Roch: Hitting Coach Terry Crowley is coming back

[DrungoHazewood]

It's not using historical PECTOA comps, but that doesn't mean we don't have any data regarding Terry Crowley's performance. Here is some empirical evidence of the job Crowley has done. I posted this earlier in the thread, then realized I left the pitchers plate appearances in. I took them out, and here is a comparison of Terry Crowley vs other hitting coaches.

Again, this is using data from the 2006-2009 seasons. I took all the hitters who played under Terry Crowley who also played under another hitting coach during that same time frame. Some played on other teams before their time with Terry Crowley, some after and some both.

Under Terry Crowley: .266/.326/.415 in 14,770 PAs

Under other coaches: .257/.315/.389 in 14,825 PAs

That's interesting. I guess the baseline assumption is that things like aging, parks, leagues, opponents, etc all wash out. But that might be a bad assumption.

This supports the idea that Crowley doesn't actively hurt OBP. And it also, as Frobby mentions, says the O's have turned over a lot of bad baseball players.

[TiredofLosing20]

It's not using historical PECTOA comps, but that doesn't mean we don't have any data regarding Terry Crowley's performance. Here is some empirical evidence of the job Crowley has done. I posted this earlier in the thread, then realized I left the pitchers plate appearances in. I took them out, and here is a comparison of Terry Crowley vs other hitting coaches.

Again, this is using data from the 2006-2009 seasons. I took all the hitters who played under Terry Crowley who also played under another hitting coach during that same time frame. Some played on other teams before their time with Terry Crowley, some after and some both.

Under Terry Crowley: .266/.326/.415 in 14,770 PAs

Under other coaches: .257/.315/.389 in 14,825 PAs

Curious to understand why you chose those 4 years. Putting together that anaylsis could not have been easy to do. Kudos.

[hoosiers]

Watch the Yankees and Red Sox work counts. They get on base more than we do, even if they give up that hit you are talking about once in a while. They make pitchers throw more pitches, thus getting into the other team's bullpen in the 5th or 6th more often instead of the 7th or 8th, allowing them to see more mediocre relievers. They take their walk rather than swing at ball four, or they foul off pithces that they can hit somewhere rather than try to drive a pitch somewhere that is outside the zone and difficult ot hit.

The approach is obvious when you watch their games, and their success is also obvious. Are you telling me that you think that the approach that works for them is "nutty"?

The NYY core is composed of Tex and Arod - two top hitters they "bought" if you will. Not sure why the NYY obtaining those two bats, plus that of Swisher, in addition to a HOFer like Jeter and a near HOFer in Posada is used to reflect poorly on the Os approach. Concluding that the hitting approach of the team that signs Mark Texeira is better than the one of the team that signs Cesar Izturis is a dubious conclusion IMO.

Most data dealing specifically with the hitters who have worked with Terry Crowley demonstrate that those hitters, generally, have performed better with TC than without him.

[El Gordo]

Watch the Yankees and Red Sox work counts. They get on base more than we do, even if they give up that hit you are talking about once in a while. They make pitchers throw more pitches, thus getting into the other team's bullpen in the 5th or 6th more often instead of the 7th or 8th, allowing them to see more mediocre relievers. They take their walk rather than swing at ball four, or they foul off pithces that they can hit somewhere rather than try to drive a pitch somewhere that is outside the zone and difficult ot hit.

The approach is obvious when you watch their games, and their success is also obvious. Are you telling me that you think that the approach that works for them is "nutty"?

The Yankees can work the count more effectively because they have 7-8 guys in their lineup who are good 2 strike hitters. The O's have 3-4. You can't get blood from a turnip. Swinging at balls in the dirt or balls OZ is not the same thing as, "when you get your pitch put a good swing on it". If you have a good eye you can wait for that pitch until you get it or draw a walk. If you don't, you wil lkely swing at a pitch that looked good but wasn't, as often as driving it.

[KAZ97]

Curious to understand why you chose those 4 years. Putting together that anaylsis could not have been easy to do. Kudos.

Nothing particularly relevant about those four year. 2010 data is not available yet and 2006 is as far back as I cared to download. Eventually I'll download more historical data.

This is pretty interesting. I find it particularly interesting that these players' OBP and walk rate were higher under Crowley. Another observation: it's a pretty crappy group of players, regardless of where they were. So this pretty much supports the thesis that Crowley's not the problem, it's what he's had to work with that's the problem.

It seems to me that the walk rate is not higher under Crowley. The gain in OBP is almost entirely due to a rise in batting average. It seems to me that in terms of drawing a walk, Crowley's coaching is about the same as everyone else. Crowley does seem to be able to coach higher averages and power. That seems to be consistent with the theory that he is good with swing mechanics.

[Sports Guy]

Its good research but how much of what he had in 2006 was steroid induced power vs now?

How many of these guys were much younger under Crow? In their prime years? How much did parks factor into things? If he had them in OPACY, did they go from there to places like Petco, Safeco, etc.....?

My main point is that while it shows something, we don't really know how much it truly tells us.

[El Gordo]

How many hitting coaches have turned poor pitch recognition contact hitters into OBP machines. How many CPatt's or Jay Payton's have been remade into Bobby Abreu? I think expectations here are unrealistic.

[Stotle]

How many hitting coaches have turne poor pitch reconition contact hitters into OBP machines. How many CPatt's or Jay Payton's have been remade into Bobby Abreu? I think expectations here are unrealistic.

Bad to good is unrealistic. Bad to okay or okay to good doesn't seem that unrealistic to me.

And I'm not trying to be an ass about it, but did you have any thoughts on the Long article I showed you? It seems to support a least some of what I was stating about the Yankees, and it also seems to disprove at least some of your claims that Long isn't doing anything different than anyone else.

http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2010/10/quarky_home_run_drill_nets_hug.html

[KAZ97]

Its good research but how much of what he had in 2006 was steroid induced power vs now?

How many of these guys were much younger under Crow? In their prime years? How much did parks factor into things? If he had them in OPACY, did they go from there to places like Petco, Safeco, etc.....?

My main point is that while it shows something, we don't really know how much it truly tells us.

As Drungo points out, the assumption is that those things balance out. For example, if OPACY is roughly an average hitting environment, some players would come from more advantageous parks and some from less. Some players were younger under Crowley, some older, some were both younger and older when on other teams. I'm not aware of any reasons to believe there is a systematic bias here.

For example, there were slightly more plate appearance under other coaches in 2006 than under Crowley. So if any advantage was to be gained by steroid use in 2006, it would work against Crowley in that instance. I'd bet overall that it pretty much evens out over 30,000'ish plate appearances.

This supports the idea that Crowley doesn't actively hurt OBP. And it also, as Frobby mentions, says the O's have turned over a lot of bad baseball players.

You're not joking. Here's a sample of players that had more than 100 PA under Crowley and someone else:

Jay Payton, David Newhan, Chad Moeller, Ceasar Izturis, Alex Cintron, Raul Chavez, Juan Castro, Paul Bako, Oscar Salazar, Freddie Bynum.

[Frobby]

Its good research but how much of what he had in 2006 was steroid induced power vs now?

How many of these guys were much younger under Crow? In their prime years? How much did parks factor into things? If he had them in OPACY, did they go from there to places like Petco, Safeco, etc.....?

My main point is that while it shows something, we don't really know how much it truly tells us.

These are all good points, although you'd hope that with a fairly large group of players such as this a lot of that would come out in the wash.

[Frobby]

As Drungo points out, the assumption is that those things balance out. For example, if OPACY is roughly an average hitting environment, some players would come from more advantageous parks and some from less. Some players were younger under Crowley, some older, some were both younger and older when on other teams. I'm not aware of any reasons to believe there is a systematic bias here.

For example, there were slightly more plate appearance under other coaches in 2006 than under Crowley. So if any advantage was to be gained by steroid use in 2006, it would work against Crowley in that instance. I'd bet overall that it pretty much evens out of 30,000'ish plate appearances.

You're not joking. Here's a sample of players that had more than 100 PA under Crowley and someone else:

Jay Payton, David Newhan, Chad Moeller, Ceasar Izturis, Alex Cintron, Raul Chavez, Juan Castro, Paul Bako, Oscar Salazar, Freddie Bynum.

Questions: How many total players was it? Who were the 10 best, and what do their totals look like? What % of the at bats do they represent?

[El Gordo]

Bad to good is unrealistic. Bad to okay or okay to good doesn't seem that unrealistic to me.

And I'm not trying to be an ass about it, but did you have any thoughts on the Long article I showed you? It seems to support a least some of what I was stating about the Yankees, and it also seems to disprove at least some of your claims that Long isn't doing anything different than anyone else.

http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2010/10/quarky_home_run_drill_nets_hug.html

The drill Long does with Cano is similar to the one Crowley did with Nick. I believe Crow used some kind of elastic bands to help keep Nicks arms in instead of a fence over the plate. Same basic idea. The key point is being able to develop a relationship with the players, and get them to make adjustments. They all tend to want to dance with what brung 'em, and got them that $$M ML contract, and it's hard accept making changes from a guy who is making peanuts in comparison. I would like to know how much better you think Jay Payton's , CPatt's, Tejada's, Wigginton's, AJ's, Pie's, etc., OBP would be if Long were their hitting coach and what new drills would he be employing to achieve this?

[CSB Jack]

Watch the Yankees and Red Sox work counts. They get on base more than we do, even if they give up that hit you are talking about once in a while. They make pitchers throw more pitches, thus getting into the other team's bullpen in the 5th or 6th more often instead of the 7th or 8th, allowing them to see more mediocre relievers. They take their walk rather than swing at ball four, or they foul off pithces that they can hit somewhere rather than try to drive a pitch somewhere that is outside the zone and difficult ot hit.

The approach is obvious when you watch their games, and their success is also obvious. Are you telling me that you think that the approach that works for them is "nutty"?

Maybe it's perception on my part, but I also think they work umpires. Even last night I saw Swisher having a talk with the ump when he had the audacity to call one of Lee's pitches on the outside corner at the knees a strike. We know how A-Rod had his say with the ump right before taking a third strike from Koji that was called a ball before hitting the next pitch out. I don't believe these are isolated incidents.

Taking pitches early in the count that you can't drive should be emphasized to the hitters. Taking pitches that you can drive at any point in the count should not be encouraged as a standard practice. Applying this to Swisher's at bat, he should not have swung at Lee's pitch anyway, because it was the first one of the at bat and not one to drive. But if it gets called a ball instead of a strike then the hitter is in a favorable position to be even choosier for the next several pitches. If it's called a strike, he has to be a little less selective sooner than the other way around.

[KAZ97]

Questions: How many total players was it? Who were the 10 best, and what do their totals look like? What % of the at bats do they represent?

Only for you Frobby.

There were 42 players total. I don't know who the "best" players were, but these are the ten players who contributed the most data:

Miguel Tejada, Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar, Ty Wiggington, Ramon Hernandez, Luke Scott, Corey Patterson, Jay Payton, Cesar Izturis, Gregg Zaun.

Those ten contributed 60% of the data.

I see no reason why we should throw out 40% of the data in this scenario, but regardless, because you asked, here is the comparison between coaches.

Under Terry Crowley: .271/.334/.431

Under other coaches: .269/.328/.425

[Frobby]

Only for you Frobby.

There were 42 players total. I don't know who the "best" players were, but these are the ten players who contributed the most data:

Miguel Tejada, Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar, Ty Wiggington, Ramon Hernandez, Luke Scott, Corey Patterson, Jay Payton, Cesar Izturis, Gregg Zaun.

Those ten contributed 60% of the data.

I see no reason why we should throw out 40% of the data in this scenario, but regardless, because you asked, here is the comparison between coaches.

Under Terry Crowley: .271/.334/.431

Under other coaches: .269/.328/.425

I mainly asked because I wanted to see if I could detect any pattern in who these players were that might play into the issues raised by SG. Obviously, these are 10 very experienced players. Do I understand that the data you collected from them is their entire careers pre/post Crowley and with Crowley? Or were you only looking at what they did during 2006-09? And how many of the PA's did this group represent pre/post and during Crowley? I'm not sure my questions lead anywhere specific, I'm just probing.