Tim Anderson and Offspeed Pitches

[bmags]

File this under "pretty cool" to start the year and super small sample size

Anderson talked in spring training about how he had worked a lot on staying back. I thought that would show through in helping in breaking stuff, but...not really.

Offspeed stuff however...he's like destroying.

Last year Tim Anderson saw 7.5% of his pitches as off-speed pitches (changeup, splitter, fork, screwball). He whiffed on 34% of his swings, and when it came on two strikes, he struck out 32% of the time. Both of these were comparable to his results with sliders.

This year? Tim has seen 18 offspeed pitches so far, and he hasn't missed any of them that he's swung at. His 90.5 exit velocity is the highest  for any of EVs across pitches during his career. In 8 PAs he's had 5 hits, 2 doubles and a home run.

So that's nice.

On fastballs its a similar story but less successful. He is making more contact against them (16.5% whiff rate compared to 21.5% last year), and hitting them harder (89.2 vs 87 in 2018).

The regression is easy to see on sliders. He has not hit them hard, and has not hit them in the air, but has a .381 BA / .581 slugging with them this year. He swings and misses against them more often.

And most weird! His launch angles have changed for the offspeed/breaking pitches. Where they were pretty typically 10/11/10, they are now 9/2/3. He is hitting worm burners on non-fastballs, but at least with changeups he's hitting the crap out of them.

Tim anderson! More contact, more barrels, less launch angle. Gonna be fun to see what happens!

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/tim-anderson-641313?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

[chitownsportsfan]

that missile he hit down the 3rd base line just foul before his single was a good example of what your stats show.  Last year I don't think he'd have swung at that pitch and if he did, he'd probably have made weak contact.  it was a rolling breaking ball that while decently placed didn't have much life to it and he punished it.  

[hogan873]

He's a different player at the plate compared to last year.  I like the stat breakdown, and it shows why we're seeing him be more successful.  I've always loved his attitude, and now he's playing to back up that attitude.

[Jake]

Yeah I think the Statcast stuff makes several things clear:
 

• He's had tremendous luck so far — nobody really "earns" a .450 batting average, so no shame in being lucky
• His "deserved" hitting overall is better than previous years by quite a bit, it's just more like .800-.850 OPS type production that we'd all be happy for him to have
• He's always been a better fastball hitter than he is against other stuff, but this year he's really killing fastballs.
• Very small sample size but he's done well against "offspeed," AKA changeups
• He's had success against breaking pitches but that's where he's had a lot of luck. Statcast's xwOBA suggests he hasn't yet improved against breaking pitches compared to last year. Worth mentioning that he improved last year compared to his first two seasons against breaking pitches, although they are clearly his weakness.

I think the question becomes what will happen when Tim gets the Eloy treatment, getting slider after slider. The question becomes patience against breaking pitches, then.

So far, he is swinging at about half the breaking balls outside the zone (see here for the BaseballSavant search), which would be the worst he's done.

But if we look at the rate of swings at breaking pitches in the "chase" zone — that is, not just technically outside the zone but outside the gray area where umps often miss calls — his chase rate in a very small sample would be the lowest of his career. See here for the BaseballSavant search. So there's some sign that he is laying off breaking balls better. His xwOBA against the balls outside the zone is better than in previous years as well, although still bad (as you would expect for breaking balls outside the zone), so that's another sign that his discipline is improving.