Thursday, May 7, 2009

How do the Astros swing it, and against what?

A friendly note from Buster Olney, in this morning's blog post:
Recently, I had a conversation with a member of the Milwaukee Brewers coaching staff who mentioned that the Giants' pitching staff had kept throwing soft stuff against Milwaukee. Obviously, this has the Brewers believing that other teams believe Milwaukee can hit fastballs better than off-speed stuff. So I e-mailed Jonathan Costa, a statistics analyst for ESPN, to ask whether he had some numbers about how teams fared, in total, against fastballs, against changeups, etc. And Jonathan did not disappoint:

I'm not going to give you the rundown on each team, but here are the Astros averages against FBs, Changeups, Curves, and Sliders compared to the League average...

Fastballs:
Astros - .284 (16th)
League Avg - .287

Changeups:
Astros - .243 (17th)
League Avg - .249

Curveballs:
Astros - .141 (27th)
Avg - .205

Sliders:
Astros - .238 (11th)
Avg - .217