How did Joe Blanton beat the Red Sox?

After staring at the data for around two hours, I really can't put my finger on it. I'll post the numbers and if you can come up with anything, you let me know.

SEASON AVERAGE
Pitch Type	Pfx_x	Pfx_z	Speed	Spin Angle
FB	-5.47	9.81	89	209
CB	5.59	-7.11	75	39
CH	-6.58	6.52	82	225
CU	-1.63	11.44	89	188
SL	5.35	4.56	82	131

MAY 25th vs Red Sox
Pitch Type	Pfx_x	Pfx_z	Speed	Spin Angle
FB	-5.59	10.13	89	209
CB	4.05	-5.58	75	40
CH	-6.83	6.58	82	226
CU	-2.28	11.33	90	191
SL	5.12	0.72	80	98

Nothing really outside the norm here. His fastball moved to his glove side a little more than usual and his slider had less downward movement, but that isn't significant when you see the next chart.


Lots of called strikes on the fastball. For a pitch that doesn't get many swinging strikes (only 14 total on the year!), they shouldn't have been sitting on his other pitches so much. While the Red Sox like to work the counts, they should have looked to be more aggressive vs Blanton. In fact, they only swung at 12 of his 55 fastballs all day. On the other hand, they were clearly fooled when he threw his changeup. It was thrown 19 times and they swung 9 times, putting it in play 3 times for one hit.

To further back up my point on being more aggressive when he throws the fastball, both runs came off his fastball: The solo HR by David Ortiz in the first and the RBI single by Manny Ramirez.

The Red Sox will look to bounce back tomorrow, which shouldn't figure to be any easier. They face Felix Hernandez.

Red Sox vs Joe Blanton

Joe Blanton will be taking the mound on Sunday vs the Red Sox. Blanton has been a subject of numerous trade rumors over the past two season as teams have tried to bolster their staffs. On a young team like the A's who will most likely slip out of the race come the summer, Blanton would seem like a perfect trade target for a contending team come July. Below is a look at what he brings each start:

Pitch Type	Pfx_x	Pfx_z	Speed	Spin Angle
FB	-5.47	9.81	89	209.17
CB	5.59	-7.11	75	38.67
CH	-6.58	6.52	82	225.42
CU	-1.63	11.44	89	188.02
SL	5.35	4.56	82	131.19

Here is an average speed vs spin angle chart. I am borrowing Mike Fast's method on this, with his permission of course. If you would like more information on this subject, read his great post about it here: http://fastballs.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/magnus-papelbonus/

Blanton is a five pitch guy and most pitches are fairly easy to distinguish. One interesting thing I found about Blanton is his cutter. While researching this article, I saw no mention of the fact that he throws a cutter. Neither Baseball Info Solutions or Inside Edge lists him with a cutter. But after looking at the pitch f/x data, it is fairly easy to see he does throw a cutter. As pitch f/x data becomes better utilized in the future, I wonder if this trend will continue. Finding pitches that can't be easily seen through television is a key factor in the continued development of this data.

These next three charts show his pitch selection by both count and pitch result. In terms of analyzing a pitcher, I find these more useful. But you can't get to this point without doing the above work.

Blanton by count

Blanton by result

PITCH	CB	CH	CU	FB	SL
BABIP	0.225	0.267	0.275	0.198	0.333
Strike %	56.38%	67.11%	67.86%	65.37%	59.00%
Contact %	88.06%	84.62%	89.89%	92.35%	83.72%

Along with these two charts I have used before, for the first time I have calculated a pitchers BABIP and contact % by pitch type. In the future I hope to add slugging percentage and some other nice features.

The biggest thing I can take away from Joe Blanton's pitch f/x data is his lack of an out pitch. Look at his contact percentage. Contact percentage is simply the amount of times the hitter made contact divided by every time he swung. Having a contact percentage over 80 for each pitch he throws is alarming. For example, Chad Billingsley has a 58% contact rate on his curveball and a 64% rate on his slider.

Now with this said, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. But looking at his contact rate and BABIP together, we see that he has been fairly lucky so far. With a BABIP of .198 against his fastball along with a contact percentage of 92%, well all signs point to an increase of runs against.

In Oakland he has had a good fielding defense behind him. If he gets traded this summer, teams without a strong defense must be aware that he will struggle.

Rich Harden comes to town

For the first time in this blogs (short) history, I will take a look at another teams pitcher. Going forward, I will be doing this more often.

The Red Sox will be facing Rich Harden for the third time this year. Through their first two match ups, Harden has dominated. In 11 innings, he has given up 7 hits, 7 walks, 15 strikeouts and only one run. On the season, Rich Harden has 4 starts. Outside of his 5/11 start vs the Rangers, he has cruised: Game Log.

Baseball Info Solutions, where I did an internship, says Harden throws a Fastball, Slider, Changeup and Splitter. Four fairly distinct pitches, outside of the changeup and slider, that should be easy to chart. But the thing about Rich Harden is he throws everything hard. So hard that it is fairly tough to chart him with 95% accuracy. I have decided to try a program that runs a K-Means clustering algorithm for me to decipher his four pitches. I am fairly happy with the results:


This graph is the spin angle (Theta) vs start speed. Much thanks to Mike Fast for introducing me to this graphing method. The green is the fastball, the blue is the changeup the red is the slider and the orange is the splitter. Notice how closely packed the clusters are? That just shows how close his pitch types are. Understandably tough for a hitter to pick up the pitch movement. While this plot isn't perfect, it gives a good general idea of what he throws.

To look at Harden's vs the Red Sox in 2008, we only have his 4/2 start to look at. There was no f/x data for his start in Japan. Below is his pitch type by pitch count.

Count	FB	SL	CH	SF	Grand Total
00	20	7	11	6	44
01	10	0	4	0	14
10	7	0	0	3	10
11	8	0	1	1	10
12	2	0	0	0	2
20	2	0	0	0	2
21	2	0	0	0	2
30	1	0	0	0	1
31	1	0	0	0	1
Grand Total	53	7	16	10	86

The only count that has a significant spread in pitch selection is 0-0. Outside of 0-0, pitch selection was fairly basic. Lots of fastballs and why not, when you can dial it up like Harden.

Here is Harden's fastball location from 4/2. In the zone and up in the zone.


Well it looks like Harden's strategy last time was here is my fastball, try and hit it. Lets see what kind of adjustments the Red Sox hitter's make tonight. After a long cross country trip, the bats might be a little slow tonight. If that is the case, Harden's fastball should dominate again.