Nick Won't Chase

FanGraphs has a new section on their player pages - batter plate discipline.

" * O-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.
* Z-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone.
* Swing%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at.
* O-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat.
* Z-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with inside the strike zone when swinging the bat.
* Contact%: The overall percentage of a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat.
* Zone%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone."

I looked at the MLB leaderboard for the stats, and guess who's third this year in swinging at the fewest pitches out of the zone? That would be Nick Markakis. He's at just 11.6% (down from about 23% the last two years), which puts him behind only Nick Johnson and Frank Thomas. Markakis is making contact with the pitches out of the zone that he swings at a high rate (70% vs. league average at 60.8%) but is missing pitches in the zone more than average (82.3% contact rate vs. 88.2% average). Nice to see Nick putting that eye to good use this year. Hopefully he can put better swings on the ball when he gets it in the zone.

Adam Jones has actually done a pretty good job, reducing the rate at which he swings at pitches out of the zone (28.3% - below average, but right there with Miguel Cabrera) from last year, and actually making contact with those pitches at an average rate.

I'll look at these stats on a team level at some point.