ST: Jays vs Orioles April 10-12

[Skin Blues]

Don't get me wrong, I put zero weight on his BABIP on 11 balls in play, or his K% in 20 plate appearances. Just as I put no weight on his HR/FB% on eight fly balls. None has any significance. All of the scouting statements about how he's suited to hit off of him only show up after the pretty numbers, never before. That's how narratives are built. It's really exciting for fans, I don't doubt that. You get fun GIFs and can rub it in the other team's face.

[SharoneWright]

The narrative is real?

[HangTime]

Any chance they change the Devon Travis "reach on error" to a 3 -Run double?

It didn't look like an error by Snider. It wasn't a routine fly ball.

[Schad]

Don't get me wrong, I put zero weight on his BABIP on 11 balls in play, or his K% in 20 plate appearances. Just as I put no weight on his HR/FB% on eight fly balls. None has any significance. All of the scouting statements about how he's suited to hit off of him only show up after the pretty numbers, never before. That's how narratives are built. It's really exciting for fans, I don't doubt that. You get fun GIFs and can rub it in the other team's face.

But the two aspects do often coexist. Some of the best works of analysis on the many stats-heavy sites that now proliferate -- Fangraphs, BP, THT and the rest -- intermingle raw numbers with pitch data with video, because it's the combination of all three that details why and how and whether it's likely to continue. I'm a random on the internet and by no means the equal of those voices, but I've spend enough time cheering against the Orioles over the past few years to get annoyed by how frequently right-handed hitters start their strides and swings early against O'Day and end up completely unable to drive the resultant 75 mph frisbee. Bautista doesn't; he stands placidly as the pitch comes in, and then whips through the zone as is his established custom.

That said: overall, the 'scouting statements' are nothing new. Bautista's proclivities for mashing off-speed stuff can be seen in many .gifs, sure, but also in reams of pitch data; if anything, it's been under-reported save for the fact some some broadcasters have picked up on the fact that he doesn't deal terribly well with fastballs up and on the inner half. Off-speed pitches move, but more than anything they disrupt timing; a hitter with a longish swing has a mechanical approach designed to start early enough to thwack fastballs and have a chance to drive a mistake off-speed offering, but adjusting to an unexpected pitch path and velocity is another matter entirely. Bautista's swing is a pretty unusual thing, because he generates bat speed and power by committing late, pivoting hard on his planted front leg, and yanking the bejeezus out of the ball; he consequently has different pitch outcomes from the average power hitter, different batted ball outcomes, and even more extreme productivity swings because a bunch of elements need to be executed right to make solid contact. His results against O'Day are themselves very extreme, but they're on the edge of tendencies for Bautista that are pretty well-defined at this point. Were I managing an opposing team, I'd go with what bedevils Bautista rather than the average right-handed hitter, because he really isn't that.

By way of illustration (sorry about the annoying play button, I couldn't capture it from the MLB.com video), this is the home run pitch:



Bautista has planted his front foot, but otherwise he hasn't moved. He's balanced, and about to transfer his weight to his front foot and do unspeakable things to the baseball. Being in that position at that point is what turns a bizarre sub-sidearm slider-thing into a floating target.

[TheDoctor]

Thanks for eloquently describing why his HR swing today looked "weird" to me.

[Fairview4Life]

Don't get me wrong, I put zero weight on his BABIP on 11 balls in play, or his K% in 20 plate appearances. Just as I put no weight on his HR/FB% on eight fly balls. None has any significance. All of the scouting statements about how he's suited to hit off of him only show up after the pretty numbers, never before. That's how narratives are built. It's really exciting for fans, I don't doubt that. You get fun GIFs and can rub it in the other team's face.

I don't really care that much about this debate, but observing something weird and then explaining it is how an awful lot of science gets done.

[Skin Blues]

Don't get me wrong, I put zero weight on his BABIP on 11 balls in play, or his K% in 20 plate appearances. Just as I put no weight on his HR/FB% on eight fly balls. None has any significance. All of the scouting statements about how he's suited to hit off of him only show up after the pretty numbers, never before. That's how narratives are built. It's really exciting for fans, I don't doubt that. You get fun GIFs and can rub it in the other team's face.

I don't really care that much about this debate, but observing something weird and then explaining it is how an awful lot of science gets done.

The plural of anecdote is not data. This is the opposite of science. Find out how similar hitters to Bautista do against pitchers like O'Day. Get a real sample size more than eight fly balls. You'd need hundreds before anything definitive can be said scientifically. When that is actually done, these narratives are shot down every single time.