Seattle Sports Insider

Two-Seam RH Fastballs in Safeco

Posted by

jemanji

8/21/09

Q. Why have the M's been running an 85 OPS+ at home and 100 OPS+ on the road?

A. The Mariners played through May with five-six very similar RH pull hackers in the lineup:

Lopez, 2b

Betancourt, ss

Beltre, 3b

Johjima, c

Balentien, lf

Gutierrez, cf*

Dave Allen of The Baseball Analysts pointed out in May, that these six hitters as a group hit terribly against RHP two-seam fastballs -- "twice as bad as the average RHB."

In other words, neither Beltre nor Betancourt nor Wlad nor ... etc. could accomplish anything at all against a mediocre, 90-mph, two-seam fastball that rode in on their hands.

The result was a long string of depressing 1- and 2-run games against mediocrities like Shane Loux and Scott Feldman.

Q. Pull hackers don't hit RH moving fastballs?

A. Well, these 5-6 guys didn't. But nobody explained W-H-Y, that I saw. An amazing coinky-dink that all the Mariners' RH hitters couldn't hit FB's moving in on them?!

...............

I don't know what it would be about players who hack and who pull the ball, that they would have trouble with a pitch riding in. You'd think the opposite -- with the bat head out in front, they'd deal with inside pitches.

Pitching 101, absolutely the very first principle, is FB in, curve away. But against a pull hitter you definitely want to emphasize the "curve away" part of that.

...................

Maybe it is just a coincidence that the above six players are pull-hackers and can't hit a jam pitch. But wouldn't it more logically Safeco -- a FB swerving in to a RH batter causes him to hit it into the teeth of Safeco's death valley. I'll bet you that's it.

I wonder if Mr. Allen has the home/road splits on Beltre, Betancourt et al as to their trouble with 89-mph two-seam RH fastballs. Bet you that it's not so much the Latin hitters not being able to deal, as simply the fact that such pitches went to straightaway LF in Safeco.

......................

Anyway, Safeco, and the pull-hack-attack, formed a tragic synergy that buried the Mariners' offense in its tracks.

Q. This is changing?

A. Well, at SS, Jack Wilson is a slap-the-ball around hitter, so that is definitely a fix of the Safeco problem at SS.

At LF, we don't have anybody there yet, but it's gingerly Michael Saunders -- and whoever it is, it's not Wlad Balentien.

At C, it's no longer Kenji Johjima hitting hot two-hoppers to 3B; it's Rob Johnson.

Notice that all three of those batters -- Wilson, Saunders, Johnson -- none of them are there because they're great. They're dubious hitters, at least coming into 2009. And because they're dubious hitters pushed into jobs, they show Capt Jack's determination to target and fix the Safeco problem.

Q. Is there a lesson learned here? Besides, don't get RH extreme-pull hitters into the M's org?

A. Notice that RHP's with moving two-seamers will be much more effective than in other parks.

We all knew that flyball LHP's were a great match for the park. But has it been announced that RHP's with swerving two-seamers are also a great match for Safeco?

No, we didn't write this article out of love for Doug Fister.

Q. So RHP's with unusual movement will be coddled by Safeco?

A. Provided!

That they are careful with LHB's. Because lefties smash RH two-seamers anyway -- the ball swerves right onto the sweet spot of their bats. And in Safeco, LHB's get to hit into that (relatively) short RF area.

Fister, and other mediocre-FB righties like him, NEED TO BE AWARE that they CANNOT CHALLENGE lefties with 89 two-seamers in Safeco.

That said, jam those righties and you're done in two hours.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

No no no, Doc...I have a better explaation.

You know what those right handed batters ALSO have had in common up until very recently?
GROUNDBALLITIS
A 2-seamer doesn't just run in...it usually sinks. Do you even REMEMBER the games against Loux and Feldman and a dozen other crappy righties who could chuck a 90 swerve down in the zone all the time? Ground to third...groundball to short....groundball to third....groundball to short...groundball to third...TOWERING home run to deep right by Branyan...groundball to short...groundball to third...groundball to SECOND (holy crap!)...groundball to third...ad nauseum.
Why can't those six guys hit a 2-seamer from a righty? Because they're groundball hitters with level swings and they make contact on the low balls with too much of the top of the ball, resulting in a barrage of five-hoppers. End of story.
Of course Lopez is starting to hit more flyballs the last few months and Gutierrez has become a balanced (and much better) hitter against all comers.
OK Beltre wasn't a groundball hitter, but he is still a high ball hitter. All of Beltre's HRs even in his bigger seasons have generally been on high pitches that he could really put a nice big logn upper-cut swing on.
The rest of those guys until very recently...I mean come ON Doc! I'm the guy who coined the phrase "groundball to third" whenever Johjima would step to the plate...he was/is a MACHINE for hitting two-hoppers right at the third baseman.

Super logical, but you know what?

Allen found that as a group, these guys were better than average with RH fastballs that sunk but did not move in.
I think Allen's findings were on USSM about the middle of May if you want to go examine and refine. :- ) I'd link to it, but typically my hyperlinks to them are blocked.
Or, the findings might be published at The Baseball Analysts.

And that still fits my explanation.

A sinking fastball away is easier for a groundball/pull hitter to not roll over on than a sinking fastball in. The sinking fastball away, the contact/groundball hitters on this team were trained in the old regime to play pepper with and serve it into right and center. Lopez is actually pretty darned good at this now. The ball down and in...it starts out looking like the happy-zone pitch for a pull hitter and Lopez and Johjima could be seen twisting themselves deep enough into the ground to strike oil and hitting a barrage of 2-hoppers to third. Seriously, Doc...look at some of the game logs for starts against Feldman and Loux...the Mariners weren't hitting lots of flyballs to left center field. They were grounding out. A lot. A REALLY lot. Loux, for exmaple, in his first start against the Mariners got 11 consecutive outs on the ground. Feldman nearly shutting us out back in May needed his outfielders a grand total of 5 times. That's COUNTING the balls they had to pick up and throw back in that somehow squeaked through the infield.