As the pitter-patter of cleats and intensifying chorus of ball-hitting-glove action begins filling the air at spring training complexes in Florida and Arizona this week, truthfully, there’s no better time to look ahead at what the 2016 season might have in store for us than right now. Of course, when one looks ahead at something, it’s natural to ask questions, and needless to say, we have plenty of them. Questions like, will this finally be the year the Cubs taste sweet victory? Questions like, will the Diamondbacks’ go-for-broke off-season yield results? Questions like, are people still doubting the Royals? Questions like, will Ian Desmond, Austin Jackson or Yovani Gallardo sign with a team? Other questions are more widespread. Like, does MLB actually have a tanking problem? Like, how much more velocity will we see? Like, will this be the last year before the NL adopts the designated hitter? All fair inquiries, no doubt, that should bring forth some extra intrigue.
Here’s a question I want to ask: Will first-pitch swings reign supreme in 2016? In asking this, I realize that it is not the most glamorous or interesting or newsworthy topics out there to talk about with regard to the 2016 season. If we’re being completely honest, I’m sure most of us would rather talk about Mike Trout or Bryce Harper or Lucas Giolito, or something to do with the dearth of young talent rising through the minors. Comparatively, the first pitch of a given plate appearance isn’t all that interesting. Comparatively, swinging at the first pitch of a given plate appearance isn’t all that interesting. Of course, when you think about it, 0-0 counts apply to all players, and quite literally, no other count can lay claim to that. So it would stand to reason, then, that we should pay attention to what’s going on in 0-0 counts from a league-wide perspective, because it effects everyone. And, interestingly, there is something going on in 0-0 counts that we should pay attention to:
And that ‘something’ appears to be a revival of early-count aggression, as the graph above shows. In 2015, hitters collectively swung 28.9% of the time on the first pitch of a given plate appearance. That mark was highest in the pitch f/x era dating back to 2008, marking a 1.4% league-wide increase from 2014 alone, when 27.5% of first-pitch offerings were hacked at. A one-in-a-half-or-something rise in anything might seem rather inconsequential, so perhaps it would behoove us to put it in raw terms: That 1.4% buoy accounts for 2,268 more first-pitch swings for the entire league in a single-season span, which, at the very least, it quite noteworthy. Also noteworthy: The rest of the graph. Note how the league has trended from passivity to aggressiveness in 0-0 counts since 2010 alone. That year, hitters swung just over a quarter of the time (26%, to be precise) on the first pitch. This means that last year, hitters swung at 4,817 more 0-0 offerings than they did five years ago.
If explaining this phenomenon is what we’re after, then on the surface, it would appear rather easy, since hitters are actually swinging more than they ever have during the pitch f/x era. Taking into account all plate appearances from last season, hitters collectively swung at 47.0% of pitches presented to them. That was a 0.6% uptick in swing rate from 2014. It was a 1.0% increase in swing rate from 2013. Compared to 2012, that was a 1.3% buoy in aggression. Things stagnated in 2011, when hitters swung at 45.7% of pitches, a rate that would eventually be repeated in 2012; but backing up another year to 2010, the theme persisted in that only 45.0% of pitches were swung at. So you can kind of see the trend at work here. Aggression has increased on a league-wide basis in recent years, especially since 2010. Therefore, it makes sense that hitters are swinging more on the first pitch, because they’re also swinging at pitches in just about every other count-specific situation.
Of course, explaining the sharp rise in first-pitch hacks isn’t as easy as identifying that hitters are, overall, swinging more often. No doubt, that has something to do with it, but this seems like more a product of something else. Maybe it has something to do with the fact at pitchers are not only getting ahead early in the count far more often than they used to…
…but they’re also commanding the middle portion of the strike zone better than they used to…
These would seem to be a relatively strong indicators. Above, you’ll see a graph depicting another sharp rise in a trend that occurs in 0-0 counts, one that is quite similar to the one we saw earlier: First-pitch strikes. Last season 60.8% of plate appearances began with a first-pitch strike. Much like the first-pitch swing peak we saw last year, this was the highest single-season mark in the pitch f/x era. And, much like before, this was just the latest data point in a strong trend that’s taken place over the past five or six years. Back in 2009, 58.1% of all PAs began with a first-pitch strike. Since then, we’ve witnessed an average annual increase of roughly 0.4% in first-pitch strikes. The trend began to curtail a bit last season, granted, with just a 0.2% lift in first-pitch strikes relative to 2014, but, still, a lift is a lift, and we’re witnessing a lot of it lately in the rate of counts starting with hitters down 0-1.
A lot of this explains why run scoring has plummeted. Getting ahead in the count has its benefits for pitchers, and also its consequences for hitters. I looked at all pitchers who threw at least 50 innings last year, and plotted their first-pitch strike rate (x) against their respective walk rates (y). The correlation of determination between these variables was 0.413, meaning there was a strong relationship between the rate at which a pitcher gets ahead 0-1 and how many free passes that pitcher allows. Intuitively, this makes sense, but it’s nice to have data to strengthen some of our assumptions. But what about hitters? Well, the theory holds up: Falling behind 0-1 has harsh effects on production. Since 2008, the league-average hitter’s wOBA after reaching an 0-1 count is .277, compared to .366 after a 1-0 count. Put another way, the average hitter becomes roughly as productive as Michael Taylor was in 2015 after falling behind 0-1. Meanwhile, the same average hitter becomes approximately as potent as Nolan Arenado after a 1-0 count. That’s a gulf.
So a lot of this makes now. Pitchers are throwing more strikes earlier in counts. Hitters, recognizing this, are swinging earlier in counts. Straightforward logic, one could argue. Of course, now, the real question is whether or not swinging at the first pitch is, statistically, the best option for hitters. To help answer this question, here’s a look at wOBA on contact on 0-0 counts (wOBA when the first pitch of an at bat is swung at and put in play) since 2008:
As one would anticipate, there’s some volatility in the data from season to season. And by that same token, there’s also really no concrete trend at work here, at least set aside the trends we’ve already discussed. But what last season proved is nonetheless clear: Putting a first-pitch in play made hitters more successful, literally, than ever before in the pitch f/x era. In fact, the league-average hitter harbored a .371 wOBAcon on the first pitch of a given plate appearance. That’s the highest mark since TruMedia started tracking this stuff for MLB teams back in 2008. I threw a linear trend-line in there to show that there is an upward — though not very steep — trend to this over the years, too, which further indicates that swinging earlier in the count is becoming more beneficial.
Case in point: Cardinals third-baseman Matt Carpenter. It has been well-documented that Carptenter sold some of his patience and on-base skills for tremendous power growth in 2015. A large portion of that had to do with some mechanical tweaks to his swing, which enabled him to hoist his fly-ball rate upwards of 10%. Another partial aspect of it? He increased his swing rate from 33.1% in 2014 to 38.9%. Although, nowhere was his uptick in aggression more evident than on the first-pitch. In 2014, Carpenter swung at just 8.0% of pitches thrown to him, second-lowest among 147 qualifiers to only J.J. Hardy (4.4%). Last season, though? Carpenter doubled his swing rate on the first-pitch to 16.2%. Granted, that was still significantly lower than the league-average hitter’s first-pitch hack rate. But, still, the results. Carpenter’s wOBAcon in 0-0 counts rose to .366, up from .304 in 2014.
Should we be surprised, though, that Carpenter opted to be more aggressive earlier in the count last season? Perhaps not — or at least not as surprised as one would have thought.
In researching for this piece, I was curious to know the extent to which first-pitch aggression applied to batting order positions. Carpenter, after all, spent the majority (53.4%) of his plate appearances in the lead-off spot last season, and it was also in that role in which the vast majority of his power growth was derived from (1.022 OPS as a lead-off man, .700 batting second). After some digging, I was fairly stunned to find that first-pitch aggression on a league-wide scale could be mostly seen from lead-off hitters from 2014. As the graph above shows, the average lead-off hitter swung 26.3% of the time on the first pitch of their collective PAs last season. That was a drastic change in approach from 2008-2014, when lead-off hitters consistently swung at 22% of the time under such circumstances. No other batting order position witnessed a first-pitch aggression surge like lead-offs in 2015. And that’s saying something, because everyone — save for No. 3 hitters — increased their first-pitch swing rates to some degree in 2015.
So, what happened? Perhaps front offices recognized that lead-off hitters were seeing too many quality pitches go by uncontested. Like, say, even the first pitch of the game! Last season, pitchers located 10.3% of their offerings middle-middle to lead-off hitters in the first inning. That’s essentially a 1.0% increase from just one season earlier (2014), when 9.4% of such offerings were located to that portion of the strike zone against lead-off hitters. (That frequency of middle-middle located offerings to start games from 2008-2013 was 9.3%, for reference.) Yes, that’s a lot of granularity to be drawing much of substance from. But, still, these facts remain. Everyone seems to be pulling the trigger more often on the first pitch, and increasing their success rate in doing so. Of course, lead-off hitters showed a far more accelerated rate of growth in first-pitch aggression last season. And that’s one big reason why top-of-the-order bats like Carpenter should continue to succeed.
Again, though, this trend is very broad in scope. Lead-off types like Carpenter are accelerating the first-pitch aggression phenomenon we’re currently beholding, but all hitters are starting to recognize what’s at stake early in the count. Pitchers are getting ahead far more often. Hitters presumably didn’t like that — and why should they, given that most folks regress to Michael Taylor after going down 0-1 — so the league started swinging more on the first pitch, especially last season. And it seems they were rewarded for their efforts to a certain extent, according to wOBAcon. Of course, the question now becomes: How aggressive — and how successful — will hitters be on the first pitch in 2016? That’s one question among a few others I’m looking forward to knowing the answer to in the not-too-distant future.
*All data courtesy TruMedia Networks, Inc. unless otherwise noted or hyperlinked*
Alec Dopp is a two-year contributor to Gammons Daily. He helps cover prospects for BaseballHQ.com and works with video scouting and operations at Baseball Info Solutions. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecDopp.