Don Mattingly swinging at the first pitch
Posted by Andy on December 28, 2007
I thought I'd show you some of the cool data you can get with the PI Batting Splits.
As any huge Mattingly fan would know, he was well known for rarely swinging at the first pitch of an at-bat.
From his splits page, we can see the breakdown of data for career plate appearances by pitch count:
I Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip tOPS+ Split +-+------------+----+----+-----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------------+ First Pitch 385 465 444 161 26 0 10 88 0 0 0 7 0 14 3 18 .363 .361 .489 .850 .337 105 First Pitch 1-0 Count 467 564 560 167 31 4 13 89 0 0 0 0 0 4 5 26 .298 .296 .438 .734 .279 76 1-0 Count 2-0 Count 227 262 257 87 22 1 12 55 0 0 0 0 0 5 3 7 .339 .332 .572 .904 .300 114 2-0 Count 3-0 Count 175 187 5 1 0 0 0 7 181 86 0 0 0 1 0 0 .200 .973 .200 1.173 .167 214 3-0 Count 0-1 Count 444 548 543 157 27 0 15 69 0 0 0 1 0 4 8 18 .289 .288 .422 .710 .267 70 0-1 Count 1-1 Count 479 598 588 192 41 1 15 89 0 0 0 0 0 10 7 14 .327 .321 .476 .797 .304 91 1-1 Count 2-1 Count 294 346 342 115 19 0 8 48 0 0 0 3 0 1 4 8 .336 .341 .462 .803 .319 93 2-1 Count 3-1 Count 198 211 115 33 5 1 4 20 94 2 0 0 0 2 2 3 .287 .602 .452 1.054 .257 164 3-1 Count 0-2 Count 202 218 215 45 5 0 2 10 0 0 40 1 0 2 3 7 .209 .211 .260 .471 .246 14 0-2 Count 1-2 Count 413 500 496 114 27 0 7 45 0 0 121 2 0 2 4 8 .230 .232 .327 .559 .289 34 1-2 Count 2-2 Count 338 384 381 86 27 0 4 27 0 0 69 0 0 3 5 2 .226 .224 .328 .552 .264 32 2-2 Count
Note that this data is for only 1988 to 1995, as the data is not available from before that. So, as you can see, of Mattingly's 4643 career PAs from 1988 to 1995, 465 of them (10.0%) ended on the first pitch. Since he had only 444 first-pitch at-bats, we see that 21 were something else, and it turns out they were 7 hit-by-pitches and 14 sacrifice flies.
Firstly, I wanted to see whether Mattingly really did swing at the first pitch rarely. The batter he is most similar to is Cecil Cooper, but unfortunately almost all of Cooper's career came before B-R's detailed pitch data. However, we can take a look at the second most-similar batter, Wally Joyner.
From Joyner's splits, you can see that he had 6788 PAs from 1988-2001 and of those, he had 1015 that ended after the first pitch. That's 15.0%, as compared to 10.0% for Mattingly.
One more quickie: similar batter #5 is Garrett Anderson, whose entire career has pitch-by-pitch data. Anderson has 7887 career PAs, and 1191 ended after the first pitch. That's 15.1%, very close to Joyner.
Obviously this is by no means a detailed study, but initial data does back up the idea that Mattingly did indeed look at a lot of first pitches.
Take a look above at Mattingly's 3-0 count PAs. Of 187 such PAs, only 5 ever became official at-bats, and one became a hit. So he had a .200 BA with 3 balls an no strikes, but a .973 OBP thanks to 181 walks. (Again, this is 1988 to 1995, and keep in mind that this is for PAs that ended on a 3-0 count. It doesn't include PAs where the next pitch was a strike.)
To see everything that happened once the count got to 3-0 on Mattingly, you need to look a little further down.
I Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip tOPS+ Split +-+------------+----+----+-----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------------+ After 1-0 987 2337 1990 606 131 6 50 301 321 86 96 2 0 24 23 52 .305 .398 .452 .850 .298 107 After 1-0 After 2-0 600 866 585 191 43 2 20 108 269 86 31 2 0 10 8 9 .326 .533 .509 1.042 .314 157 After 2-0 After 3-0 282 321 86 31 5 0 3 21 232 86 9 0 0 3 2 1 .360 .819 .523 1.342 .364 240 After 3-0 After 0-1 932 1798 1740 456 86 1 38 189 41 2 165 5 0 12 21 45 .262 .279 .378 .657 .270 58 After 0-1 After 1-1 899 1634 1530 437 96 1 34 193 86 2 120 3 0 15 18 34 .286 .322 .416 .738 .290 78 After 1-1 After 2-1 571 802 695 201 42 1 17 90 99 2 48 3 0 5 7 12 .289 .378 .426 .804 .290 96 After 2-1 After 3-1 287 326 196 59 11 1 7 30 127 2 13 0 0 3 4 4 .301 .571 .474 1.045 .291 160 After 3-1 After 0-2 430 523 512 110 20 0 6 31 7 0 110 1 0 3 5 10 .215 .226 .289 .515 .261 24 After 0-2 After 1-2 607 822 786 182 44 0 11 67 31 0 164 2 0 3 9 12 .232 .262 .330 .592 .279 43 After 1-2 After 2-2 468 586 528 125 34 0 9 48 54 0 87 0 0 4 6 5 .237 .305 .352 .657 .266 60 After 2-2 Three Balls 523 715 348 99 18 1 12 58 362 88 31 0 0 5 5 7 .284 .645 .445 1.090 .281 175 Three Balls Two Strikes 837 1419 1320 310 72 0 21 113 87 0 261 3 0 9 15 21 .235 .282 .337 .619 .276 50 Two Strikes
So after the 321 PAs that went 3-0, Mattingly ended up with an official at-bat 86 times (26.8%). All the rest of the time he walked. That's a .320 batting average with an .819 OBP.
Compare that to Joyner who had 452 PAs with the count 3-0, and then went on to have 152 ABs (33.6%) So Joyner took fewer walks, and also managed a lower BA (.309) and OBP (.761.) Anderson, to date, has had 330 PAs with a 3-0 count, and 117 ABs (35.4%), with a .291 BA and .745 OBP.
These arguments seem to be in favor of Mattingly, although some argue that for years he was the Yankees' best hitter and maybe would have been better off swinging more with 3-0 counts rather than walking and leaving it up to a lesser hitter, such as an over-the-hill Jack Clark. (I have heard a similar criticism made of Wade Boggs.)
December 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am
So Don Mattingly was less likely to swing at first and at 3-0 pitches than Wally Joyner -- but more likely to swing at the others. Mattingly's walk rate is 7.4% (per plate appearance); Joyner's is 10.9%. Part of Mattingly's 3-0 looking comes from the 28 more times he received an IBB.
Injury is the main thing that keeps Donnie Baseball from the Hall. But I also figure he could have helped his case if he'd been a little more selective. He grounded into more double plays than Joyner (in fewer times up), and he never managed a seasonal OB% of .400. Compare Mattingly's career stats to Minnie Minoso's (they are 11 plate appearances apart, and Minnie had a late start while Don had an early exit). Don had more power, Minnie had more speed, but the biggest difference is that Minnie got on base more (and, yes, part of that is because he got plunked 171 more times).
Garret Anderson looks like a poor man's Andre Dawson in terms of his walk rate (4.7%) and OB%.
December 28th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
A reader pointed out that I forgot the 3-2 pitches in the first Mattingly chart above. If you want to see the data, just click on the link above to his splits page.
Agreed on all counts, David.