Image credit: © Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
Translated by José M. Hernández Lagunes
It is not fair to say that Brandon Drury He guessed a line – the dish is clearly marked, so all swings are technically deceptive – but he felt like a riddle. AARON CIVALE He was breasting in an unimportant departure at the end of the season, needing 46 launches to knead five outs, and the last three had put down 3 and nothing. Civale launched a cutter right to the heart of the plate at 89 mph and then had to pretend surprise for what happened next. After all, the conditions were perfect: the Angels had two outs and runners in second and third, with the initial unemployed; Neither the batter nor the player in the waiting circle were going to see a more powerful launch. Dury, to top it off, is (was it?) Was it?) An excellent 3-0 batter, with a total of four home runs in eight swings in his career, and a batting line of .326/.699/.935 from that launch onwards. The ball landed deep in the stands of the left garden and put Los Angels above 6-0.
That day was September 20, 2023. The Angels have not connected a single hit with a 3 account since then.
Before, the green light was an organizational philosophy, but it seems that it is no longer. Three teams have not seen any batter hit with a 3-0 account: the rockies (which many have not seen), the cardinals and the rays, teams that occupied positions 10, 15 and 26 in the category last year, respectively. The Athletics were the last bastion of forced red light, but the team has already hit four times this year, after having done it seven times in all 2023. The green light has become greener with time, until April of this year. In this graph, the blue line represents the swing rate (left axis) and the orange line is the woba (right axis) with a 3-0 account.
The Swing and Woba rate in launches with a 3-0 account tend to be slightly related, and with reason: the woba value of a ball base is maintained in .697, and the value of a swing has never matched it. This is because the ball rate at Swings with a 3-0 account is only 40%, only a few percentage points higher than the general rate (36.8% in 2025). The batters do not seek contact, and rightly. They are looking for extra Bases.
But, of course, not all launches with a 3-0 account are the same. What you would like to see, as a manager, is that a batter accepts all the launches outside the area and abanique with hatred any launch in the area that probably produces a woba of .479, which is the average of the batters with a 3-1 account. In other words, they just have to hit like Aaron Judge To justify remove the shoulder bat. And they do, by little: so far this season, the league has barely overcome the threshold, with a .518 woba in 3-0 swings. Unfortunately, to take advantage of that level of aggressiveness, they have also made swing to the ball four times on 17 occasions, losing any gain that they could have achieved.
But there should be an additional advantage. For a century, the 3-0 was considered almost an automatic Strike, both for the pitchers and for batters and even the umpires. Being more aggressive on the dish, they should have forced the pitchers to be careful and avoid the center of the area, which resulted in a higher base rate by balls. What has happened is the opposite ( % of orange line zone, % blue line contact in 3-0):
If the pitchers noticed that the batters fanned more, they did not really affect their strategy. The batters did not intimidate them by fansing more, and it is easy to see why with the previous Woba curve: everything turned out to be a draw. The most surprising revelation on the green light, a favorite theme of bars and commentators, is the little that really matters at the entire league. Fan or receive the launch, launch strikes or balls, it really does not seem to import. The League has found its level. The best strategy of two strikes for a batter is never to reach a count of two strikes; For the pitchers, it is the same with the three ball.
We do not have a specific version of Seager for counting, but as the three ball count represents a kind of behavioral event horizon, we can simulate a simple substitution. Essentially, a batter would want to receive any launch that was four, and any boundary Strike, assuming that it would be difficult to connect a double with it. For our purposes, those are the shadow, persecution and waste areas of the MLB. Where more aggressiveness is sought is in the center of the dish – not necessarily 100%, because you do not want to Isiah Kiner-Fear Be up there, hitting strongly – to take advantage of bad releases. And what we see is mainly that (shadow/persecution bluish, Oranges center swings):
The batters have been letting bad launches at the same rhythm always, but they have generally become more aggressive with pitches to the heart, until this year. Perhaps due to the cold of April, the batters have been rejecting the green light at a rate not seen in a decade, preferring their opportunities to get the fourth ball at another time from the bat. And although in general, knowledge seeks to defend selective aggression, Seager Seager and the power of the Swing to the first launch, in this case the discretion has given rise to a touch of courage. Receiving ball base has proven to be a safe mathematical bet.
Returning to our poor Angels of Los Angeles, there is at least a great reason why the Angels have not connected hits in their last 17 swings since the beginning of 2024 (for those who take the account at home: six strikeouts, five fouls and six outs at stake). That reason is that Mike Trout He has not connected one of them. The future member of the Hall of Fame has seen launches with a 3-0 mark in 10 counts in the last two years. Six were Bola Cuatro, three Strikes followed by Bola Cuatro, and one ended up being out. He has put into play a launch with a 3-0 mark only 11 times in his 15 years of race, the most recent in May 2023, when he connected a syndaker between the central garden and the right of Hit. It is possible that you have done more damage with some of those releases over the years, but a line of .351/.840/.702 will have to settle.
As mentioned, the Tampa Bay Rays are one of the two and a half teams that have not yet hit with a 3-0 mark. Yandy Díaz has failed in six of those releases and has all received them as strikes; Given his batting this year, you would probably accept it. José Caballero has five, and knows that he wants to walk anyway. Taylor Walls He has seen four, and if he even moves the bat, you have to fine it. But Jonathan Aranda… Aranda knows how to hit. He hits the lines very well. And when you have Paul scenes In 3-0, you have to think that this is the best release you will see all day, and …
… Well, it doesn’t matter. But when you have Ryan Borucki In the mound and you win 5-0 … Look, Aranda has only seen six of these, there are not many to work with. But you can close your eyes and see it. A flat line that goes to 93 mph, just for the bedroom, a launch so heavy that it seems that it could connect an uppercut with the fist and put it on the second floor. It feels like a waste to let it pass. A lost opportunity.
Aranda took its base by balls with the following release. This is how it almost always comes out. As it is supposed to leave, for years and years.
Thank you for reading
This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.
Subscribe now
