A Pitcher’s Guide To: Ozzie Albies
In this week’s edition of “A Pitcher’s Guide To…” we are going to be looking at the Atlanta Braves’ young phenom Ozzie Albies. At only 23 years old, this switch-hitting second baseman from Curaçao is on a trajectory to be one of league’s top infielders. Last year he snagged the Silver Slugger award for second basemen and put up a 5.2 WAR while hitting 24 HRs and batting a solid .295.
What can pitchers do to get him out?
The Platoon Advantage:
Despite being a switch-hitter, if you are a right handed pitcher you have a much better chance against Albies. In his 1,217 career PAs from the left side of the plate, Albies has hit 33 HRs and put up a .253 batting average and a .430 SLG. Respectable numbers, but in his 413 PAs as a righty he has blasted 21 HRs, put up a stellar .355 BA and a whopping .596 slugging percentage. As a righty, Albies hits home runs approximately twice as often and has over a 100 point difference in batting average.
The graphs to the left give a visual representation of this difference. The hexagons indicate Albies’ estimated batting average at pitches in that zone and you’ll notice that in the bottom figure, Albies’ estimated batting average is higher pretty much everywhere in the strikezone. Granted, the sample size is much smaller for Albies as a righty, but the difference is simply too large to overlook the fact that Albies is a much more dangerous hitter from the right.
Okay so we know that Albies is much harder to get out as a righty but how should you actually pitch to him? Looking at the previous graphs, when hitting from the left there appears to be a cluster of lighter hexagons in the upper third of the zone where pitchers should pepper him with fastballs. When Albies bats from the right it’s a whole different story. There really doesn’t seem to be a spot where Albies consistently hits poorly as a righty. There’s a small cluster of hexagons in the upper left and lower right corners of the zone that are lighter than the others but even those aren’t necessarily ‘cold spots’, they’re more like a ‘less hot spots’.
It might look like pitching to Albies when he’s hitting from the right is a lost cause but let’s look at his pitch specific hotspots to see if they can expose a weakness.
These graphs show Albies’ hotspot breakdowns against fastballs as a lefty and a righty. When hitting from the left side, the large cluster of red hexagons in the lower right corner of the top graph suggests that Albies crushes fastballs in this quadrant. Pitchers should avoid throwing their heaters in this area as much as they can, even if it’s out of the zone Albies hits fastballs down there very well. However, there is a large collection of lighter hexagons in the upper right part of the zone where Albies appears to struggle. Pitchers should aim to challenge Albies there.
Once again, when Albies hits from the right it’s a much more difficult situation. On average, hexagons appear to be lighter on the left third part of the zone so pitchers might want to try and jam Albies there but everywhere else Albies can whack the ball very well.
Against off-speed pitches we see a similar platoon split. When batting from the left, it appears that Albies does well on pitches on the middle-right half of the plate but struggles more on the outer third. There does appear to be a small cluster of hexagons in the upper part of the zone but that is most likely a result of Albies facing fewer pitches up there. I would not recommend hanging breaking balls up there regardless of what side of the plate Albies is hitting from.
As you’ve probably figured out by now, when hitting from the right, Albies does much better all around against off-speed pitches. However, there is an area in the lower right corner of the zone where the hexagons are lighter than the rest so lefty pitchers may want to try experimenting with backdoor sliders or changeups low and away when facing Albies.
Next we are gonna take a look at Albies’ swing rate to see if there are certain spots where pitchers can get him to chase more often than others.
These graphs show Albies’ swing rate against fastballs at different spots in the strikezone. The darker the hexagon, the more often he swings. The first point of interest in this data is that Albies seems to be much more aggressive as a righty as is indicated by the darker hexagons overall in the bottom graph. Albies’ stats seem to support this hypothesis as he touts a 7.5% walk rate as a lefty but as a righty that number drops to a measly 4.8%. The next thing pitchers should note is that when hitting from the right, Albies chases fastballs above the zone with high frequency; pitchers should use this to their advantage. Surprisingly, the data shows the opposite is true when Albies bats from the left. Albies seems to chase low fastballs at a high rate while not offering at high fastballs nearly as much as a lefty.
Against off-speed pitches, we see the same pattern of Albies being more aggressive all around on the right side. However, as a lefty the graph shows that Albies will chase breaking balls well beneath the zone at a very high rate. Pitchers should abuse this as much as possible and get him to chase at curveballs in the dirt. From the right we see a similar trend although it does not look as drastic so lefty pitchers might find it harder to get Albies to fish for balls in the dirt.
Summary: Before we get into how Albies hits in specific counts we’ll recap the key points pitchers should remember.
- Albies is much more dangerous when hitting from the right side.
- Batting Lefty: Elevate fastballs, Batting Righty: Try and jam him.
- Keep soft stuff on the outer part of the plate (both as a righty and lefty).
- Albies is more aggressive as a righty.
- Batting Lefty: Chases fastballs low. Batting Righty: Chases fastballs high
- Chases breaking balls below the zone very often (both sides of the plate)
Count Specific Breakdowns:
With a 43.8% swing rate on first pitches, Ozzie Albies is one of the more liberal swingers in the big leagues. If pitchers try and sneak in an easy first pitch strike Ozzie will make them pay as he hits .367 on 0–0 counts. However, Albies’ aggressiveness can be exploited as he will often chase pitches below the zone even on the first pitch.
If pitchers do this they should remember that if Albies gets his bat on a fastball low it usually goes well for him.
If you look at the graph above showing Albies’ swing rate on 0–1 you’ll notice that it looks very similar to his swing rate on 0–0 except everything is darker. This means that Albies swings more at pitches across the board in 0–1 counts. However, the distribution of hexagons remains roughly the same so the strategies on 0–0 counts can be applied to 0–1 counts with a higher probability of success. Albies still chases pitches low so a breaking ball or fastball below the zone could very easily incite a swing and miss.
Once down 0–2 there are a plethora of options for pitchers. The option to get a chase below the zone still remains a viable choice but Albies also seems to chase pitches out of the zone on the left with a high frequency. Challenging him with a fastball up and in also might not be a bad option as he usually struggles with high heat.
Keys to pitching to Ozzie Albies:
- Be a righty
- Use his aggressiveness against him.
- Bury off-speed stuff in the dirt, he chases it very often
If you made it this far, thank you for reading and feel free to leave me any suggestions/criticisms you may have to help me improve this series. All visualizations were made by using the Python library matplotlib and the data was collected from StatCast using the PyBaseball library.
