As part of the research for an article about the strike zone, scheduled to run tomorrow, I collected information on each pitcher's average pitch location when the pitches crossed the front of home plate. Last night on Twitter, Josh Smolow mentioned that he was writing an article about Derek Lowe and how he's an outlier in terms of least pitches in the strike zone. That's because Lowe pitches at the bottom edge of the zone, moreso than any other starting pitcher.
I thought this information might be interesting in its own right, but there was no space for it in the strike zone article itself. These charts present the average pitch location, separated by batter handedness, for each pitcher with at least 3000 pitches to lefties or righties from 2007-2010.
Here are a few other notable pitchers who didn't make the 3000-pitch cutoff:
| Name | Batter | Horizontal | Vertical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Thornton | RHB | -0.14 | 2.77 |
| Heath Bell | RHB | 0.51 | 2.69 |
| Chris Young | RHB | 0.42 | 2.68 |
| Brandon Webb | RHB | -0.06 | 2.19 |
| Jake Westbrook | RHB | 0.19 | 2.02 |
| Chris Young | LHB | -0.39 | 2.83 |
| Barry Zito | LHB | -0.51 | 2.73 |
| Tommy Hunter | LHB | -0.20 | 2.72 |
| Randy Wolf | LHB | -0.63 | 2.63 |
| Heath Bell | LHB | -0.58 | 2.62 |
| Brian Wilson | LHB | -0.62 | 2.60 |
| Brandon Webb | LHB | -0.38 | 2.28 |
| Chris Carpenter | LHB | -0.06 | 2.23 |
Update: The strike zone article is here.
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If you plot location by organization, do Dave Duncan's hurlers show a 'low and away' pattern, or is that just me eyeballing things badly?
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/03/deconstructing.php
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/03/deconstructing_1.php
I've also looked some at how pitch type and location affects BABIP, but I hadn't thought of looking at in the specific way you suggested here. That might be helpful.
I need to query my database again before I present all the numbers since I forgot to split it out by batter handedness when I did the team query.
Most pitchers tend to pitch both lefties and righties toward the outside part of the plate, a little moreso to lefty batters.
I would guess that changes in location for pitchers over time would show a purposeful change in approach. I did show in the strike zone article that pitchers pitch outside more the older they are. Because pitchers enter and leave the sample at different ages, that's not quite the same thing as showing that pitchers pitch outside more as they age, but I would guess that's also true. I don't know why, though.
It might be due to changing pitch types; it might be due to spotting a slower fastball more out of the hitting zone; maybe something else. It's definitely an interesting topic for research.
That is true in aggregate for the league, it is not true for every specific pitch type thrown by every pitcher. I suspect that the way some pitchers play one pitch off another and the associated deception, or lack thereof, is part of what makes this vary from pitcher to pitcher.
Lowe's sinkers are dropping more than the average fastball when they cross the plate, and all else being equal (is it? I don't know), should create more whiffs and lower BABIP than average.