No Analysis Necessary: Freddie Freeman Fastball Location
June 30, 2012 at 8:34 pm by Kevin Orris under Atlanta Braves
At least once or twice a week I come across a pretty cool chart or statistic that Braves fans would find interesting. Sometimes I tweet about it, but most times I keep it to myself. It’s not because I’m selfish, but because this space has almost always been used for providing data with analysis. Today, I am bucking that trend.
I hope you enjoy the Heat Maps and metrics below:
Freeman in 2012 vs. inside fastballs: .385/.411/.712
Freeman in 2012 vs. outside fastballs: .157/.228/.196
(Hint: if you haven’t figured it out yet, teams have figured out to keep fastballs away from Freeman in the month of June.)
Loading ...
These are awesome. Thank you for posting them. Simple concept that one can think they see just by watching games that is illustrated with data. Now when I say to a buddy “seems like Freeman’s not getting pitched inside and it’s affecting his production,” I won’t be thinking (unless that’s just confirmation bias I am susceptible to…). I can back it up with “and if you don’t believe me, go check out those heat maps posted on Capitol Avenue Club, ya know nuthin’ corncob (hope I got that last part right).
And unlike last year when Freeman was taking those outside fastballs and driving them to CF and LF and doing damage this year he hasn’t had the same kind of success because he hasn’t done that as much.
Freeman’s sophomore season this year seems very similar to Heyward’s last year. Injury issues, and struggling to adjust to how pitchers are pitching him.
Freeman still has the highest LD% in all of baseball. I don’t think Freeman is falling victim to pitcher’s adjustments to him as much as Heyward was failing to adjust to getting pitched inside last year.