(Man, that’s embarrassing to come back after the weekend and see I hit “submit” too soon).

Whilst the point is not unreasonable, it doesn’t reflect Derek’s question.
All the players range from 55% to 75% fastballs seen, but unless I’m misundertanding, Derek’s asking why would you see players being pitched more carefully (less fastballs) than Ichiro/Branyan within that range
i.e. Guys who can’t hit should just be seeing a steady stream of fastballs (say, up to that 75% mark) since that will tend to give the opposing pitcher the best chance.

In this case I would argue that it has less to do with a player’s ability to hit a fastball, and more to do with his ability to hit a fastball mixed in with other pitches.

Griffey, for example, has slowed down, so if you keep pumping him fastballs he’s going to have a harder time catching up to it than, say, Betancourt. Similarly, I have no doubt that Wlad can hit a fastball, but his poorness with them might not manifest unless he’s seeing off-speed stuff. That was my original point.

.e. Guys who can’t hit should just be seeing a steady stream of fastballs…

But isn’t the conventional wisdom that everybody can hit fastballs? In that case, people might think a FB is the only thing Betancourt could hit, so dont’ throw him one.

Of course the stats say otherwise, but it wouldn’t be the first time conventioal wisdom did not square with measured results.

I haven’t looked at the math here, but I have to imagine there’s a threshold at which frequency of fastballs becomes time-able to the point that there’s no benefit continuing to throw it as even guys who do poorly with the fastballs they receive are able to sit dead red.

Whilst the point is not unreasonable, it doesn’t reflect Derek’s question.

All the players range from 55% to 75% fastballs seen, but unless I’m misundertanding, Derek’s asking why would you see players being pitched more carefully (less fastballs) than Ichiro/Branyan within that range

i.e. Guys who can’t hit should just be seeing a steady stream of fastballs (say, up to that 75% mark) since that will tend to give the opposing pitcher the best chance.

If you’re facing a Mariner hitter who can’t do anything with them, why wouldn’t you throw a way higher proportion to those guys?

I haven’t looked at the math here, but I have to imagine there’s a threshold at which frequency of fastballs becomes time-able to the point that there’s no benefit continuing to throw it as even guys who do poorly with the fastballs they receive are able to sit dead red. These are major league players, their whole lives they’ve faced fastball pitchers, the quality and variety of offspeed stuff they see in the bigs is orders of magnitude better than what they faced coming up through high school, college, the minors, etc.

In short, a fastball doesn’t really become a fastball unless it’s contrasted by another pitch, and in, say, a six pitch at bat, even throwing one off-speed pitch would still account for 17% of pitches thrown. Make it two and you’re at 33% off-speed, 66% fastballs, which.

If you look at just simply BA, everyone from Beltre on down (I use this as the benchmark for extremely unacceptable ‘09 BA), I’d say the way those guys are hitting indicates they way they’ve been pitched is working. WIth the exception of Wlad and Rob Johnson (pathetic considering his career avg. is .198) they’re all hitting below their career averages.

Yeah, that does make sense. One thing that the raw pitch % don’t tell us is how many of those FBs are in the zone vs O-Zone. Maybe Lopez has such a lousy wFB/C because the first couple of pitches are curbeballs for strikes followed by O-Zone FBs for him to chase until he strikes out, pops up, or rolls over to the SS.

On the other hand, look at Beltre. He’s never gotten very many FBs. He’s averaged 58.2% FBs for his career (this year he’s at 59.0%). He probably has a rep as a fastball hitter (in his monster 04 season he had a +2.89 wFB/C*). And prior to this year (-0.68 wFB/C) he’s generally deserved it.

Or Betancourt. Last year he was -5.63 wCB/C, and surpirse, this year he’s seeing more curveballs.

One final thought – fastballs are the pitch a pitcher is least likely to make a mistake with. Opposing pitchers might look at Branyan standing up there and think “a mistake will go 480 feet, better try to paint with a fastball”. Same guy looks at Rob Johnson thinking “mistake scmistake, hang a curveball and he’ll pop it up”.

* for those who haven’t gone an looked at the fangraphs data, wFB/C is runs above average per 100 FBs.

If you’re facing a Mariner hitter who can’t do anything with them, why wouldn’t you throw a way higher proportion to those guys?

If you look at just simply BA, everyone from Beltre on down (I use this as the benchmark for extremely unacceptable ‘09 BA), I’d say the way those guys are hitting indicates they way they’ve been pitched is working. WIth the exception of Wlad and Rob Johnson (pathetic considering his career avg. is .198) they’re all hitting below their career averages.

Thanks.