Statcast Review: Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts, Corbin Burnes (2022 Fantasy Baseball)

Statcast is so dense with numbers and statistics that we can essentially look at anything. We can pan out and gauge the league’s state as a whole, or we can zoom in and get extremely granular. In this article, we are taking the latter approach, where we dive into specific pitches and gauge how well hitters perform against them and the success rate of someone throwing said pitch. This information set may be better suited for daily fantasy baseball than season-long leagues, but the goal remains the same: find an edge.

Pitch Arsenal — xwOBA: Batters

Below are two tables for Pitch Arsenal for batters, where we can see each hitter’s success against a specific pitch. The first table is sorted by xwOBA high-to-low, the second table is sorted by xwOBA low-to-high — where the higher number is better for hitters — and a minimum of 10 plate appearances was used as a cutoff.

Sorted High-to-Low

Sorted Low-to-High

Notes

• One immediate takeaway from the top group in the chart is that fastballs are prominently featured. Whether it is a 4-Seamer or Cutter, pitches that lack downward movement and an extreme change in velocity are preferred compared to a curveball. It’s also possible that, while certain hitters may track a breaking ball better than a fastball, the speed at which the ball leaves the bat is helped so much by 4-Seamers and Cutters that it naturally pushes them up the chart.
• As always, there is an exception to the rule. Mookie Betts and Willson Contreras are the only two players to find their way into the top chart because of success against Curveballs, but they both sit at the bottom of the top-20. Betts and Contreras are also enjoying outstanding season-to-date with batting averages of at least .275 and double-digit home run totals. That’s not surprising given the success rate against the breaking ball.
• One interesting pairing worth noting is Aaron Judge and 4-Seamers. His 79 plate appearances against them easily surpass any other total for a hitter in the top-20 by at least double. Still, his expected batting average on this pitch is also the lowest of the group. The key is that his hard-hit percentage is astronomically high against 4-Seamers, and if we want to paint a picture of how to approach Judge, we can determine that it is probably wise to avoid feeding him 4-Seamers, if possible.
• It’s relatively common to see one side of a trend that allows the complete opposite to appear when we flip the output. In the case of hitters, most of the pitches that appeared on the “high-to-low xwOBA” chart were fastballs. Therefore, it should be no surprise to see Curveballs and Sliders fill the “low-to-high xwOBA” table. That’s exactly what happens, and it leads to a clear path as to how to retire some of these batters. For example, Jarred Kelenic and Jose Herrera both appear twice on this list.

Pitch Arsenal — xwOBA: Pitchers

Below are two tables for Pitch Arsenal for pitchers, where we can see the success of each specific pitch. The first table is sorted by xwOBA low-to-high, the second table is sorted by xwOBA high-to-low — where the lower number is better for pitchers — and a minimum of 10 plate appearances was used as a cutoff.

Sorted Low-to-High

Sorted High-to-Low

Notes

• In keeping with the same trend that closed out the “Batters” section of this article, the pitches that are the most successful from the viewpoint of pitchers are breaking balls. Sliders and Curveballs — with a sprinkling of Changeups — make up the bulk of the chart. The difference here is that many of the names are relief pitchers who feature only a fastball and an elite secondary pitch in the form of one of these breaking balls. Anthony Gose — yes, the former hitter — is one of those names.
• It isn’t only the two-pitch relievers that are highlighted in this chart. Luis Garcia and Corbin Burnes are two starting pitchers with extreme success throwing Curveballs. Burnes clearly goes to this pitch often — his 51 plate appearances easily lead the group — while Garcia only has 11 on the year. If we are looking at the possibility of an undervalued asset, this is it. Garcia could start to lean on his Curveball more in the future, which has been successful for him so far.
• The opposite side of the chart is, once again, self-explanatory. Fastballs produce better numbers for hitters, so that they will produce worse numbers for pitchers. It’s an easy concept to grasp, and it’s also easy to see that most pitchers struggling to the point that they appear on this chart also have relatively low exposure to their “bad” pitch. Starters like Yusei Kikuchi and Nathan Eovaldi are simply in a difficult position because of their volume, and they can’t avoid their comparatively bad pitches forever.
• We’ll close out this column with the obvious eyesore at the chart’s top. Brett Phillips has a pitch that doesn’t register with Statcast and is also the worst in the entire league. Of course, Phillips has an excuse: he’s a position player. Still, seeing that he has so many plate appearances with a pathetically unrecognized pitch is entertaining and eye-popping. Perhaps we can’t predict when Phillips will see the mound again, but we can use this information to target hitters against pitchers who can’t avoid some of their less effective weapons. Maybe it can be for a streaming option, or perhaps we can use it for DFS. Either way, if we see the mismatch, we have the aforementioned edge that we seek. Or, if we see Phillips start to throw some of his infamous N/As.

Have something you want me to cover in this space, or do you just want to talk baseball? Feel free to reach out on Twitter @MarioMergola with questions or requests.

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Mario Mergola is a featured writer at FantasyPros and BettingPros and the creator and content editor of Sporfolio. For more from Mario, check out his archive and follow him @MarioMergola.