Russ Martin’s Selectivity
Most teams have played eight or nine games at this point, so the numbers are still essentially meaningless. However, there are still interesting statistical curiosities we can look at. Russell Martin’s ridiculous bat control this season, for instance.
Martin has seen 117 pitches in 2010. He has swung and missed just twice, for a swinging strike rate of just 1.7 percent, compared with a league average 8.2 percent. The main reason he’s not missing pitches? He’s not swinging at anything outside the strike zone.
His O-Swing percentage is a ridiculous 4.4 percent. The league average is 25.6 percent, and the next lowest O-Swing percentage is Colby Rasmus at 9.4 percent. Put simply, if you’re not pounding the zone, Martin is keeping the bat on his shoulder. Because of his early season discipline, he’s only swung the bat in a quarter of the pitches he’s been thrown, which has led to eight walks in 29 trips to the plate.
Martin’s always been a pretty patient hitter, but never to this extreme. In the first week of the season, he’s essentially been the catching version of Tony Gwynn. His eye for the zone has been off the charts good, and it’s the main reason he’s off to such a good start in 2010.
Don’t bet on it continuing, of course. Martin had over 2,300 plate appearances coming into the season, and those are a much better indicator of his abilities than the 30 he’s had so far this year. But, for at least a week, he’s shown how a patient approach at the plate can pay off in a big way. The only-swing-at-strikes philosophy can work for anyone, not just big lumbering power hitters.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
He’ll come back down to Earth facing Lincecum this weekend..
Sort of tangentially related, but all the young Dodger batters have increased their IsoD over the past three years by significant margins. Ethier’s jumped from ~.70 to .90 from ’08 to ’09.
Seems to me that a player has a lot more control over his O-Swing% than (say) his BABIP. If a player decides that he’s not gonna swing at pitches outside the zone and he has a good eye, what’s to keep him from maintaining a low O-Swing%…?
(Granted, 4.4% IS ridiculously low, but why is it necessarily the case that Martin will inevitably change his approach at the plate in such a way that he’ll start swinging at pitches outside the zone twice as often as he has thus far…?)
I think you’re making an assumption that he has made a change in his approach this year that has resulted in a lower O-Swing%. I think what Dave is saying, especially in the last paragraph first sentence, is more likely this is a small sample size issue and by chance so far his O-Swing% is lower by chance. We expect his O-Swing% to go up just because he will regress to his own mean; if the O-Swing% stays low for a longer period of time then that would indicate a change in approach.
It’s always good to have a little redundancy built in. Oops.
I need to learn to type faster.
Because he has a long track record of not doing it? EVERYTHING is subject to random variance, even the more stable things. O-Swing% might mean more than BABIP at this point in the season, but it still means very little.
And I guess to answer the question you asked, nothing would keep a player like that from maintaining a low O-Swing% and hitters like that do have a low O-Swing%, there just isn’t that convincing of an argument that Martin suddenly turned into that kind of player.
good article. on another note Colby Rasmus also has more walks than the entire Astros Team but thats more than just him. i hope both MArtin and Rasmus and keep up the Patience. Patience helps almost every hitter.
But you can’t hit homeruns if you don’t swing.
Would that really kill the rally, though?
Yep but if its not in the zone its pretty hard to hit homeruns anyway. But LOL thats a good one. Preventing an out and getting guys on base helps produce offense and tends to happen a lot more often than homers.
But if you mixed in 50 – 60 walks, you could be a different player.
Dave-
I was wondering is there any way to measure the O Swing % on counts with two strikes? As a player and coach I know that kids are taught to swing at anything that is close to “protect” with two strikes, but I see this as a skill and tendency that goes beyond just regular O Swing %. It is difficult to lay off of close pitches with two strikes.
Oh man that’s a great idea I would love to see this if somehow possible. I would guess that O-Swing% would go up with 2 strikes because any coach I’ve ever had or my brothers have had or anyone I know really has had has said 2 strikes you want to swing at anything close and maybe even choke up a little. Makes Bret Boones 2 strike stance come to mind.
I just happened to be reading this as Martin came to the plate tonight and sure enough…..he went down hacking. Thanks for jinxing him.
Martin, during this AB in the 2nd inning with 2nd and 3rd and 1 out, swung at 2 breaking balls down almost in the dirt to strike himself out against Dan Haren.
Martin has always been a selective hitter. It’s really his best offensive quality with his relative lack of power and penchant for grounding into double plays. But nobody, not even Bonds or Williams, can maintain an O-swing% that low. Bonds appeared to range between 8% and 11% from ’02 to ’04. The lowest number for a full season (500 PA) was 7.3% by DeAngelo Jimenez in ’04.
So going back to ’02, Martin would have to almost cut in half the lowest rate posted by any player in that span to maintain these levels. I could see him settling in around 10%, but 4% is unsustainable.
Martin’s GIDP’s generally result from hitting balls hard to the shortstop.
As for last night against Haren, Haren has historically owned Martin (unlike Kemp and Ethier, who have historically hit Haren well). Martin was also robbed by Reynolds on at least one shot.
Yeah, at the time of my post I didn’t realize how awful Martin had been against Haren. I believe with another 0 for 3 against Haren he is now 3 for 26 career against him. But it’s still kinda interesting that he would get himself out like that right after an article (rightly) praising his selectivity.
IIRC both pitches he fished for in the dirt were splitters. It’s a nasty pitch in general and Haren’s is one of the best, so I wonder if Martin tends to struggle with most pitchers that feature splitters.
Any chance on seeing that AGon value post?
I think Mattingly might have something to do with Martins success.