A Case Study in Pitch Recognition with Max Kepler

When a top prospect completes his ascension through the minor leagues and begins to carve out the early stages of a big-league career, a little war wages in all our heads, whether we know it or not. It’s the battle between our pre-debut perception of that player and our post-debut perception. Really, it’s just a variation of the age-old debate of scouts vs. stats.

When a player debuts, our knowledge of his skill set and abilities is limited almost entirely to the information found in public scouting reports. Sure, there’s minor-league numbers, too, but those can often be misleading or difficult to translate. Early on in a player’s career, the scouting report trumps all.

The more we see of the player in the majors, though, the more data we collect, and the balance of power regarding what informs our perception begins to shift from the scouting reports to the stats. The major-league stats become not only the more recent information but the more detailed. Sometimes, the data aligns with what the scouts reported. Other times, the two are at odds. It’s up to the individual to decide how much weight to give to either side, and why.

Twins rookie Max Kepler hit three homers against the Indians the other day, and has been among baseball’s best hitters since the All-Star Break. Digging through his scouting reports recently, something stuck out. Any emphasis that follows is mine.

From Baseball Prospectus’ preseason report:

His swing has some length, but because he recognizes pitches so well and has an advanced approach, he can make hard contact to every part of the field while drawing walks and limiting strikeouts.

From John Sickels’ offseason write-up:

Got stronger with physical maturity, drove ball more often while improving pitch recognition […] from decent to outstanding, dominated Double-A as a result.

From Baseball America’s most recent blurb:

He has some length to his swing but shows excellent pitch recognition and the ability to barrel the ball, no matter where it’s pitched.

But what is pitch recognition, anyway? Of course, we all understand what those words means literally, but the term “pitch recognition” is sort of an abstract concept, the kind of thing you read in a few scouting reports and forget about once the guy hits the majors. Can we put a number on it? Can we see it? Does Max Kepler really have it, and if so, how does it manifest itself in his game?

Can we put a number on it? Probably not just one, no, but there’s a proxy we can use to get an idea of this, statistically. Over on our leaderboards, we’ve got numbers derived from PITCHf/x data that help show how successful or unsuccessful each batter is against each type of pitch, per 100 pitches. To find balance, I simply did the following: set a minimum of 200 plate appearances for a pool of 278 batters, and filtered for only players who have been above-average this season against each of the four major pitch types: fastballs, sliders, changeups and curves. This left me with a list of 24 names, including guys like David Ortiz, Francisco Lindor, Edwin Encarnacion, Paul Goldschmidt. Balanced hitters.

Kepler was on the list, too, and his values in particular stand out: he’s been +3.2 runs above average per 100 fastballs, +2.8 against sliders, +3.5 against curves, and +4.0 against changes. So I filtered one more time, in this instance looking for players who’ve been at least +2.0 runs above average against all four pitch types.

Here is the entire list:

• Max Kepler

In this one way, you could make a flimsy case that Kepler’s been the most balanced hitter in baseball, when it comes to pitch types. He certainly hasn’t played favorites. This is one step toward the data supporting the elite pitch recognition touted by the scouting reports.

Can we see it? Here’s a couple ways:

On the left is Kepler’s slugging-percentage heat map, broken into zones. On the right are the pitch locations and types of each of his 15 home runs. Both tell a similar story: he’s seemed to cover the zone well.

How does it manifest itself in Kepler’s game? Heat maps and pitch plots are great, but I wanted to see Kepler’s pitch recognition in action. So here’s what I did: I found video of what should be the closest thing to Kepler’s default swing we can find. It’s a 2-1 fastball with no outs and runners on first second, piped right down the middle and smoked into the right-center gap for a line-drive double. It looks like this:

That’s our baseline. Now, I want to compare. So I grabbed three Kepler homers — a fastball, high-and-inside; a curveball, low; and a changeup, up-and-away — and I compared each swing to our baseline in an attempt to gain a sense, visually, of Kepler’s pitch recognition on-the-fly.

We’ll start with the elevated fastball. The screen grabs are taken at the pitcher’s release point, 10 frames after release, 20 frames after release, and the point of contact. Click the image to enlarge:

• First frame: No noticeable difference.
• Second frame: Nearly identical, but Kepler’s hands and front elbow are slightly higher and more tucked in relative to the default swing, our first indication that he’s recognized a high-and-tight fastball.
• Third frame: Major differences. Front knee bent, body compact, hands and elbows still tucked in tight to turn on inside pitch. Bat has barely started forward movement.
• Fourth frame: Legs back to having no noticeable difference. More upright. Front arm coming higher through the zone.

The swing:

The low curveball:

• First frame: No noticeable difference.
• Second frame: Nearly identical, but Kepler’s body seems slightly compressed and the front elbow is subtly beginning to dip down toward the plate, our first indication he’s recognized a low curveball.
• Third frame: Couldn’t be more different. He’s fully crouched in an effort to go get the curve. The hands, essentially, haven’t moved. The front leg is completely bent, and the hips haven’t begun to turn. Kepler’s still in full track mode.
• Fourth frame: Legs back to having little difference. Body far more bent. Hands lower, and kept far behind the hips.

The swing:

The outside changeup:

• First frame: Kepler’s stride has actually been started a couple frames early, indicating that perhaps he was cheating on a fastball, which wouldn’t be surprising, given the situation (bases loaded, two outs, 1-0 count).
• Second frame: If he was cheating, it’s hard to tell now. Back to being nearly identical. Perhaps this time that’s our indication that he’s recognized changeup?
• Third frame: Again, front knee bent and front elbow tucked in to stay back. Back elbow dropping to extend the hands.
• Fourth frame: Legs back to having little difference. Body more bent. Hands going out to cover the zone, rather than pulling in to turn on pitch.

The swing:

The praise was uniform: scouts love Kepler’s ability to recognize pitches and subsequently adjust his swing to cover the whole zone. It’s not like this is a trait unique to Kepler; this is just a fundamental part of hitting. But perhaps Kepler’s exceptional knack helps provides some insight as to how a kid from Germany who didn’t crack a top-100 prospect list until last year due to a lack of obvious tools could crush the high minors the way he did and fast-track his path to the big leagues, where he’s currently got 15 homers in 240 plate appearances and a 137 wRC+. Pitch recognition doesn’t have to be an abstract thought buried in a scouting report. In Max Kepler, we can see it.