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The classic "Go with the pitch" philosophy: |
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| Adrian proves the theory that it's better to go with outside pitches than to pull them. Below is a graphic that shows Beltre's Well-Hit Average on pitches Away from him that are put in play. Clearly, he is much better off using the whole field. |
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So how often does he go the other way? |
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Now that we know how well Beltre performs when he uses the middle and right side of the diamond with pitches Away from him, the question becomes, "How often does he do that"?
The graphic below shows how often Adrian hits an outside pitch to each side of the field. In his successful 2004 campaign, he drove the ball up the middle more, and less to the left side of the diamond:
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2 Stike Approach |
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Beltre is chasing quite a bit more with 2 strikes than without – especially on pitches AWAY from him. The typical major league hitter chases more pitches out of the zone with 2 strikes (around 31% of balls), but Beltre is chasing a whopping 47%. Furthermore, he has chased almost 60% of balls Away with 2 strikes.
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With 2 Strikes, Beltre has performed well with Fastballs, but he has struggled with NONFB’s, compared to 2004 and 2005. In particular, he is swinging and missing a lot more, and has hit only 8 of the 105 NONFB’s hard with 2 strikes |
The graphic below shows Beltre's 2 Strike performance by year on Fastballs and NonFastballs:
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