Mike Cameron and Strikes

by Nicole Haase on May 29, 2009 1:00 PM CDT

I saw this leaderboard about a week ago over at FanGraphs and was shocked to see Mike Cameron near the top in O-Swing%, or the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.

I mean, Cam has been known for his high number of strikeouts over his career, so to see that he doesn't have a propensity for swinging at bad pitches struck me as odd.

Turns out that Cam's had a good eye about that throughout his career despite his high number of strikeouts.

Year	2009	2008	2007	2006	2004	2003	2002
MLB Rank in SO	51	13	5	12	13	10	2
MLB Rank in O-Swing%	5	11	34	23	49	28	55

(2005 not included because Cam only played 76 games)

Clearly this season's SO numbers are much better than his career so far, but it's probably safe to assume that will regress as the season goes on.

The thing is, I can't decide what, if anything, we can take from this. I've been sitting on this for a week, hoping to come up with something better than "well, that's weird," but here I am with nothing better.

I absolutely find it strange that a guy who is known for striking out has been among the best in the league at not chasing balls over the past season and a half. And while his rank in O-Swing% hasn't been top 20 every season, it's high enough to say that this isn't a new development for Cam, I think.

But how is it possible for a guy to have a good enough eye to know that the pitch isn't in his strike zone, but then swing and miss at pitches that are in his wheelhouse?

One stat I was looking for but I wasn't able to find was a breakdown of Cam's career strikeouts in terms of whether they were swinging or looking. One possible explanation here is that Cam is taking a lot of called strikes, but I wasn't able to find evidence to support that.

As an aside, does this put Cam on the same "great eye, no coordination" level of Rickie Weeks? This takes us away from what the statistics mean, but in discussing it with KL Snow, he compared the two.

There are those that will shudder to lower Cam to Rickie's level, but look at it the other way - who out there wouldn't be thrilled with a 250 HR and SB career from Rickie? Assuming he can stay healthy, with his speed, isn't Cam's career like a best case scenario for Rickie?

Since I couldn't come up with any big conclusions, I'll leave it to you all.

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I was confused

I saw this leaderboard about a week ago over at FanGraphs and was shocked to see Mike Cameron near the top in O-Swing%, or the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.

I mean, Cam has been known for his high number of strikeouts over his career, so to see that he doesn’t have a propensity for swinging at bad pitches struck me as odd.

I was temporarily confused. As I didn’t know what the league-average OSwing % was, when I saw that someone was a “leader” in O-Swing%, I assumed that mean that you were looking at those with the highest O-Swing%, rather than those with the “best” O-Swing%, which is actually the lowest percentage.

I’m all better now. But hopefully that clarifies things for someone else as dumb as me.

by PagsBrewCrew on May 29, 2009 1:42 PM CDT reply actions

Same here.

Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".

by tcyoung on May 29, 2009 1:56 PM CDT up reply actions

Cameron is not a great breaking ball hitter

by jimf on May 29, 2009 2:42 PM CDT reply actions

This is a little complicated

Nicole can’t post from work, so this is from her, suggested to her by TheJay:

It looks like Cam has struck out looking 36% of the time he has struck out (the L/SO column). The MLB average over the length of his career is 26%, so that could explain why he strikes out more than you and I would think based on his batting eye.

"I didn't realize his velocity was that high," said Macha, noting that radar readings aren't flashed during exhibition games.

by battlekow on May 29, 2009 3:19 PM CDT reply actions

It's like the telephone game from elementary school

It is complicated, though.

I was referring to data on each player’s batting stats page on Baseball-Reference. You get there by clicking More Stats next to Standard Batting on the main page. Here is Cameron’s.

Halfway down there’s a section called Pitch Summary — Batting*. It has info on pitches faced and the percentage of strikes that were looking, swinging, and fouled off. It also has a column, L/SO, that tells the percentage of strikeouts looking. Cameron’s is 36% for his career and the MLB average is 26%.

Obscure baseball records and more at my blog, Recondite Baseball.

by TheJay on May 29, 2009 5:44 PM CDT up reply actions

So, let me see if I got this right...

The % that you gave is the % of balls they swing at outside the strike zone, so lower is better?

by cubsfaninatl on May 29, 2009 5:01 PM CDT reply actions

yep

by PagsBrewCrew on May 29, 2009 11:32 PM CDT up reply actions

Correct

I’m sorry – I thought it was more clear – probably because I’ve been going over and over it, so it makes sense to me!

Of every pitch that Cam sees, that’s the percentage of times he swings at a pitch outside of the strike zone. Lower is indeed better.

What it’s saying is that Cam rarely swings at pitches outside of the strike zone – so much so that he’s often among the best, that is, has the lowest O-Swing%, in the league season after season.

by Nicole Haase on May 29, 2009 5:33 PM CDT reply actions

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