PitchFx Game Charts
I’ve added a few more PitchFx charts to the player pages that were highly requested. There is a new section called “Game Charts” where you can select any game for a particular pitcher and have four different velocity/release point/movement charts displayed for that game.
Check out Greinke’s last start here: 5/4/2009 Start
You can also click on any of the graphs and it will show you a bigger version.
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
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Awesome!
I have to say with Josh Kalk dropping his site I was afraid I might have to go without all the Pitch F/x data, but you guys really stepped it up.
If you guys keep this up youre going to destroy baseball on the internet. There’s no point going anywhere else for ANYTHING. Youre like the Walmart of baseball info.
this. is. awesome. speed x spin graphs would be an added bonus.
I’m sure it is more nuanced than this, but if I’m a scout and can’t see a particular pitcher on here in person…boom. A large part of what you’d observe and report on, I’d imagine. Having this access as a fan is great. Thanks guys.
Incredible stuff
But..
Am I the only one that wants bat speed for hitters? They always talk about guys getting a “slow bat” when they get older. Is that just BS? Also we know there is a relationship between a hitters ability to get the ball in the air and that hitters homerun potential. I always assumed it had to do with creating backspin. I also assumed that the quicker your swing was the more spin you could create. Hope someone can point me in the right direction.
I would love to know David Ortiz bat speed this year. Would explain a lot about his power being sapped if his bat speed from the past few years was available.
I second this motion.
Hit/FX is on its way this year, I believe. Matthew wrote about it a few months ago:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-start-of-hit-fx/
I’m imagining it will track bat speed, but I could be wrong there.
How would you track bat speed?
Is it the distance from start of swing to contact divided by the time? Not sure if this could be captured.
Do you measure it around contact (say 2ft before and after contact)? A side camera could possibly catch this but I would doubt it.
Are you measuring the speed at the tip of the bat or at the sweet spot?
Would it be possible to measure speed of the ball off the bat, then control for pitch velocity?
I would also like to know the bat speed for hitters. I second this.
Question about the pitchFX stuff…is there any record of the depth of release point? It seems that measurements assume every pitch is thrown from the same distance from home plate. That seems like a big assumption.
Keeping adding these usefull tools to this great site. But I havn’t seen too much pitch f/x analysis lately from you RJ.
This is awesome. Keep up the great work.
Is there any way on all these PITCHf/x things that you could give more granular markers I guess i.e. instead of just 65, 85, 105 lines, could you put in 80-85-90-95-100 markers? It’s pretty tough to tell velocity on the current graphs.
I feel the same way.
Think you can make an option to compare multiple games?
I recently checked in with my source over at MLBAM and he said that there is still no time table on the roll out of Hit F/X but that it will be out sometime during the 2009 season. With that being said, I do not think it will be tracking bat speed but more the initial trajectory of batted balls.