What’s up with Ryan Zimmerman at the Plate

Posted on July 24, 2016 by DonH

There has been a lot of discussion lately about what’s wrong with Ryan Zimmerman. Is he aging too quickly; is he hurt; and so on.

The other day there was a debate about how he always takes the first pitch. In general, I think always is a dangerous word. The counter-argument was that he was changing up what he was doing on the first pitch.

Using the Game Day data for 2015 and 2016 (only have Nats games in 2016 and only thru early July), decided to look at if Ryan is doing something different on the first pitch. The following two tables are the results broken down by what PitchFx thought the ball was and what happened with the pitch.

  • Ball – the umpire called it a ball
  • Called Strike – took the pitch and it was called a strike by the umpire
  • Swung – Ryan took a hack

There is a column for All of his PAs as well as a breakdown by which PA (e.g., does he react differently to a first pitch based on whether it is his first PA).

PitchFx thought it was a Ball

Result Year All PA #1 PA #2 PA #3 PA #4 PA #5,6,7
Ball 2015 154/66.4% 39/69.6% 37/74.0% 35/59.3% 30/63.8% 13/65.0%
2016 121/69.9% 23/67.6% 28/65.1% 28/68.3% 31/79.5% 11/68.8%
Called Strike 2015 48/20.7% 11/19.6% 9/18.0% 13/22.0% 11/23.4% 4/20.0%
2016 27/15.6% 3/8.8% 8/18.6% 8/19.5% 6/15.4% 2/12.5%
Swung 2015 30/12.9% 6/10.7% 4/8.0% 11/18.6% 6/12.8% 3/15.0%
2016 25/14.5% 8/23.5% 7/16.3% 5/12.2% 2/5.1% 3/18.8%

PitchFx thought it was a Strike

Result Year All PA #1 PA #2 PA #3 PA #4 PA #5,6,7
Ball 2015 4/2.5% 1/2.6% 1/3.0% 2/5.1%
2016 5/3.8% 1/2.6% 2/7.4% 1/3.4% 1/3.4%
Called Strike 2015 114/69.9% 22/56.4% 35/81.4% 25/75.8% 24/61.5% 8/88.9%
2016 89/67.4% 26/68.4% 21/77.8% 19/65.5% 17/58.6% 6/66.7%
Swung 2015 45/27.6% 16/41.0% 8/18.6% 7/21.2% 13/33.3% 1/11.1%
2016 38/28.8% 11/28.9% 4/14.8% 9/31.0% 11/37.9% 3/33.3%

The data seems to imply that Ryan has not changed his first pitch approach between 2015 and 2016.

But at the same time, it also seems clear that the claim that he always takes the first pitch even if it is a strike, is simply not supported by this data. Maybe he takes more than the fans would like. But that is clearly not the same as always. Feel free to download a csv file of the above data.

So next, lets take a took at Ryan’s splits (by count) from Baseball Reference. The tables below are the data for each count for: 2015, 2016; and his career.

First Pitch

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 37 33 7 9 3 0 2 7 0 0 .273 .270 .545 .816
2016 25 23 3 5 2 0 0 1 0 0 .217 .240 .304 .544
Career 457 442 112 148 32 1 25 89 0 0 .335 .333 .581 .915

0-1 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 33 33 3 10 2 0 1 6 0 0 .303 .303 .455 .758
2016 24 22 4 6 1 0 1 3 0 0 .273 .333 .455 .788
Career 543 532 95 188 35 2 28 95 0 0 .353 .362 .585 .946

0-2 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 38 38 2 6 2 0 0 3 0 16 .158 .158 .211 .368
2016 33 31 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 19 .032 .030 .032 .063
Career 489 482 27 83 16 1 6 41 0 215 .172 .172 .247 .419

1-0 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 18 18 8 8 2 0 1 7 0 0 .444 .444 .722 1.17
2016 18 18 9 7 1 0 1 5 0 0 .389 .389 .611 1.00
Career 377 371 86 146 32 2 24 99 0 0 .394 .390 .685 1.08

1-1 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 33 32 3 9 2 0 1 3 0 0 .281 .273 .438 .710
2016 26 26 3 12 3 0 1 5 0 0 .462 .462 .692 1.15
Career 526 518 91 187 47 3 20 78 0 0 .361 .359 .579 .938

1-2 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 65 63 3 8 6 0 0 5 0 33 .127 .123 .222 .345
2016 48 48 3 9 2 1 0 1 0 22 .188 .188 .271 .458
Career 873 865 75 176 38 1 17 79 0 361 .203 .205 .309 .514

2-0 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 10 10 1 4 1 0 1 5 0 0 .400 .400 .800 1.20
2016 14 13 6 4 0 0 3 8 0 0 .308 .286 1.00 1.29
Career 157 152 36 42 13 1 14 46 0 0 .276 .274 .651 .925

2-1 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 26 22 4 10 1 0 3 11 0 0 .455 .385 .909 1.29
2016 12 12 6 5 0 0 3 7 0 0 .417 .417 1.17 1.58
Career 364 356 70 142 30 0 27 82 0 0 .399 .390 .711 1.10

2-2 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 46 46 5 9 1 0 4 9 0 18 .196 .196 .478 .674
2016 49 48 5 3 1 0 1 3 0 17 .063 .061 .146 .207
Career 862 853 76 174 41 4 21 92 0 300 .204 .205 .335 .541

3-0 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 7 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 . 1.00 . .
2016 5 0 . 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 . 1.00 . .
Career 141 3 12 0 0 0 0 2 138 0 .000 .979 .000 .979

3-1 Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 27 17 4 5 0 1 3 8 10 0 .294 .556 .941 1.50
2016 20 10 1 2 0 0 0 0 10 0 .200 .600 .200 .800
Career 330 160 36 64 15 3 14 40 170 0 .400 .709 .794 1.50

Full Count

Year PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2015 39 30 3 8 3 0 2 3 9 10 .267 .436 .567 1.00
2015 50 34 2 8 5 0 0 9 16 12 .235 .480 .382 .862
Career 767 536 61 124 34 2 16 78 226 175 .231 .456 .392 .848

What jumps out to me is the dramatic difference in his 2 strike results. Most batters do much worse in 2 strike counts. But these numbers show that Ryan is having much more trouble with 2 strike counts in 2016 than he did either in just 2015, or for his career.

And it is worth adding that his 3-1 results are also a bit surprising.

My take-away from this analysis is that it is probably more likely that there is something different with his 2 strike approach vs. the speculation that he is either injured on aging quickly.

So perhaps that is worthy of further investigation. But here’s hoping that when Ryan is activated, that he makes this discussion moot. MiLB rehab numbers are typically not worth much. But the fact that he is 5/12 (BA of .417) is better than, say, 1/12.

I’ve been staring at this waaaaay too long and perhaps there is some other obvious trend here that I missed. So it’s time to share these results with our readers. What do you see here?

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