Stolen Strikes And On Target Rate
Who has bad luck at the plate? Who is the most accurate pitcher in the early season?
We recently put out a note that Luis Campusano stole the most strikes in the early part of the 2024 season. That got us thinking about the unfortunate other side of the coin. What hitters have had the worst luck because of called strikes on pitches out of the zone? Since 2023, Alex Bregman has the most called strikes on pitches out of the zone with 104.
He also amounts for the highest percentage in the group above. Mookie Betts leads the way this season with nine called strikes out of the zone. Who will lead by the end of the season?
Rating command for pitchers is definitely one of the tougher things we do at Inside Edge. Can we truly evaluate the pitcher’s purpose based on pitch type and catcher set up? Well we can certainly try and we have some numbers to show just how good some pitchers are with their command.
The samples are small but Zach Eflin leads the way with the most pitches hitting his spot or *near* his spot on a percentage basis. We are calculating this with our intended locations data along with our hit spot and slight miss locations. The slight miss still could be a bad miss over the middle of the plate but we are not attempting to litigate good and bad misses here. We are simply showing pitchers who are the most accurate in this way. Who stands out on the list? Who will be at the top by the end of the season?