The Red Sox were one of the first teams to embrace the statistical revolution, hiring the father of that revolution, Bill James, as a consultant in 2003. While nearly nothing is known of his strategies within the team, the focus on obtaining players who get on base by any means necessary has been highlighted since Moneyball came out.
There is little question that this was a focus of the team back in 2004 and remains so today. The Sox have been drafting looking at this specific trait for more than a decade now and they are very good at it. In fact, they are among the best in baseball, finishing second in the AL in walks and first in OBP (by a lot). One of the ways they have done this is by seeing 3.9 pitches per plate appearance, second most in the AL.
Despite this, the Red Sox went from walking in 2.2% of plate appearances and striking out in just 18.4%, both second in the AL, to striking out in 28.7% of plate appearances in the ALDS and walking in just 1.8%. Yes, Boston hit 208 home runs and 343 doubles during the regular season and only hit 3 and 7 respectively while getting swept in three games in the ALDS, but those are more results than reasons. The Indians primary reason for dominance was getting ahead in the count with good strikes, then forcing the Sox to adjust from their game, becoming more aggressive than they are comfortable being.
For one small sample size, take a look at the way Indians pitchers attacked the man who could be voted MVP in 2016 (depending on how important playing for a play-off team is), Mookie Betts.
Betts batted .318/.363/.534 in the regular season, but just .200/.333/.300 in the ALDS. Now, any player can go extremely hot or cold in a three game set, but one would have to think the way Betts was attacked within the strike zone had something to do with it.
Betts has an extremely good grasp of the K-Zone and, while he doesn’t walk a ton, he doesn’t strike out much and almost never swings at pitches outside of the zone. As you can see on the left, during the regular season pitchers threw a surprising amount of pitches both right down the center of the plate and low and outside to begin an at bat. If you need to see why you shouldn’t pitch Betts right down the middle of the plate, look at the heat map below showing regular season average.
Like almost every hitter ever, Betts destroys balls in the middle of the plate, but like I said, he rarely swings at those low and inside. Pitching him the way he was predominantly thrown during the regular season is asking for trouble. Either you’re giving him a pitch he loves to hit or one he has no problem avoiding and setting him up for an even better 1-0 pitch. As can be seen by the original graphic, Indians pitchers stayed in the zone, but kept it low and on the corners, outside of Betts hot zone.
We don’t need to focus on this one too long, but the bright red spots in the middle show what happens when you get behind in the count as a pitcher. You need to come back over the middle of the plate and the results are generally ugly.
The way pitchers attacked Betts with an 0-1 count is the complete opposite. Completely avoiding the middle of the plate and focusing on pitching outside, Betts can longer avoid swinging at close pitches outside of the zone. Instead of swinging at 6.4% of pitches low and outside like with a 0-0 count, he swings at 20.9% in the same zone with an 0-1 count.
While Betts was the example, the Indians attacked the entire Red Sox line-up with this precision. In particular, Josh Tomlin and Trevor Bauer who walked one total batter in 9.2 innings. Add in a pair of relievers in Bryan Shaw and Dan Otero and they still walked just one batter in 13 innings. In fact, the first time any pitchers seemed out of control in the ALDS was in game three when Andrew Miller and Cody Allen had problems throwing strikes and it nearly lead to a Boston comeback.
While Betts was the subject above, I’m sure the player everyone would want to know about is David Ortiz. Rather than focusing outside on Ortiz, which is the general attack pattern, the Indians pitched him in the zone and inside. In just four at bats did the pitcher go down 1-0, then only two to 2-0 and the only 3-0 count Ortiz had was Tomlin’s lone walk. Indians pitchers were completely unwilling to let Ortiz beat them and they didn’t accomplish this by avoiding him (allowing him to beat them in a way, by walking), but by going at the big left hander and taking advantage of his patience.
The best way to attack a team that likes to take the first pitch of an at bat is to make that first pitch a strike. Similarly, the best way to attack an aggressive pitcher who has an extreme tendency to throw strikes to start an at bat is to become aggressive yourself. Corey Kluber is this kind of pitcher and in the past, the Royals in particular have taken advantage and been ready to swing from the heels at the first pitch. For the Red Sox, the Indians pitching staff was able to get them off their game. By game three, the legendary patience of Boston was gone
Instead of trying to work Tomlin deep into the count, the Red Sox were forced to stay aggressive as he refused to throw outside the strike zone early in the count. The results? He never threw more than 20 pitches in an inning and threw 16 or fewer in all but one inning. In the fourth, it took just eight pitches (seven strikes) to put down Brock Holt, Betts and Ortiz in order.
I mentioned that the Red Sox were second in walks and pitches seen per plate appearance during the regular season, but never said who was number one. The Toronto Blue Jays, who the Indians will face in the ALCS, took the Sox model to the next level. They didn’t score as many runs as the Indians or Red Sox or have as high of a slugging or on base percent, but they did take more walks and hit more home runs. The reason they were behind on the rate stats is due to batting average, which remains a huge component of the other numbers. If you take out the extra singles, no team walks or hits for power like the Blue Jays. The good thing for the Indians is that their pitching staff is uniquely suited for such an opponent.
The Tigers were right up there with a .331 OBP and .438 SLG and the Indians outscored them 106 to 71 while winning 14 of 4. They outscored the Red Sox 15-7 in the three game sweep of the ALDS. The Blue Jays are the best of the three teams at this game, but as long as the Indians can keep their hitters off balance with good first pitch strikes, there is no reason to believe the results will be any different.
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