Let’s talk about M-M-P, Let’s talk about the I-Ivy, Let’s talk about all the good things And the bad things that may be, ‘Stros baby
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So after a bad rendition of Salt-n-Pepa lets get into this. The Astros home documentation have been fairly well documented. Astros players have blamed the batters eye for there Struggles at home.
So there you have it pretty simply the Astros hitters are below league average at home, but then again so are their opponents. But their opponents also hit Astros pitching much better in MMP than they did when the Astros were on the road making us a total road team. But after reading an article about the Batters eye in Petco, I thought I might dig a little deeper into the subject. Against Pitchers with a 4.5' release point or lower:
This sample size is a little too small for us too take anything from it. Against Pitchers with between a 4.5'(inclusive) release point and a 5.0'(exclusive) release point
Disappointing results at home but it is again a really small sample size. Against Pitchers with between a 5.0'(inclusive) release point and a 5.5'(exclusive) release point
We are starting to get into better sample sizes and the Astros are obviously struggling to hit pitchers with this release point height. Against Pitchers with between a 5.5'(inclusive) release point and a 6.0'(exclusive) release point
Astros are hitting a little under league average at home here. Against Pitchers with over 6'(inclusive)
Astros are above league average at home here. So what can we learn from this. A comment from u/dirtysock47 actually gave me the insight I think we might need here. The Astros in 2022 had a .779 OPS at MMP but a .736 OPS at MMP in 2023. So why the drastic change in 2023 when we retained most of our lineup. (Abreu in 2023 and yuli in 2022 were somewhat comparable by OPS).
So one of the most obvious external factors added in 2023 was the pitch clock. In the NFL EDGE players watch the ball but keep a mental count of the clock to time up their rush if the opposing QB lets the clock approach 0. Could it be that the new pitch clock is throwing off the Astros batters routine at the plate? Certainly not impossible but lets see if we can approach a more definitive answer. So Let's put the Astros OPS at home into a table
If we take out the <4.5 due to a small sample size, the Astros numbers progressively get higher as the pitchers release height gets higher. Looking at the table the group that sticks out the most to me is 5.5-6. And here in I think the answer lies. The H in the Ivy. Notice that the H is a slightly darker color. And lets look at this video of Pablo Lopez pitching (Lopez's release point is 5.52) Lopez arm starts just below the H A little hard to see because altuve is bunting but notice how lopez hand is about to go right into the H. The ball is coming towards altuve playing footsie with the bottom point of the star. Changing the color of the backdrop of the ball even if it is just from green to dark green makes it harder on our batters to pick up the ball. Most other ball parks have a blank batters eye with a solid color. SD batters eye without the ivy While the H in the middle of the ivy may look nice, I believe that it is what is causing the problems for our batters. That said it is certainly far from definitive considering that the H has been there long before the struggles began. Then again players have been complaining about MMP since the ivy was installed, most notably Mike trout who has struggled to hit at MMP for a long time. Why are the problems just starting now? I have no idea, it may be some combination of looking at the pitch clock and the change in ivy color that has finally drawn out our struggles. submitted by /u/Exiled_Wolves |
