Billy Hamilton and working the count

With the Louisville Bats’ season coming to an end and the soon-to-be 23 year old Hamilton getting the Big League call, it gives us a chance to look back at his full season of work at the Triple-A level.

The speed numbers are impressive, as expected: 75 stolen bases in 90 attempts. Hamilton alone had more stolen bases than two International League teams. And the remarkably efficient 83.3% rate is nothing to sell short, either.

What wasn’t as impressive, though, was his offensive productivity; first base is the only one he can’t steal, but it’s the most important one. Around the mid-season point I asked the question: Is Billy Hamilton worth the hype?

In that post I attempted to quantify the boost his speed brings to a club on the bases and in the outfield. For a player with B-Ham’s skill set though we can take the speed as a given; the crucial factor is what he can produce offensively (i.e. get on base).

This factor is what will determine whether he develops into a superstar or is simply a starter in the Majors.

His first season at the Triple-A level yielded an unimpressive .256/.308/.343 slash line. Beyond that, what should be of foremost concern for the Reds and Reds’ fans alike was the fact that he drew just 38 walks, for a pedestrian 6.9% walk rate.

At the time of my earlier discussion B-Ham’s BB% hovered around 8% which, for a lead off hitter, isn’t particularly impressive. Of course it’s not reasonable to expect Hamilton to develop the discipline of Shin-Soo Choo, but you’d like him to at least be somewhere north of the last speedy CF prospect to come through the organization, Drew Stubbs (career walk rate 8.7%).

In addition to this less substantive analysis, I decided to go back and chart all 547 Plate Appearances for Billy Hamilton this season, and see what I could find. I looked at his first pitch swing percentage, the count which he put the ball in play, his average in each of those situations, and lots more, trying to draw out some trends. The deeper I delved, the more interesting things became.

First, his first pitch swing rate for every at-bat and the end result:

First PitchHits/AbsBASwing51/1980.258No Swing78/3060.255
So, he swings at the first pitch about 37% of his PAs, but whether he swings at the first pitch or not, the end result as it pertains to his batting average is essentially the same.

That being said, his 37% first swing rate is very high. According to this article from Fangraphs, that rate has been under 10% for the past 10 years. The aggressiveness that makes him amazing on the bases is making him sub-par at the plate.

A little deeper, looking at the frequency with which he puts the ball in play by count:

And his batting average in those counts:

With the red line representing his season average, it’s easy to see in which counts Hamilton thrived and which he struggled. The 3–0 and 3–2 counts should of course be taken in context, as three ball counts are the only ones in this model which can yield a walk.

Of particular interest is the 0–0 count. While he performed about 30 points above his season average (.288) when putting the first pitch in play, the MLB average is around .330; most importantly, however, is the .520+ slugging percentage in these cases. Hamilton is by no means a power hitter, thus the risk-reward of first-pitch hacking works against him.

So, we have a player whose offensive utility is based almost entirely on his ability to get on base. We’ve learned that whether he swings at the first pitch or not, his batting average is largely unaffected. What was left was a huge surprise to me.

It was one very simple variable which played an enormous role in his ability to reach base: did he swing at the first pitch?

That lone factor played out huge: 35 out of his 38 walks came after looking at the pitcher’s initial offering.

A good portion of those appearances which ended in a walk started with ball one (29 of 35), yet only 183 of Hamilton’s 547 PAs did so. The MLB average for first-pitch strike is around 59%, against B-Ham it was 66.5%.

It shows how quick the tide of an at-bat can change, and how important each and every pitch is. It also raises the question as to whether there’s still some adjustment period needed for Hamilton, to learn to work the count and not become overly aggressive even when behind in the count.

Here is the same table that I started with, taking what B-Ham did on the first pitch and the eventual outcome, but now including OBP and BB%:

First PitchHits/AbsBAOBPBB%Swing51/1980.2580.2661.47%No Swing78/3060.2550.32910.17%
If you’re pegged as the lead off man of the future and your walk rate is 6.9%, it’s obvious what needs to be done, but how it should be done is not so easy.

Looking at this huge contrast between his walk rate based only on whether or not he swings at the first pitch, I think that’s a good start.