A few weeks ago, I took a look at Carlos Santana’s swing-take profile, one of the newest tools from Statcast/over at baseballsavant.com. We do not yet know how predictive the tool is, but there are certainly some trends present. These profiles also exist for pitchers, pulling from a much larger sample size than hitters, as they throw more tracked pitches than a hitter sees in a given season.
Pitching is a beautifully complex endeavor, but the broader goal is simple – do not get beat in the middle of the zone. Shane Bieber took it one step further in 2019, according to our new friend, swing-take.