Jered Weaver’s Favorite Rockpile

by
March 21, 2012

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We’ve long known that Jered Weaver got a significant boost from pitching in Anaheim. It’s a park that significantly deflates home runs to right field, and Weaver gives up a ton of fly balls while facing a lot of left-handed hitters. The synergy between his skillset and his home park is one of the best in baseball.

Well, Jeff Sullivan pointed out this morning that there might be more to what’s going on than just a nice alignment of skills and outfield space.

I went through Weaver’s career game logs and identified 16 home starts made in the day time. One was at 3:30pm, and all the others were at or around 1:00pm. I assumed that the weather was always nice, the sun always bright.

That left 68 other home starts, almost all of which started around 7:00pm. The sample sizes here are different, but I think we have enough to make a comparison. When I put the numbers next to each other, my eyes opened wide. The numbers back up the anonymous Mariners player, and then some.

Time	Innings	Batters	ERA	BB%	K%	HR%	Contact%
Day	113	444	1.51	6.5%	28%	1.1%	71%
Night	444	1807	3.00	5.9%	21%	2.4%	79%

The fact that the data lines up with what an opposing hitter noticed instinctively by facing him in a certain situation lends some credence to the belief that this isn’t just small sample noise. It could be, of course, but it could also be that Weaver’s specific arm angle and the position of the rock pile in Anaheim combine to make it very, very hard to see the ball coming out of his hand.

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It’s something to keep an eye on going forward, especially if we notice that the Angels suddenly begin to lead the league in afternoon home games.





 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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Bryz
13 years ago

I said this same thing on Sullivan’s post, but I’ll add it here as well. Weaver throws across his body more than any other pitcher I know. http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=19384151&c_id=mlb

This would align his throwing hand with the rock pile and home plate. Sullivan pointed out that Ervin Santana doesn’t have the same splits, but Santana steps directly to the plate instead of diagonally like Weaver, so perhaps his hand doesn’t release the ball with a rock pile background like Weaver’s.

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