Seattle Sports Insider

Think Tank - Ackley's Destruction of Offspeed Pitches

Posted by

8/6/11

G-Money notes the Angels' announcers' confusion on Ackley :- )

Announcer 1: I don't understand why he doesn't get more changeups and curves thrown at him. the way he's always early on his front-side...he can keep his hands back long enough to hit fastballs but offspeed stuff should be really hard for him.

Announcer 2: Well we did see him hit some stuff hard into LF by keeping his hands back long enough...

Announcer 1: Sure, maybe on fastballs, but it takes a really special hitter to be that far into your swing before the ball reaches the plate and hit off-speed stuff....

Reminds me of Men In Black. Lurch is seated in a restaurant, and the Instellar Cockroach shows up and demands Orion's Belt.

Lurch protests, "You can kill us, but you will never find Orion's Belt."

The roach holds up one finger calmly. "You're right about one thing..." ....... and kills him.

The Angels' announcer is right about one thing. He doesn't understand why they don't throw Ackley offspeed stuff. ;- )

=== Data-Rich Enviro, Dept. ===

Thanks to F/X being made public, we don't have to guess. Behold Ackley's results against fastballs and offspeed. Here is how many runs, above average, a team full of Ackleys would score if thrown 100 of each pitch:

+0.6 per 100 - Fastball (nine Ackleys would score 5.2 runs per 140-pitch FB game)
BTA - Sliders/cutters combined (one negative, one very positive; inconclusive)
+1.5 - Curve balls (6.5 runs per game vs 140-pitch curveball game)
+8.1 - Changeups (16 rpg)
+8.3 - Splitters and forkballs (16 rpg)
+3.0 - Knuckleballs (9 rpg)

So, if the Angels' announcers are reading, now they understand. Pitchers don't throw Ackley offspeed stuff because when they have in the past, they have had to back up 3B on almost every pitch.

G continues,

But we see him more than they do and he DOES keep his hands all the way back on changeups or breakers. His hand control is phenomenal with a swing like that. Only freaks can swing like that for a .300+ average and power - and Dustin is most certainly a freak.

=== Let's! Go To! the Video! Tape!, Dept. ===

If you want to see this for yourself, here's a video. Ackley's first ML hit, an offspeed pitch by Roy Oswalt.

Watch the video a few times, and you'll see Ackley commit his weight -- over-commit it, actually -- but keep his hands back, and sock it into CF.

..........

Ackley's weight commitment was often poor during his first week, and this is an example. You can see his wallet flying way out to RF as he has to lean over awkwardly. But he still gets the sweet spot on a low-away pitch (note the catcher's glove).

***

The reason that offspeed stuff has NEVER bothered Ackley is because of the bat wrap that, apparently, only SSI has any interest in.

Despite the early commitment of the weight, notice the angle of the bat wrap as the offspeed stuff arrives.

the pitch and then transfer the weight. Not one human being on the planet can move his CG that fast. Maybe there's some insect someplace that can. Maybe a mongoose can do that against a cobra strike, I dunno.

***

Edgar and Dustin Ackley had/have extreme CG transfer and torque, and they make that work because -- on offspeed -- they keep their hands back and "stretch the rubber band" even more on offspeed stuff than they do on fastballs.

Which explains why they never seemed to be "in between" on offspeed stuff, and why they can hit it so hard.

You're right about one thing,

Dr D

Comments

Why doesn't a hitter wait until he reads the pitch.....

...before taking his trigger step and beginning his hip turn?
As you correctly point out: "It simply isn't possible to read the pitch and then transfer the weight"
And we might conclude that better is the hitter and shorter will be distance of the ball from contact point when he decides to stop swinging, since a pitch usually reveals its real flight path only late. In other words a good hitter first of all is defined if he attacks every pitch and then by how and when he stops swinging. Barry Bonds was simply exceptional in this.
I believe Ackley could be very soon able to attack the .400 mark - if just he wants to.

announcers

I live in southern California so have way too much familiarity with Angel broadcasts (and Dodger; does anybody but me think Vin Scully's voice is irritating? He's the Niehaus anti-matter - great analyst, lousy pipes).
The Angel announcers, like most others, just don't do the homework you might expect. Have you ever been in the booth with a major league announcer? They're not lazy - well, not all of them are lazy. They do tons of homework. They're booths are littered with information, a lot of it of the "Ackley's from North Carolina, where he was teammates with" variety. And his favorite color is what? But if you think MLB coaches and managers have had a hard time adjusting to the SABRE world, you have no idea how far behind them a lot of TV and radio guys are.
The Angel TV color guy is Mark Gubizca, in his day an excellent ML righthander with terrific off-speed stuff. So it's not like he doesn't know about pitcher-hitter confrontations. He took part in 10,000 of them. Whatever else he is, he is several thousand times better than the man he replaced, Rex Hudler. And he's pleasant and charming and abolutely drop-dead handsome. I just doubt he's ever had to work very hard for much; he's certainly not prone to pre-game study of hot charts for a bad opponent.

PS: That wasn't intended as a shot at Niehaus. I bow to no man in my man-crush on Dave (see, e.g., http://tmcdermott.com/stories.aspx and scroll down for an appreciation), but, seriously he was nearly data free.

And where was the only place to realistically get Gar out?

Down and away, because it's the only place that isn't 100% coverable with that swing. He could go the other way or pull the ball at will, fight off high pitches or low, but the outer edge was slightly vulnerable and the lowest corner had a bit of give to it.
Against a hitter with no weaknesses like Edgar (lefties vs righties, home vs away, offspeed or hard stuff...none of it mattered) you took what you could get.
Gonna be the same with Dustin, it looks like. Throw it on the outer edge because he probably can't get it out of the park there and hope for the best. Once you try to live out there, though, he will punish you.
That's gonna be the fun part. Dustin's game is just brilliantly fun to watch at the plate, as he cranks up the pressure on opposing pitchers. Get a few more hitters who can do that and we might have something after all.
~G

1st AB tonight, Angels throw 6 consecutive on the black

But four miss, and Ackley walks.
Sometimes people forget that it's hard to execute certain game plans. You can walk him trying that ... and you can also miss out-and-over for the HR trying that ... and you can also run into his looking for FB away, if you're too predictable trying that.
I'd try to pitch him away, but it's not like it's easy money. :- ) As you note, it's not like anybody ever solved Edgar staying away from him. Lotsa hot-shot doubles down the RF line.

You blew your cover Terry!

And here we'd been so precious about it. :- ) What are your co-workers going to say if you're seen associating with suspected libertarians?
And does this mean that we could make a front-page post out of the above? SSI could get some serious mileage out of a Dave Neihaus trip...
***
Dave to me was the Bert Sugar of modern baseball, every inch the authenticism, personality, and authority...
But he seemed positively irritated by co-announcers bringing up things he didn't know. Data Free, lol.
For Dave, I dunno, RC/27 might actually have spoiled the smoky stories about hardball on deadpan infields in 88 degrees in 1972.

The Angel TV color guy is

The Angel TV color guy is Mark Gubizca, in his day an excellent ML righthander with terrific off-speed stuff. So it's not like he doesn't know about pitcher-hitter confrontations. He took part in 10,000 of them. Whatever else he is, he is several thousand times better than the man he replaced, Rex Hudler.

He's also WAAAAY better than Blowers. I would kill - at least maim - for a decent color guy who can't point stuff out that I CAN'T easily see at home.
The first time the Angels saw Beavan, he pointed out in the first couple innings his motion changes and back arch/followthrough when throwing the curve, and by about the 5th he'd had his guys in the truck (or wherever they're crowded in) put together a side-by-side graphic showing the fastball and the curve and how the finishes were different and why that should be a tell.
Our guys? Not. A. Thing. Now pointing out a tell on your own guy might be awkward, but imagine us ever doing that sort of thing at all, even for the opposition. It's also funny listening to him call pitches. "This'll be a curve, probably down and away...there it is, strike three."
And he's very pretty. *laughs*
But really, is it too much to ask for announcers who take you to the game and inside of it instead of ones who just babble about rally fries? It's nice listening to announcers who point out things about Trayvon or Ackley or whomever that I can't get out of the guys who cover them every day.
Listening to them diss Olivo as he couldn't find any pop-ups or balls that got away from him was hilarious - and then we got a story about having a catcher who couldn't spot a foul ball to save his life and how Gubizca always had to run for his life to go get pop-ups to get his own outs with that guy behind the plate.
Name the last relevant story Blowers related. Name one.
So sad that I'll miss the Angels' announcers when this series is over. They did a better and more entertaining job covering our team than we do.
~G

dead on

G
You're on the money (heh!) about Gubicza. He knows pitching. I like listening to him and was just making the point that these guys don't do stats. I wonder if any MLB announcers do?
tjm

dead on

G
You're on the money (heh!) about Gubicza. He knows pitching. I like listening to him and was just making the point that these guys don't do stats. I wonder if any MLB announcers do?
tjm