Giancarlo Stanton Gets Pitched Weirdly

“Once you’re pitched away, take the ball to the other discipline.” It’s a coaching mantra that seemingly exists in every single place. I heard it in Little League. I hear it on main league broadcasts to today. The information present that hitters do it, and it’s only a pure swing. I can consider few hitting sayings I imagine greater than this one.

In fact, simply since you can hit the ball the opposite approach doesn’t imply you must. Over the past two years, the checklist of righty hitters who’ve pulled the ball most after they swing at away pitches (from right-handed pitchers, simply to standardize the pattern) most likely matches your instinct:

You mainly perceive the sorts of hitters on right here. The blokes ranked sixth and seventh are comparable sorts: Salvador Perez and Mike Zunino. It’s large boppers who attempt to carry and pull the ball regardless of the place they’re pitched, in addition to guys like Marcus Semien who promote out to drag in an try and juice their energy. In the event you do probably the most harm on the pull facet and accrue most of your offensive worth by means of energy, it’s a pure method. You suppose anybody’s coming to the ballpark to see Patrick Knowledge slap a well-placed cutter the opposite approach? They need dingers!

The checklist of the hitters who pull the ball least typically when pitched away is usually who you’d anticipate, and in addition not who you’d anticipate in any respect. Feast your eyes on the highest 5:

The highest 4 are contact-oriented hitters with elevated groundball charges… and the fifth is perhaps probably the most highly effective baseball participant in historical past.

Sure, regardless of having muscle groups on his muscle groups, Giancarlo Stanton doesn’t over-commit to pulling the ball when he’s pitched away. It’s greater than that: when he does pull the ball on an away pitch, he’s been ineffective, to the tune of a .293 wOBA for the reason that begin of 2021. That’s meaningfully worse than common contact high quality, and once more, we’re speaking about Giancarlo Stanton, the king of exhausting contact.

In reality, for the reason that creation of Statcast in 2015, Stanton’s energy numbers when he pulls away pitches are fairly poor. He’s hit for a .275 wOBA and a .322 xwOBA. That’s a .280 batting common and .360 slugging share; not a very excessive BABIP (these are all balls in play), and a minuscule energy output. That’s mishits and grounders, principally, with the occasional laser-beam line drive blended in. When he takes those self same away pitches the opposite approach or again up the center, he does so with authority: a .450 wOBA (.453 xwOBA), .378 batting common, and .689 slugging share.

Because it seems, this has been a protracted evolution in his sport. Listed below are his pull charges on away pitches from righties over time:

Early in his profession, Stanton pulled a roughly common variety of away pitches. However over time, he’s taking what the pitcher offers him extra typically, and he’s been at roughly the identical low pull price on these pitches since becoming a member of the Yankees in 2018.

Does this strike you as unusual? It struck me as unusual. I do know that Stanton isn’t a stereotypical energy hitter – he’s far stronger than even that archetypical bopper, and thus doesn’t have an influence hitter’s swing as a result of he doesn’t want one to go away the park – however being one of many least probably hitters in baseball to drag an away pitch simply appears surprising to me. Even stranger is that when he does activate an away pitch, he has below-average energy. Under. Common. Energy. Giancarlo. Stanton. I’m simply repeating the phrases again and again in my head making an attempt to make sense of it.

Right here’s one other mind-set about it. On pitches on the interior third of the plate, Stanton is the fearsome energy hitter you’d anticipate, with the eighth-highest wOBA and sixth-highest slugging share in baseball since 2015. On pitches away, his success is muted; even with all that opposite-field energy, his full lack of pull-side harm relegates him to Nineteenth-best in wOBA and Twenty third-best in slugging share. That’s nonetheless good, however come on: he’s Giancarlo Stanton, god of energy! Pitch him away, and also you may survive.

Right here’s a listing of the right-handed hitters with the bottom price of away pitches seen (a minimum of six inches away from the useless center of the plate) to this point this yr:

Wait… what?

This isn’t some new approach of attacking Stanton. Since 2015, he’s within the eighth percentile of away pitches seen from righty pitchers. The e-book on him is to return inside early and sometimes; he has the fifth-highest price of inside pitches over the identical time horizon.

Need to know the actually bizarre half? We’ve been taking a look at manufacturing on contact, however even his swing-level numbers make it appear to be pitching inside so typically is a mistake. Because the begin of 2015, Stanton has swung at 1,002 pitches that have been six inches or extra in direction of the right-handed batter’s field from the center of the plate (thrown by righties — sorry for the pile of qualifiers). These are, in different phrases, inside pitches thrown by righties to a righty. He’s come up empty on 25.9% of them.

When he swings at away pitches – six inches in direction of the left-handed batter’s field from the center of the plate, the identical definition in reverse – he does far worse. He’s swung at 1,028 of them and are available up empty 51.8% of the time.

That sounds worse than it’s, as a result of all batters swing and miss extra often at away pitches. It’s a sampling factor; breaking balls disproportionately find yourself away, whereas fastballs disproportionately tail in. In righty-righty matchups as a complete, batters whiff on 19% of their inside swings and 39% of their exterior swings.

However general, I don’t fairly get pitchers’ method to Stanton. All issues thought-about, he’s wonderful at dealing with these inside pitches they love a lot. He hits pretty properly in opposition to pitches away – he’s an excellent hitter, in spite of everything – however he provides thrice as a lot worth per pitch seen when dealing with inside pitches relative to away pitches.

If I needed to guess at one wrongdoer, it’s everybody’s favourite wrongdoer: the shift. I don’t fairly perceive righty shifts, however groups have shifted in opposition to Stanton – both a strategic shift the place the infielders are shaded however stay in a 2-2 configuration or a full overshift – on a 3rd of the pitches he’s seen from right-handers as a Yankee. Righty-righty matchups as a complete have solely been shifted 22% of the time.

Righty shifts don’t really work. They particularly don’t work in opposition to hitters who’re more likely to hit the ball the opposite approach. And Stanton is most positively that man – if you happen to pitch him away, he nearly by no means pulls the ball, whether or not within the air or on the bottom. In the event you’re going to shift in opposition to Stanton – and groups are, oh boy, they’re – you’ll be able to’t afford to pitch him away. It’s simply asking for a shift-enabled single.

Despite the fact that groups are clearly conscious of the problem in shifting in opposition to Stanton – they pitch him inside extraordinarily often, and I don’t suppose that’s on accident – he’s been a greater hitter in opposition to the shift than in opposition to a typical protection. He’s batting .279 on grounders in opposition to an unshifted infield since 2018, versus .337 in opposition to strategic shifts and overshifts. Groups need to shift Stanton, so that they throw him the ball the place he can pull it within the air – and people shifts don’t even take away groundball singles successfully.

So what’s up with Giancarlo Stanton’s full lack of pull energy on away pitches? I don’t know. Perhaps, most likely even, I’m lacking one thing right here, as a result of the numbers simply don’t add up. But it surely appears to be doing him an enormous service – by making groups pitch him inside, although he’s an amazing hitter there, in an try and shift in opposition to him. The shifts don’t even work! It’s an amazing state of affairs for Stanton, and a puzzling one for the groups that face him.