Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Inge Showing Patience

We all know that Brandon Inge is off to a tremendous start offensively. A line of .328/.442/.688 with 7 homers in the first month is not what we expected from Inge. We know about his new stance and approach but I also wanted to take a look at the fangraphs statistics to get a clearer picture of what's happening.

Table 1 below looks at Inge's plate discipline. The 2009 sample is small but he is swinging at smaller percentage of pitches outside the strike zone (OSWING%) this year. It was as high as 23.3% in 2007, fell to 20.4% last year and is down to 18.6% this year. He is also swinging at a smaller percentage of pitches inside the zone (ZSWING%). After swinging at over 60% of pitches in the zone the last two years, he is down to 56.5% so far in 2009. When he does swing he is making contact more frequently (75.5% in 2008 and 78.8% in 2009).

Table 1: Plate Discipline Stats - Brandon Inge

Year

OSwing%

ZSwing%

Contact%

2007

23.3

63.0

74.4

2008

20.4

60.1

75.8

2009

18.6

56.5

78.8


Table 2 shows that the the result of his increased patience is more walks and fewer strikeouts. He walked in 8.5% of his plate appearances in 2007, 11.0% in 2008 and 14.7% this year. His strikeouts have gone in the opposite direction (29.5% in 2007, 27.1% in 2008 and 20.3% in 2009).

Table 2 - Walks and Strikeouts - Brandon Inge

Year

BB%

K%

K/BB

2007

8.5

29.5

3.5

2008

11.0

27.1

2.5

2009

14.7

20.3

1.4


Why all the home runs? The batted ball data in Table 3 so that he is actually hitting fewer balls in the air so far this year. His ground ball percentage is up from 37.1% last year to 45.1% this year. His line drive percentage is down (16.4% in 2008 and 9.8% this year). His Fly ball percentage is about the same but his home run per fly ball is way up (9.2% last year to 30.4% this year). So, he's hitting the ball in the air less but when he does hit one, it really goes.

Table 3 - Batted Ball Data - Brandon Inge

Year

LD%

GB%

FB%

HR/FB

2007

22.0

37.0

40.9

9.5

2008

16.4

37.1

46.5

9.2

2009

9.8

45.1

45.1

30.4


It's too early to make any conclusions but the lower swing percentage along with more walks and fewer strikeouts is interesting and worth watching. His home run rate is fluky but getting back to his 14.3% HR/FB rate in 2006 is certainly possible.

4 comments:

  1. Great piece, I linked to it for a piece on my blog today at www.jelletlambie.wordpress.com - thanks for the great read, love the site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I went to the Tiger game last night. Please read my review, not of the game, but the outrageous cost of food and drink. Only 24 dollars a gallon for water. Click here. Comments welcomed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris in DallasApril 30, 2009

    Good piece, Lee. I'd like to see some data of his swing % with/without scraggly facial hair, though...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Chris, They don't have hair split stats for Inge. Those are only available for Ordonez.

    ReplyDelete

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