Major League Baseball released their Statcast bat tracking data this month, providing a deeper dive into the swing of each hitter. I took my first look at this data last week in Statcast Heroes.
This week, I wanted to look at how each hitter on the Pittsburgh Pirates have changed since the data became publicly available.
I’ll also dive into the differences in hitter’s counts versus pitcher’s counts, and take an early look at Nick Gonzales.
SWING CHANGES SINCE STATCAST EXPANSION
It’s been over a week since the first public Statcast bat data has been released. Here are the Pirates hitters prior to the release of the data:
What I wanted to track this week is whether there have been any changes since the start of the public tracking. The chart below shows the results since the Statcast data went live.
With the exception of Bryan Reynolds, every Pirates hitter has seen an increase in their average bat speed during this time. Rowdy Tellez leads the team with an 0.9 MPH increase, while Oneil Cruz, Jack Suwinski, and Jared Triolo are all at 0.8 MPH.
There are three standouts for the frequency of fast swings. Tellez (12.7%), Cruz (12.4%), and Andrew McCutchen (10.3%) have all seen double-digit percentage point increases with their fast swing rates. This puts Cruz swinging 75 MPH or harder on nearly 85% of his swings. Michael A. Taylor and Jared Triolo are the only Pirates hitters who have seen a decline in their rate of fast swings.
Looking at the Squared Up per Swing numbers, which identifies how often a hitter squares up on a pitch by how many swings they take, there are mixed results. Cruz (7.7%), Connor Joe (7.2%), and Reynolds (6.5%) are all making better contact on a more frequent basis. On the opposite extreme, Tellez (-9.9%) and Suwinski (-9.3%) have both seen a decline in their ability to square up pitches.
I’m also focusing on how many blasts a hitter receives, based on how much contact they make. The biggest jump was Cruz, who increased 22.1 percentage points. Triolo (9.5%), McCutchen (8.6%), and Joe (7.7%) also saw increases. On the opposite end, Tellez dropped 13.5 percentage points, Taylor dropped 6.6, and Suwinski dropped 3.1 percentage points.
Cruz increased his swing length by four inches. McCutchen increased two inches and Tellez increased one. Reynolds and Triolo both lost an inch on their swings.
Cruz has seen a 35.5% strikeout rate and a .167/.194/.367 line during this stretch. He’s swinging faster, more frequently, and has more blasts when he makes contact. He’s also squaring up on swings. His competitive swing rate has dropped, and the lengthened swing may be leading to the swing and miss increase.
HITTER COUNTS VS PITCHER COUNTS
One thing I wanted to dive into this week was the difference between hitter’s counts and pitcher’s counts. I defined a hitter’s count as any count that was 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-0, or 3-1. Below are the results during hitter’s counts.
