Are Pitchers Hunting Hitters’ Weaknesses, or Avoiding Their Strengths?

One advantage of living in an age where the wealth of human knowledge is at one’s fingertips is that no curiosity need go unsatisfied. I was just sitting around wondering idly about the relationship between how hitters get pitched and how well they do against certain types of pitches. So I ran a couple of Baseball Savant searches and played around in Excel over lunch and ended up with something that would surely have made Henry Chadwick soil his trousers.
Which probably overstates the impact of these findings, such as they are. One of my major takeaways is that Aaron Judge is a preposterously good hitter, which I feel like we all knew going in. Still, it’s a fun journey to go on, so let’s take it together. Read the rest of this entry »