Contact Quality: Excessive Ground-Ball Pullers, 2014 NL

In recent articles, we’ve discussed many of the various aspects of the emerging granular batted-ball velocity/exit angle data that is becoming more pervasive in the game today. We’ve already covered both the overall hitting and pitching contact-quality leaders and laggards in both leagues, and have now begun to dig deeper into some of the nuances that make it less than advisable to simply accept raw contact authority at face value. Let’s investigate the impact of pulling the ball on the ground at an excessive rate. Last time, we looked at the 2014 AL extreme ground-ball pullers. Today, it’s the NL’s turn.

With the advent of StatCast, batted-ball exit speed/angle data has finally begun to wend its way into the public domain. Though it is very valuable information, one must resist the temptation to rank offensive players solely by their ability to hit the ball hard, as there is a whole lot else to take into consideration. While hitters’ BABIPs are largely driven by batted-ball authority, there are other significant factors at play. Excessive ground-ball pulling, and the infield overshifts it brings, is one of those factors that can suppress BABIP despite seemingly authoritative contact.

At the core of today’s analysis is a very simple statistic called “pull ratio.” I don’t apply it to a hitter’s overall BIP portfolio, but instead do so individually for each BIP type. For a lefty hitter, it is simply (Balls hit to RF + RCF)/(LF + LCF), and for righties, (LF + LCF)/(RF + RCF). The NL average grounder-pull ratio for a lefty hitter was 4.89 in 2014; for a righty it was 4.48. Once it creeps over 5.00 for any hitter, it would behoove opposing clubs to at least consider an infield overshift, based on batter handedness, game situation and the individual hitter/pitcher matchup.

Below is a list of the ten most extreme ground-ball pullers in the NL (among the 65 batting title qualifiers) last season:

	GB PULL	ACT GB	ADJ GB	ACT BIP	ADJ BIP	ACT ALL	ADJ ALL
Granderson	15.43	76	107	94	102	104	107
Duda	10.11	67	120	136	150	134	141
Kemp	10.00	60	140	161	191	142	160
R.Howard	9.17	30	78	114	133	95	105
McCutchen	9.00	175	154	161	158	176	169
Freeman	8.80	70	91	139	148	146	149
Valbuena	8.20	84	98	113	118	122	122
Byrd	8.08	153	136	152	151	111	107
Cozart	7.72	78	90	58	61	65	67
G.Jones	7.54	119	96	104	101	105	99
AVG		91	111	123	131	120	123

The first column lists each player’s ground-ball pull ratio. The next two columns list their actual and context-adjusted ground ball “contact scores,” with 100 representing league average. The next two columns list their actual and context-adjusted (for grounders only) contact scores for all BIP. The last two columns list their actual and context-adjusted (for grounders only) production relative to the league; this runs closely in line with OPS+. Context-adjusted grounder performance is calculated by essentially placing each batted ball into a neutral environment, and crediting it with MLB average performance based on its exit speed and vertical and horizontal exit angle. The bottom line of the table compiles the average contact scores/production data for the 10 most extreme ground-ball pullers, showing how many basis points their excessive ground ball-pulling cost them, on average.

That last point is key; the point of this exercise is to attempt to isolate the true cost of their excessive pulling on the ground. For these 10 players combined, it cost them an average of 20 basis points of ground-ball contact score, 8 basis points of overall contact score, and 3 basis points of production/OPS+. That is quite a bit less than the AL Top Ten’s averages losses of 49, 11, and 13 points, respectively. Overall, however, that’s a very real cost. It varies somewhat significantly from player to player, based on variables such as their grounder rate, actual performance when hitting into shifts, etc. Seven of the NL Top 10 (and all 10 of the AL group) performed worse on grounders than they “should have,” based on comparison of their actual to context-adjusted performance on ground balls.

Let’s take a brief glimpse of each individual player on this list and assess the impact of their excessive ground ball pulling on their respective overall offensive games:

1 – Curtis Granderson – The #1 ground-ball puller in the majors in 2014, with a 15.43 pull ratio and all of seven grounders to the opposite field all season. His very low grounder rate (3rd percentile) limits the overall impact upon his performance. The extreme fly-ball tendency is nothing new; his grounder percentile ranks have been in the single digits each season since 2009. He hit his grounders over one half standard deviation harder than the NL average, but it really didn’t matter given the steady diet of overshifting he encountered.

2 – Lucas Duda – Duda had an even lower grounder rate than teammate Granderson last season, in the second percentile. Because of his extreme pull tendency, he produced only a .196 AVG and .224 SLG on the ground despite hitting the ball over one half standard deviation harder than league average. There appears to be a happy development here in 2015, however: Duda is pulling the ball much less on the ground, while posting a ridiculously high liner rate.

3 – Matt Kemp – There are quite a few extreme fly-ball hitters on this list of extreme ground-ball pullers. Kemp is not one of them, as his grounder rate was in the 41st percentile, second highest among this group. As a result, his overall production was gutted by his extreme grounder-pull tendency last season; he lost 80 basis points of production on grounders, 30 basis points of production on all BIP, and 18 basis points of overall production/OPS+. He hit his grounders over a full standard deviation harder than the NL average, but nevertheless recorded just a .186 AVG and .212 SLG on them. In 2015, he’s hitting even more grounders; along with his move to a much more unfriendly home park, this has resulted in a very poor start to his career as a Padre.

4 – Ryan Howard – Howard is the David Ortiz of the NL; the player whose production on the ground has been cut to a cartoonishly low level by the impact of infield overshifting. He batted just .134 AVG/.142 SLG on the ground in 2014; though Howard hit his grounders more softly on average than any other member of this group (over one half standard deviation lower than the NL average), that is still incredibly little production. There really is a fine line between greatness and flirtation with replacement level; Howard still maintains the low pop-up and high liner and hard fly-ball rates of his halcyon days, only to be done in by the runaway strikeout and grounder-pulling rates of his more recent campaigns.

5 – Andrew McCutchen – Bit of a surprise name here. This excessive grounder-pulling tendency, plus a low liner rate in 2014-15, represents the only blemish on McCutchen’s offensive game. He actually overperformed his projected performance on the ground last season; it did help to hit his grounders harder than any other member of this group, over a full standard deviation harder than the NL average. Thus far in 2015, McCutchen does seem to have toned down his pull tendency, while also boosting his liner rate of late after a slow start.

6 – Freddie Freeman – Another somewhat surprising name, Freeman is an otherwise superb all-around hitter. His grounder authority was in the league average range last season, combining with his pull tendency to cause him to hit just .202 AVG/.227 SLG on the ground. His popup rate has consistently been very low, and his liner rate quite high for a power hitter.

7 – Luis Valbuena – Here we have the NL batting-title qualifier with the lowest grounder rate in 2014. This minimizes the impact of his grounder pull tendency on his offensive game. In fact, once you add back the strikeouts and walks, there is zero negative impact upon his overall production. His grounder authority was in the league-average range.

8 – Marlon Byrd – Here is our second player to actually outperform his projected grounder production despite his excessive pulling tendency and the infield overshifts it engendered. Byrd’s average grounder authority was over a half standard deviation harder than the NL mean. There was obviously room for a great deal of regression with regard to performance on the ground coming into 2015, and it has been realized.

9 – Zack Cozart – Cozart is the only below-average 2014 offensive performer on this list, and is also the only player with a higher than average 2014 grounder rate (55th percentile). There are lots of bigger issues with his historical BIP profile: high pop-up rates, low liner rates, you name it. I’m not buying his relatively strong 2015 start; he’s basically a bit stronger version of Brendan Ryan, and even he had a career year once.

10 – Garrett Jones – Here’s our third player who outperformed his grounder production projection despite a significant pull tendency on the ground. Like Granderson and Duda, his 2014 fly-ball rate was so low (eighth percentile) that it limited the impact upon his overall production. He has been used sparingly by his new club, the Yankees, thus far this season, but expect regression to set in with regard to his grounder production as the sample gets larger.

By and large, these extreme ground-ball pullers are quite productive; some are hyper-focused on authority at all costs, and the excessive ground-ball pulling is a cost absorbed in the pursuit of power. There appears to be a correlation with excessive grounder-pulling and high fly-ball rates. It is very difficult, however, to remain in hyper-pull (or hyper-fly-ball) mode indefinitely without pitchers finding and exploiting the rather large holes created by such an offensive approach.

The NL ground-ball pullers were, on average, less negatively affected by this tendency than their AL counterparts, but they were affected nonetheless. Some, like McCutchen and Freeman, are so good in other areas that this amounts to little than a nuisance. Duda, for one, seems to have taken note of his weakness and made the appropriate adjustment. Players like Howard, and now apparently Kemp, have seen their production plunge, thanks in part to their near total inability to translate ground-ball contact into results.

Giancarlo Stanton didn’t miss this list by that much (he was 18th), but he missed it. The likes of Anthony Rizzo, Buster Posey, Justin Upton and Adrian Gonzalez came nowhere near qualifying for this list. Overshifting those last few players in the infield would make little sense. This is particularly notable in Rizzo’s case: he was a dead pull hitter in the upper minors, an all-or-nothing power-before-hit type. He now has improved his hit tool to the point that, just a few years later, there really is no clear way to pitch to him. Even elite power hitters hit the ball on the ground quite often, and avoidance of a Howard or Kemp-type situation can make a tangible difference in offensive production.