First pitch, swing?

Last weekend, I was watching a baseball game with some friends. In the bottom of the 7th inning, the batter swung at the first pitch. Boom! It was a home run and the home team took the lead.

In the 2021 season, some players didn’t waste time and they like to swing at the first pitch. During the regular season, Bo Bichette swung at the first pitch 319 times. Is swinging at the first pitch a good idea for Bichette? In the 2021 season, he had a .462 batting average when swinging at the first pitch and, in total, Bichette had 49 hits and 6 home runs. It seems that swinging at the first pitch is ideal for Bichette. Additionally, Bichette’s teammate, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a great 2021 season and he slashed .311/.401/.601 with 48 home runs and 111 RBI. Guerrero Jr. finished 2nd in the 2021 AL MVP voting. This season, he swung at the first pitch 300 times. Swinging at the first pitch seems to be a good decision for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. since he crushed 16 first-pitch home runs in 2021. In addition, Ozzie Albies and Salvador Perez each swung at least 290 times at the first pitch this season. In 2021, Ozzie Albies slashed .259/.310/.488 with 30 home runs and 106 RBI. However, when swinging at the first pitch, Albies’ batting average was .405 and his OPS was over 1.000. Moreover, he smashed 8 first-pitch home runs. Perhaps it’s better for Albies to swing at the first pitch more next season? Meanwhile, Salvador Perez also crushed 48 home runs this season and he led the majors with 121 RBI. Among those 48 home runs, 14 were first-pitch home runs. Moreover, Brandon Lowe swung at the first pitch 284 times and he smashed 11 first-pitch homers. At the same time, Freddie Freeman and Rafael Devers each swung more than 260 times at the first pitch. Now, let’s use a different stat to see who also frequently swung at the first pitch.

Corey Seager definitely likes to swing at the first pitch. He missed some playing time in 2021 due to injury. However, he finished the 2021 season with a .306/.394/.521 slash line. During the regular season, Seager swung at the first pitch 53.3% of the time. He had 16 home runs this season and 5 were hit at the first pitch. Last season, Avisail Garcia swung at the first pitch 40.6% of the time. This season, he swung at the first pitch 50.2% of the time. This change seems to make good results. Garcia was hitting .238/.333/.326 in 2020, and in 2021, he finished the season with a .262/.330/.490 slash line. Furthermore, he crushed 7 first-pitch home runs this season. Finally, Yadier Molina swung at the first pitch 47.4% of the time in 2021 and he had a .361 batting average when swinging at the first pitch. Moreover, Jeff McNeil, who batted .251/.319/.360 in 2021, swung at the first pitch more than 45% of the time. McNeil had a batting average of .314 when he chose to swing at the first pitch. For these players, swinging at the first pitch seems to be a very good idea since they had been satisfied with the outcomes this season. But, let’s see whether pitchers will have different ideas of throwing the first pitch in each plate appearance against them next season.