Study on how the strike zone changes with the count

Here's an interesting article I saw on how the strike zone becomes smaller when the pitcher is ahead in the count and becomes larger when the pitcher is behind in the count. The study is based on data from about 200,000 pitches at various counts, and whether they're being called strikes or balls. Click here for the story.

It's interesting to me that even smack dab in the middle of the strike zone is not 100% strike. I don't watch much baseball anymore, but when I was younger I remember being amazed that some pitches seemingly right down the middle of the plate would be called balls. (The strike zone grids shown don't have probabilities shown, but note that the middle of the plate both vertically and horizontally is not uniformly red - some get called balls.)

Tip to the Marginal Revolution for putting me onto the link.

Baseball and number crunching

I kindof have a thing for numbers and simulations. I enjoyed the Moneyball book about stats Billy Beane looks at when trying to get the most bang-for-buck out of the Oakland A's low budget - doing so by identifying overlooked characteristics of players games that contribute to wins (a picky batter who walks alot), and by also identifying characteristics that other teams overpay for (hot relief pitchers - it's often just a statistical run of good luck).

Here's a story about a computer simulation that helps investigate questions such as:
- does a sacrifice bunt make sense?
- should your best slugger always hit 4th?
- should a team attempt to steal bases more or less?
- Does the intentional walk help or hurt your chance of winning?

(you can find the answers in the story)

I haven't watched a baseball game in years, but it's interesting that the statistical questions about the game are still engaging.

Here's the one I want to know.
Does it make sense to change pitchers to bring in a lefty pitcher to face a single lefty batter?

When I was younger it seemed kindof strange to me to use up your bullpen warming up and bringing in a pitcher to face a single batter. Or over the long haul does alot of bullpen activity just wear out the staff?

Home Runs

I'm pretty bored with the entire steriods and sports discussion and all the apologists, but here's an interesting study on what a 5% increase in bat speed can do for home run production in baseball.

The study estimates a 5% increase in bat speed (estimated bat speed generated from additional muscle mass of steroid use) can increase the speed of the ball off the bat by about 4mph, and is projected to result in 50% or more increase in home run production. Here's the story.

I got curious to see how far from historical norms we are now, and while there was a clear surge in the 1990s, we're actually seeing home run leader totals moving back to more historical norms in recent years. Probably a better measure is the average or median level of home run total in the league, but I don't have the data to get there, but this gives an idea. Thanks to infoplease as the data source.