Does an Organization’s Approach at the Plate Matter?

The sabermetric community within baseball has widely accepted the theory that a team that is more selective at the plate will, over the aggregate, score more runs. It is a very simple idea in which teams that see more pitches get walked more often, get in better hitting counts, have more base-runners, and chase opponents starting pitchers out of the game sooner. Most recently, articles by Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan at FanGraphs attributed the Twins surprising offensive surge in April and the  Royals disappointing offensive start on the organization’s respective philosophies on hitting. To summarize their work in one sentence, the Twins were taking pitches at a rate they had never previously done before and were reaping the benefits, while the Royals were swinging haplessly at any pitch and continuing to struggle in the batter’s box.

I wanted to test whether the examples set by the Royals and Twins this season represented the entire league, or were just convenient examples to back up a popular theory on hitting. To do this, I went back to the past 5 seasons and tried to find a correlation between runs scored and pitches per plate appearance. At first, I looked at pitches per plate appearance versus runs scored on a league wide scale. As you may already know, scoring in Major League Baseball is on a downward trend, so I assumed that pitches per plate appearance would be down as well. As shown from the graphics below, this thought process essentially provided no information on organizational plate approaches.

This should not come as a shock because patience at the plate is one of several factors that contribute to the overall offensive production  levels of the league each year. As a result, I started to look at plate appearance philosophies on a more micro level. I decided to find the standard deviations and Z scores for each MLB team per season in the categories of pitches per plate appearance and runs scored. I added up the Z scores from each of the past 5 seasons for each team and plotted them below.

While there does seem to be some truth in the idea that a more patient approach will net an MLB team more runs, the positive trend between runs scored and pitches per plate appearance does not seem to be as strong as one might assume. Out of the 16 teams that had a positive Z score in runs scored over the past 5 years, 10 of them had negative Z scores in terms of pitches per plate appearance.

Interestingly enough though, out of the top 6 most patient teams over the past 5 years, the Red Sox, Indians, Twins, Athletics, Rays, and Yankees, only the Indians have been below average in runs scored relative to their competitors. While patience at the plate does not always lead to success, this graph does indicate that extreme patience as an organization does pay off and it is no surprise to see many metric-based organizations lead the league in pitches per plate appearance.

In terms of looking at one individual season for a given team in the past 5 years, the same conclusions hold true. Featured below are the top 5 seasons in pitches seen per plate appearance per organization versus their seasonal runs scored output.

To most people’s surprise, the Twins are actually seeing less pitches this year relative to their competition than the year prior, however, the Twins are finally starting to translate that into runs and people are taking notice. It should come as no shock to see the Red Sox and A’s on this list and their offensive success that has ensued. On the flip side, teams that were ultra-aggressive these past 5 years have paid the price in runs scored over the course of their respective season.

As you can see, an organization’s approach at the plate only seems to matter when it is absolutely committed to either a free swinging aggressive approach or a conservative approach. Metric teams such as the A’s, Red Sox, and Rays who have acquired patient hitters do have an advantage over aggressive teams such as the Mariners, Royals, and Padres who are seemingly to aggressive. As for the majority of the league, several factors go into offensive production that cannot be predicted by just taking pitches and philosophical approaches. Ultimately, it is easy to see that patience at the plate should be encouraged however, it is not the end of the world if the team you root for is aggressive in moderation.

All Stats Courtesy of Fangraphs

All Images Courtesy of the New York Times

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