When I was watching a baseball game, a broadcaster indicated that one player, who’s from Asia, had difficulties in hitting pitches at 95mph or higher. Well, that’s interesting. So I went to the statcast website to check something.
Since statcast data available from 2015, I only selected Asian hitters who had plate appearances from 2015 to 2020.
Shogo Akiyama’s first season in the big league wasn’t impressive. However, it seems that he is fine against four seamers that are at least 95mph and his batting average is .438.
Jung Ho Kang played 4 seasons with the Pirates, he batted .254/.331/.466. In these 4 seasons, he batted .435 against four seamers that hit 95mph or higher. He posted an over .800 OPS in 2015 and 2016 each. Nonetheless, his off-field issues made him pay a huge price for his career.
Shin-Soo Choo has played 16 seasons in the MLB and he already crushed 218 home runs. From 2015 to 2020, he is hitting .304 when facing four seamers that are at least 95mph.
Now, let’s look at xwOBA against 4-seamers that hit 95 or higher. Jung Ho Kang, Shin-Soo Choo, Dae-Ho Lee, Shogo Akiyama and Shohei Ohtani each had an over .400 xwOBA. These players can truly make quality contact against high-velocity four-seamers. In the meantime, the league average xwOBA against at least 95mph 4-seamers was .320.
In addition, take a look at all pitches that hit 95mph or above. Shogo Akiyama batted .400. Jung Ho Kang, Shin-Soo Choo and Shohei Ohtani each hit over. 300. However, we see some players have problems when seeing pitches that are at least 95mph. 7 players failed to hit .200.
In his career so far, Shohei Ohtani has a .466 xwOBA against pitches that hit 95mph or above. Despite having a very frustrating 2020 season, he’s still a very good hitter in the league. It will be worth watching whether Ohtani can bounce back while at the same becoming a good pitcher in the 2021 season.
Shogo Akiyama, Jung Ho Kang, Shin-Soo Choo and Dae-Ho Lee each had an over .400 xwOBA when seeing pitches that are at least 95mph. Dae-Ho Lee only played one season in the majors. He slashed .253/.312/.428 with the Mariners in 2016 and returned to Korea the next year. On the chart, we can see that Tzu-Wei Lin and Munenori Kawasaki each had a below .250 xwOBA against these fast pitches. Some Asian players seem to be comfortable against high-velocity pitches. But some are not. In particular, for some players, who entered the MLB via the posting system, it usually requires some time for them to adjust to these high-velocity pitches because there are not as many flamethrowers in the professional baseball leagues in Asia as in the MLB. Recently, I listened to a podcast and a journalist mentioned that there are more hard throwing pitchers in the Pacific League (NPB, Japan) than in the Central League. In the 2019 season, Shogo Akiyama batted .303/.392/.471 with the Seibu Lions (Pacific League) and Yoshi Tsutsugo was hitting .272/.388/.511 with the Yokohama DeNA Baystars (Central League). There were two good hitters in NPB. However, it’s hard to tell why Akiyama hit better than Tsutsugo did when seeing high-velocity pitches in their first seasons in the MLB. Maybe Akiyama did face more hard throwing pitchers in Japan?
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