Lay off AJ, he’s just been SO excited to be an Oriole that it’s worn the poor guy out.

All pitchers enjoy tremendous leverage on two strike counts excluding the only truly “even” count(full count) and this is true even for guys like Rick White and HoRam.

Really? Rick White managed to get an 0-2 count?

And with Biggio, of course, weren’t not talking about a guy with small sample sizes.

It’s an interesting and fresh way of looking at career stats.

However, I’ve now spent a little time checking on my numbers, although I haven’t the time to do the more important part of it (checking out individual game performances…and I’m not sure how to do that either).

Anyway, consider the following:
PAA = Plate Appearances Against
PC = 0-2 counts
OPSA = OPS Against
PC% = Percent of PAA that are PC at some point

Santana: 892 PAA, 109 PC’s, .356 OPSA, 12.2% PC%
Peavy: 907 PAA, 83 PC’s, .410 OPSA, 9.2% PC%
Moyer: 886 PAA, 35 PC’s, .514 OPSA, 4.0% PC%
L. Hernandez: 939 PAA, 40 PC’s, .561 OPSA, 4.3% PC%
Contreras: 861 PAA, 72 PC’s, .607 OPSA, 8.4% PC%

I’m worried that five guys might not be a good sample, but that’s what 30 minutes of research will get you on a slow connection.

In favor of my thesis: Guys like Santana and Peavy produce a good majority of the 0-2 counts in the league. Hence, most hitters 0-2 counts are coming against pitchers who are tough. Contreras seems a bit of an outlier here; not knowing him well I would guess that he throws a lot of strikes, but apparently he doesn’t have much else.

Against my thesis: Even the mediocre pitchers see their OPSA against drop substantially when the count is 0-2 (Contreras drops from .811 to .607). The OPSA still varies wildly with the counts for the pitchers. Santana for example has an OPSA above 1.000 when he falls into 2-0 counts. Still, this might be because he only hits 2-0 counts during rare moments of suckiness.

This suggests that my theory that the trend is more due to pitchers than hitters is true ONLY IF there is some kind of correlation between the quality of the last two pitches and the next pitch. Otherwise…probably some kind of combination, just like everything else.

Near as I can tell, Polanco hits .233/.251/.319 with an 0-2 count. Last year he happened to stumble upon a .366/.409/.415 line with an 0-2 count, but that was over a measly 44 plate appearances.

The lesson Yuni should be taking from those numbers is not “don’t swing on a 2-0″, that is a hitters count, and Yuni will always be hitter first and seldom a walker. What does stand out on those numbers is that Yuni only gets to a 2-0 count in about 10% of his AB’s, more typical numbers would be about 15% of AB’s. That is significant, the average hitter will see 33% more 2-0 counts than Yuni will.

I know that we often speak as if it was something going on with the hitters that explains why they hit poorly in 0-2 counts. But if a pitcher gets a hitter to 0-2, doesn’t this usually indicate that he is pitching well?

Well, but the hitters have to be a big factor, otherwise how do you explain a guy like Placido Polanco, who hits .366 (.409 OBP) with an 0-2 count?