Any statistical analysis on 1st pitch swinging?

[nate82]

What I am looking for is success of a batter who swings at the first pitch >35% of the time versus a batter who swings at the first pitch <35% of the time. I know the more pitches a batter will see the greater the chance there is a pitcher making a mistake pitch. What I would really like to prove is that there is really no difference between swinging at the first pitch versus taking the first pitch.

[logan82]

I am not sure what you would find of interest. I think most players hit better in favorable counts and most are more successful when they hit the first pitch. Pitch selection is the key.

[rluzinski]

I think it's a fair question. He's not asking, "Of people who put the ball in play on the first pitch, how do they do compared to a player who didn't swing". You can't just look at this kind of split:

 

http://www.baseball-refer...=b&lg=NL&year=2011#count

 

Because that "first pitch" split only includes PA's that ended at 0-0. Since you can't K on a 0-0 pitch, it's not surprising that batters have a nice slash line in that situation.

 

Pitch f/x data could answer your question pretty easy but you need to be able to manipulate a database to get it I think. You could try to extract it from here but I have not had luck:

 

http://www.joelefkowitz.com/recent_articles.php

 

There are some articles on the subject as well. Just google "swing at first pitch data" or something along those lines.