Johan Santana's Contact Rate

by Eric Simon on Nov 17, 2008 12:26 PM EST in Analysis Comment 9 comments

The awesome gets awesomer, as FanGraphs introduces some new stats including pitcher discipline metrics (basically, the same swing/zone/contact stats they already had for hitters but this time for pitchers). Using these new stats, we can see that Johan Santana had his worst season, at least since 2005 (the discipline stats only go back that far), in a lot of these areas.

Year	F-Strike%	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%	Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Contact%	Contact%	Zone%	Pitches
2005	69.1 %	30.2 %	72.2 %	53.7 %	50.7 %	81.9 %	74.2 %	55.9 %	3335
2006	65.4 %	30.1 %	71.6 %	53.0 %	50.3 %	83.1 %	74.8 %	55.3 %	3450
2007	65.4 %	28.2 %	72.6 %	52.6 %	51.8 %	80.0 %	73.2 %	54.9 %	3345
2008	63.8 %	26.8 %	69.2 %	50.0 %	59.8 %	82.5 %	77.0 %	54.7 %	3598

Santana's first strike % (F-Strike%) was worse than it ever has been. Ditto his swing rate at balls outside the strike zone (O-Swing%). And his swings within the strike zone (Z-Swing%). It follows, then, that his overall swing rate (Swing%), the aggregate of those last two, is also the worst since 2005.

The most dramatic point of information here is Santana's contact rate outside the strike zone (O-Contact%), which increased from 51.8% in 2007 to 59.8% in 2008. This means that Santana got far fewer swing-and-misses in 2008 than he ever had before. His overall contact rate (Contact%) jumped from 73.2% to 77.0%, which would doubtless explain his alarming drop in strikeout rate this past season (9.66 to 7.91).

I don't have enough information right now to know if the increased contact rate is an obvious sign of onset regression, or if it's something that fluctuates to some degree from year to year (as Jake Peavy's has), and that maybe with a little better luck Santana's strikeout rate will more closely resemble his career mark in 2009.

It's something to keep an eye on, for sure.

EDIT: As Larry points out via email, a decrease in Z-Swing% is probably a *good* thing, since contact rate within the strike zone is generally very high.

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Comments

The good news is

The contact resulted in a higher percentage of GB’s. The bad news is the Mets IF defense was not that good.

by Reg Dunlop on Nov 17, 2008 12:15 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

The good news is

that our year-long brain fart may be over if the rumors that Omar is trying to dump Castillo are true.

by JoshNY on Nov 17, 2008 12:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Santana's FIP (fielding independent pitching)

was 3.51, while his ERA was 2.53 – almost a full run difference.

Johan definitely benefited from the Mets superb defense, and was also great at stranding runners. He was best in baseball at LOB%.

By comparison, Lincecum’s FIP was 2.62 and his ERA was 2.62. As long as Johan has an ERA under 3 and logs 200+ IP a year, I’m not worried.

by JamesK on Nov 17, 2008 1:35 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Defense

Not that Probabalistic Model of Range is the be-all, end-all, but PMR has the Mets ranked 21st overall in defensive efficiency, recording around nine fewer outs than expected. Carlos Beltran was outstanding, and David Wright and Ryan Church (when he played) were both above average, but the rest of the Mets’ everyday defense ranged from average to putrid.

by Eric Simon on Nov 17, 2008 2:29 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Call it blind optimism

but I think Reyes’ range will rebound next year.

by JoshNY on Nov 17, 2008 5:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

It seems weird

that we rate so lowly in defense, not just in PMR but other measures seem to have our infield at average at best and yet our pitchers FIP’s are all higher than they’re actual ERAs. It would make sense if it was because they were heavy fly ball pitchers because of our outfield defense and Shea but Pelfrey was an extreme groundballer and Santana ground ball rate increased a lot this year.

by Gina on Nov 17, 2008 5:24 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Mets Defense

Interesting – I’m no defensive stats expert, but BP has the Mets 6th in baseball and 2nd in the NL in defensive efficiency. Maybe that’s not as good a metric as PMR, but just something to consider.

by JamesK on Nov 17, 2008 10:54 PM EST reply actions 0 recs