls out of the strike zone called against him more often.
So I posed a question, and asked him if he could tell me if Tex had actually been seeing more fastballs since the return of ARod.
His response:
“Joe, yeah that is very easy to check with the pitchf/x data. It looks to me like before May 8th Tex was thrown 288 fastballs out of 479 pitches, about 60%. Since May 8th he has seen 167 fastballs of 287 pitches, 58%. He has seen fewer fastballs since A-Rod has been back, but the difference is small.”
As mentioned, the difference is very small. So saying he has seen less fastballs may not matter so much over a small sample where variables can get in the way. But to say it is roughly the same might be of accuracy.
I understand that Sutcliffe doesn’t have the same information handy (although he could easily get it), nor does he probably care to check. But this evidence shows that Tex hasn’t actually seen more fastballs.
Now, there is the possibility that the fastballs are located within the strike zone more often. Or that they are in Tex’s “Hot Zone” more frequently. But they have not been thrown more often. And the evidence shows that.
Tags: Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees, Rick SutcliffePosted in New York Yankees | 4 Comments »
May 28th, 2009 at 4:26 PM
I highly doubt Sutcliffe cares about those fancy pitch f/x data (whatever that is). Like most of us, he’s just a regular guy who calls ‘em like he sees ‘em. I’ve made similar mistakes talking out of my ass; of course, I don’t get paid to do that like Sut does. That would be great though: making a living to talk out of my ass. I think I’m on to something here…
May 29th, 2009 at 12:37 AM
I doubt he cares about it either. Just wish research would be put in. I know he can find info like that out very easily with all of the resources at ESPN.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:08 PM
[...] month. Statistician Magician, a new baseball site, went to the pitch f/x data and determined that actually Teixeira has seen fewer fastballs since A-Rod came back. So much for both that theory and ESPN’s research department. [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 6:14 PM
[...] Tex is not seeing more fastballs since A-Rod’s [...]