Hitting has changed dramatically since teams have been able to use TrackMan to see how the baseball travels, this has led to the new thinking of hitting, which is to pull the ball and hit it in the air. Players have had breakout seasons due to this thinking, with more and more players joining the flyball revolution. Conventional thinking about where to hit the ball is to pull if it’s an inside pitch, to center if it’s over the middle, and to the opposite field on the outside. But now with this revolution, most hitters prefer to pull the ball on the majority of their swings. However, are there pitch locations where it’s beneficial to hit the baseball to the opposite field or to straightaway center? Today, I will be figuring this out.
Before I do that though, I want to show how much pulling the ball affects the performance of hitters. This can be shown on these charts below (Baseball Savant):
In the first chart (exit velocity), the ball is hit hard pretty much everywhere in the strike zone besides low and away and up and in. The low and away pitch is probably not hit as hard because it is topped a lot of the time. The up and in pitch is tough to hit for most hitters as they need to react quicker to hit it. That concept is explained with Expected Velocity. The total average exit velocity of pulled balls in play is 89.3 mph, while the average EV of balls hit to center is 88.6 mph, and balls hit oppo is 85 mph. The second chart (batting average) shows that if a righty pulls the ball anywhere, they have a very high batting average. When you look at the lefty chart though, the batting averages in every single zone, besides low and inside which is tied, are lower than the righty. I believe that this is because teams can shift to the lefty's pull side easier than a righty’s since they have to keep the first baseman at his position. Lefties still hit well when pulling it though, so overall, pulling the ball is beneficial to all players due to the reasons shown. An example of a player having success by pulling the ball more is Max Kepler, as he increased his pull% by ~10%, which led to a 23 point gain in wRC+ and a .039 gain in wOBA (FanGraphs). But now, let’s get to what we are actually trying to solve: what direction produces the best results for a player in different pitch locations?
To figure this out, I had to separate batters by handedness again and through Baseball Savant, I separated batted balls by pull, straightaway, and opposite and then looked at the zone profiles of each to compare the exit velocities and batting average on contact. After comparing, I took the highest number of those two stats out of the pull, center, and opposite and made it into one whole pitch zone chart. The exit velocity chart is shown here:
In both zones, the player will hit balls hardest on the inside, middle-up, and low and outside of the zone when they pull the ball, and when the pitch is anywhere else, they will hit it hardest by going to center field. Not surprisingly, the pitch that is hit the slowest is up and in, and really, it’s very hard to hit that ball anywhere else but the pull side. A very odd thing on this chart to me is that the best place to hit the ball hard low and out of the zone is the pull side. Granted, it’s still not hit very hard for either side at 82.4 mph and 82.5 mph for each, but with low and away in the strike zone being hit hardest low and away to center, I figured that a pitch just inches away from it would be hit hard in the same place. No opposite field hits are found on this chart. This is due to that if a player is going to go oppo, the ball will typically travel deeper into the zone, giving the swing less time to generate speed than it would if a player were to hit a ball to the pull side or center.
Let’s see what happens when we change the chart to batting average on contact:
That's a lot different than the other chart. The pull balls in play take over all of the pitches down the middle and inside, while mostly balls to the outside are better to hit to the opposite field. In the chart at the beginning using all batted ball locations, all of the pulled pitches to the outside for lefties had lower batting averages than the ones for righties. Now though, if the lefty hits the outside pitch to the opposite field, he will have a higher batting average on those than a righty who hits the ball oppo. The reason for this ties back to the same reasoning with shifting, but has the opposite effect. Since lefties can be pulled against easier, there can be times where most of left side of the field can be open, so if the lefty does hit the ball to the opposite field, he has more room in the infield to get a hit. For righties, teams can’t move the first baseman away from his position, as stated earlier, so he will have to remain to cover at least half of the right side. That’s also the same reason why righties should pull the ball up and away. The rest of the zones are pretty self-explanatory, as players typically hit the ball hardest in those areas, so they will be more likely to drop for a hit.
So to recap, players hit the ball hardest inside and middle up when it is pulled, and everywhere else to center. More hits are generated when a player hits inside and middle pitches to the pull side and away pitches to the opposite field. Batted ball tendencies play into this as well, if a player sprays the ball around the field and a team doesn’t really shift against him, then his best bet could be to follow the exit velocity chart because that’s where he hits the ball hardest. However, in a day and age where velocity is higher than ever, you can't tell a player to try to "aim" where to hit the ball. That will not be successful at all, as players should just react naturally to the pitch that they're seeing. These charts really are just showing that if a player hits a ball a certain direction in this part of the zone, what is the chance that they will have success.
Charts and stats are from Baseball Savant
Kepler stats are from FanGraphs
Cover Picture from TwinCities.com
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