Patience, My Son
Slowly, but surely the Astros have become less patient at the plate
We noticed it during the season. My son and I marveled at how easy the Astros went down in some at-bats, innings and games.
There was very little patience at the plate, at least that’s the way it felt.
Some of it’s baked in and you take the good with the bad.
You’ve gotten used to Jose Altuve swinging at pitches out of the strike zone because, well, he’s Jose Altuve and has proved himself over 14 seasons.
And several times a year, he rockets the first pitch of the game, whether it’s in the strike zone or not, out of Minute Maid Park, so…
We didn’t have any “evidence” or “proof”, that’s just what we “felt” was happening.
Astros pitchers were walking too many batters and then the offense would turn around and go down on 6 or 7 pitches.
Maybe it was all in our heads.
I often tell him we notice the little things because we watch the Astros 162 times a year.
Other teams do “that” too, whatever “that” is at the time.
Like pop up with a man on third and one out or hit into double plays or make ridiculous outs on the bases.
But when I heard that the hitting coaches were given direction to “get the lineup more patient”, we somehow felt validated.
Still when I ran the numbers there appeared to be very little change at the team level year to year.
Pitches per plate appearance even went up from 2022 to 2023, from 3.79 to 3.81.
But then they dropped to 3.66 in 2024 (-3.9%).
What gives?
Well, it turns out I found something that Jose Abreu was good at with the Astros (4.05 pitches/at-bat).
And Trey Mancini (4.07).
And Jason Castro (4.19).
The Astros had some patient batters, it’s just that none of their “core” players have been very patient over the last three seasons, with one exception.
The team average number of pitches per plate appearances didn’t really go up or down that much, but oh those core players.
Of the 8 core players listed below each has seen less pitchers per plate appearance since 2022 except Kyle Tucker.
I should note that I did not include Jon Singleton or Yainer Diaz below.
Singleton because he wasn’t with the team in 2022 and saw limited time in 2023, but was good at this, seeing 4.02 pitches per plate appearance in 2024.
Yainer got a handful of at-bats in 2022, but his numbers for 2023 and 2024 were consistent - 3.44 pitches per appearance in both seasons.
Seeing it in table form above is one thing, but seeing it in the graph form below makes it well, even more graphic.
So, yes there’s a trend and it’s not just a few players, but rather the majority of players that play every day.
I’m not an MLB hitting coach, but it seems that players earlier in their career or on the margins probably have a better opportunity/incentive to change their habits, at least to some degree, but good luck getting veterans or stars to change at this stage.
It’s like the college basketball coach who was asked what he needed to do to get his team to shoot better from the free throw line and he answered, “Recruit better free throw shooters”.
Indeed.
I’m intrigued to see if the approach does indeed change or if it’s too late to teach “old” baseball players new tricks.
Thanks for reading!