FanPost

Plate Discipline and Josh Willingham


A quick note before moving to the main point of this post. I was going to create a fanpost that numerically proved what we have all been watching since the season began (and then some, for players who have been on the team the last few years): The Giants swing at an inordinate amount of pitches outside of the strike zone. But, since this is a Captain Obvious type of observation, I thought I'd just post some stats that shed light on the problem, make a few observations, and then move on to something that might elicit some reader response.

The following stats are taken from FanGraph's Plate Discipline page and are based on a minimum of 30 PA's and highlight the Giants' O-Swing %. For those of you unfamiliar with this stat, O-Swing % is the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.

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Name O-Swing%
Bengie Molina 48.00%
Pablo Sandoval 45.70%
Kevin Frandsen 39.30%
Barry Zito 38.50%
Nate Schierholtz 37.40%
Juan Uribe 33.50%
John Bowker 32.70%
Eli Whiteside 31.20%
Rich Aurilia 30.30%
Eugenio Velez 30.00%
Aaron Rowand 29.80%
Andres Torres 29.00%
Emmanuel Burriss 28.90%
Randy Winn 28.70%
Tim Lincecum 28.60%
Travis Ishikawa 27.50%
Edgar Renteria 26.00%
Matt Cain 25.70%
Matthew Downs 21.70%
Fred Lewis 19.40%

A few observations:

  1. The average O-Swing % for the NL is 24.48%.
  2. Bengie and Pablo rank dead last and next to last of all qualified NL players. Alfonso Soriano ranks 3rd at 36.7%.
  3. Only 9 qualified NL players have an O-Swing % higher than 30%. Therefore, based on their O-Swing %, the Giants, on a nightly basis, field a lineup of some of the least disciplined hitters in the NL.
  4. Matt Cain is better at recognizing a strike than almost every other player on the team and has been performing at a similar rate for his entire career.
  5. Kevin Frandsen swinging at nearly 40% of the pitches thrown outside the zone may have played a large role in his demotion and Down's promotion (especially, given the fact that only Lewis swings at less pitches outside of the zone than Downs). Also, Frandsen's career O-Swing % is 32%.
  6. If Fred Lewis could make more contact, he would be a very dangerous hitter. Unfortunately, his 82% Z-contact rate (Percentage of times a batter makes contact with the ball when swinging at pitches thrown inside the strike zone) puts him in the bottom 10 of qualified NL hitters.
  7. Only Renteria ranks in the top 35 (#34) of qualified NL hitters for Z-Contact %.
  8. The Giants, as a team, have the highest O-Swing % (32.3%, the only team above 30%) and, consequently, see the least amount of pitches in the strike zone (47.8%) of any team in baseball.

Now to my main point, if you're still here: If he's available, the Giants should trade for Josh Willingham.

A quick look at his Plate Discipline numbers:
2009 O-Swing %: 16.4
Career O-Swing %: 18.0

Some factors in his favor:

  1. On a team desperate for disciplined hitters, Willingham would easily rate as the most disciplined player on this team.
  2. He bats RH and the Giants need a right handed hitter.
  3. He can play the OF and 1B. Hell, he could even back up at C if absolutely necessary!
  4. He's only making 2.95 million this year and is arbitration eligible for the next 2 years. FanGraphs says he has been worth 9.9 million dollars this year. Can you say value?
  5. He would have the highest OPS (.978) of anyone on our team. His career OPS (.852) would be #2 on this year's team, so even a regression would benefit our team.

With all of the talk of the Giants going after Dunn and Nick Johnson, this seems to me to be an incredible no-brainer. Though he is an injury risk, this is a risk the Giants should take. I can't imagine that the Nationals would want that much in return for him, but given that his name hasn't been brought up too much (mark me down as very surprised that Hank Schulman didn't mention him at all here) maybe he isn't available. I don't know what the Giants would offer in return for Willingham, but I think he could be a great value for this team and it would be shrewd of Sabean to pluck him from the NationaLOLs.

Ok, that's all I've got. Clearly, I value disciplined hitting and think the Giants would be better off with more players like Willingham. Few things are more frustrating than watching hitters swing at bad pitches. Disciplined hitters swing at better pitches and force pitcher's to throw more pitches, both of which are good things. Please comment on any of the above. Disagree, submit counter-arguments, etc... Just show a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha style.
GO GIANTS!

This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.

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