Of Pedroia and First Pitches

Last night, we looked at Franklin Gutierrez and his metamorphosis at the plate. Dustin Pedroia was mentioned on the chart of first pitch takers and it made me wonder aloud: is Pedroia simply selective or passive? Now that question could be phrased about just about anyone – well, okay, not Vladimir Guerrero or Delmon Young – but Pedroia is interesting. He makes contact more than 90% of the time he swings, yet he actually has the ability to drive the ball, unlike the aforementioned slap-hitting mafia.

Pedroia is taking about 90% of the first pitches he sees this year, which is less than last year (93%) but more than 2008 (85%). He’s swinging 9% of the time, as opposed to 7% and 15%, but he’s making contact more than in those seasons. In fact, in 18 swings this season, he only has one whiff. That’s a 94% rate, higher than the 87% and 94% from the previous two years. What’s interesting, though, is that Pedroia has only seen 39% 1-0 counts this year, significantly lower than the 47% of last year and a touch below 42% of 2008.

That is to say, pitchers seem to be throwing him strikes more often this season than in the past. They’re also throwing more fastballs than usual, albeit barely (74% compared to 72% and 70%) and a quick glance at the called strike location for all pitches shows that the most common placement is down and away. Not a surprise, given that’s where conventional wisdom seems to suggest is the ideal location for pitchers to attack.

The most interesting thought to come from those numbers is guessing when Pedroia will begin to swing more often since he’s (probably) noticing that pitchers are attacking the zone more often than before. Nobody knows the exact percentage of the time that a hitter will watch a strike on the first pitch before becoming aggressive — to claim otherwise is to be that batter himself — so all we can do is assume at some point the coaching staff will notify Pedroia that he should probably start being more aggressive early on. At the same time, teams can’t just sit outside of the zone; otherwise he’ll swing even less often.

Given a career-low BABIP and a wOBA in line with what we’d expect, it might not matter too much either way.