By Jonathan HaleLast week, I used pitch f/x to look at what the height of a pitch has to do with how well a ball is hit and whether it is hit on the ground or in the air. Now let’s look at how the distance across the plate affects what happens in the same way. We can probably expect to see more power on the inner half of the plate, but are there more groundballs/hits on pitches in on the hands or reaching away?
First, here’s the percentage of fly balls as we move across the plate. The scale is in feet, from the catchers perspective. So in the following graph:
Fly Ball Percentage Across the Plate
We can see that the number of ground balls induced steadily rises as the pitch moves across the outer half of the plate away from the hitter (all pitches have been remapped as if the hitter was always right-handed) and continues to do so further and further away out of the strike zone.
So, while a pitcher (especially with movement) maybe be able to get groundballs with pitches in on the hands, in general the further away from a batter the pitch is the more likely it is to be slapped on the ground- and even a very little bit outside starts to have an effect (although some of this is probably due to more sinking pitches tailing out and away to that location in the first place).
Batting Average Across the Plate
Now for a look at the batting average on balls in play (BABIP) in the same way:
A slight downward trend away from the hitter, but nothing significant. As with my look at results by quadrant for each pitch, the inside pitch induces a lot of pop-outs, which are almost as guaranteed an out as K’s and can lead to a much lower BABIP. So why not come in side more often? Because that’s where most hitters have more power:
Home Run Percentage Across the Plate
 The results are much the same as they were for keeping the ball down. Locating the ball on the outer half has some effect on inducing ground balls, but doesn’t really make it that much harder for the batter to get a hit. In fact, throwing inside might be a better way to stop a batter from reaching base. But when it comes to power, there is a much more noticeable effect, even within the strike zone, that starts as soon as the ball gets to the other side of the middle of the plate.
In general, I think this shows it is just as important to keep the ball outside as it is to keep it down, and what pitchers are really (rightly) trying to accomplish by keeping the ball down (and away)- sapping the power of their opponents because they can have much more of an effect on that than the batting average of hitters facing them.
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