F-Strike% (first pitch strike percentage): The percentage of plate appearances (for batters) or batters faced (for pitchers) that the first pitch was a strike. This includes anytime that the count after the first pitch was 0-1, or anytime the ball was put into play on the first pitch of a plate appearance.

Why you should care: Getting the first strike on a batter significantly decreases the batter’s chance of success and likewise increases a pitcher’s chance of success.

Current Baselines: The major league average F-Strike% for all players from 2005-2008 is 59%. There is very little variation in the major league average from year to year.

Batters: A lower F-Strike% is preferable for batters.
Pitchers: A higher F-Strike% is preferable for pitchers.

Links and Resources:
Hardball Times: The Importance Of Strike One (Part One)
Hardball Times: The Importance Of Strike One (Part Two)

They’re here!

The 2009 Bill James Handbook projections are now available on FanGraphs in the individual player pages. Big thanks to Baseball Info Solutions for letting us run these for the 3rd year in a row! If you want the sortable stats version and are not content with seeing one player at a time, you will have to purchase a copy directly from them.

The team pages have just been updated to be a lot more useful in my opinion. Instead of being directed directly to the team that won the last World Series, you will initially be directed to the team stats page which has team totals for everything available on the leaderboards.

No longer do you have to wonder which team has been the best in Clutch batting, or which team’s relievers have the best K/BB ratio.

From the team page you can drill down on any particular team you want and get all the stats available in the leaderboard section, including the ability to filter by month and the last 7, 14, 30 days.

Feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions or if anything is broken.

With the Red Sox forcing a game 7 last night with their win against the Tampa Bay Rays, I thought it’d be fun see just how similar this series looks to last year’s ALCS when the Red Sox played the Indians.

A couple years ago I combined all the Win Probability charts of the 2004 ALCS. Here’s what the 2007 and 2008 ALCS look like when superimposed. 2008 is in red and 2007 is in black.

The Rays have thus far had a much better chance at winning the series than the Indians ever had. In the top of the 7th with Rays runners on 1st and 2nd and no outs, they had a 99.3% chance of winning game 5. The Indians in 2007 had, at their best, a 57.9% chance of winning game 5, and never had better than a 50% chance to win game 6 and game 7.

When compared to the 2004 ALCS, the Yankees at one point had an 83.8% chance of clinching in game 4, and then an 87.8% chance of clinching in game 5.

Update: Just a reminder that we’re still accepting applications. If you plan on submitting an application, please do so by Friday.

FanGraphs is currently looking to hire Fantasy Baseball writers for a soon to be released fantasy baseball blog. These will all be paid, part-time positions with an expectation of 7-15 posts a week.

Please consider the following questions before applying:
– Can you write in a clear and concise manner and self-edit your work?
– Are you extremely familiar with the stats and graphs available on FanGraphs?
– Do you have strong analytical skills?
– Are you available to take on a consistent workload of 7 – 15 posts a week?

In your application please include writing samples, links to current blogs, fantasy baseball experience, or anything else you feel would be useful in evaluating your qualifications.

If you have applied for a position at FanGraphs in the past, please feel free to apply again. Send all applications to david@fangraphs.com with the heading Fantasy Application 08.

Good news! Win Probability and Run Expectancy stats have all been park adjusted for 2008. It looks like the run environment during the season was set a little too high, so you’ll notice batter stats are slightly higher, while pitcher stats are a bit lower. Other than that, not much changed. Manny Ramirez is still #1 in WPA for batters and Cliff Lee is still #1 for pitchers.

This is a few weeks old but I just caught Matthew McGough telling the hilarious story of his first day as the Yankees bat boy on The Moth podcast. It’s definitely worth a listen, especially if you’re a fan of one of the 21 teams already looking forward to opening day 2009.

Pitch Type Abbreviations:

FB – fastball
SL – slider
CT – cutter
CB – curveball
CH – changeup
SF – split-fingered
KN – knuckleball
XX – unidentified
PO – pitch out

About split-fingered pitches: Split fingered pitches include splitters and forkballs.

About the percentages: All pitch type percentages for identified pitches are calculated as a percentage of only identifiable pitches. Unidentified pitches are calculated as a percentage of all pitches.

About the velocity: Next to the percentage in parentheses is the average velocity for the pitch type. If it reads 00.0, it means there is not enough data to calculate the average velocity.

About the leaderboards: On the leaderboards, pitch type percentage and pitch type velocity are broken out into two separate columns for each pitch. The percentage columns are labeled “%” and the velocity columns are labeled “v”.

About the data: All pitch type data is collected and provided by Baseball Info Solutions.

Tangotiger is conducting the 6th annual Scouting Report by the Fans for the Fans. Fill out a ballot to contribute to baseball’s best collective knowledge project!

Just like last year, I’m making a post for the 2008 All-Star game that includes the Win Probability graph and stats since it’s about to go poof from the site.