Huge miss?

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching some highlights. A pitcher wasn’t afraid to throw strikes in the middle of the strike zone and opponents couldn’t hit well against him. And, I was just wondering whether some hitters did miss some key opportunities while being at bat.

To try to understand a little bit more, I went to check on the statcast website and see which players had a lot of swings and misses in zone 5.

	5

Swings and Misses (Zone 5, 2021)
Player	Whiff
Matt Chapman	44
Adolis Garcia	37
Rafael Devers	35
Shohei Ohtani	34
Alec Bohm
Randy Arozarena	33
Bobby Dalbec	32
Joey Gallo
Ryan McMahon
Ryan Mountcastle	31
Chas McCormick	30
J.T. Realmuto
Feddie Freeman
Joey Votto
Chris Taylor

Matt Chapman didn’t have a good 2021 season. Last year, he was hitting .210/.314/.403 with 27 home runs and 72 RBI. Moreover, he was struck out 202 times and it was his first season to be punched out more than 200 times. Chapman decided to swing at pitches in zone 5 more than 170 times and he missed 44 times. More than 60% of those 44 swings and misses came from 4-seam fastball. Additionally, 8 pitches in zone 5 that generated swings and misses were 95+ mph. The 2021 season should be a memorable one for Adolis Garcia. He played a career-high 149 games and slashed .243/.286/.454 with 31 home runs and 90 RBI. He was selected to the All-Star game for the first time in his career. However, he was struck out 194 times. There were 147 times that Garcia chose to swing at pitches in zone 5 and he missed 37 times. More than 60% of those 37 swings and misses in zone 5 came from 4-seam fastball. Meanwhile, among those 37 swings and misses, 10 pitches reached 95+ mph. In addition, Rafael Devers crushed a career-high 38 home runs last year. How many times did Devers swing at pitches in zone 5? The answer is 153 times. Among those 153 swings in zone 5, 35 times were swings and misses. 80% of those 35 swings and misses came from 4-seam fastballs. In the meantime, among those 35 swings and misses, 9 pitches reached 95+ mph. Moreover, Shohei Ohtani and Alec Bohm each had 34 swings and misses in zone 5 in the 2021 season. There were 144 times that Ohtani chose to swing at pitches in zone 5. At the same time, Alec Bohm didn’t swing at pitches in zone 5 as much as Ohtani did. Last year, there were 110 times that Bohm decided to swing at pitches in zone 5. Finally, 10 other players each had 30+ swings and misses in zone 5. Randy Arozarena had 33 swings and misses when he chose to swing at pitches in zone 5. Bobby Dalbec, Joey Gallo and Ryan McMahon each swung and missed 32 times when pitches were located in zone 5. Being struck out is not a shame in the MLB. Furthermore, there are more strikeouts in today’s baseball games. Swings and misses have been more common. In 2019, there were 88527 swings and misses and, among those swings and misses, 5000+ pitches were located in zone 5. Last year, there were 87176 swings and misses in the MLB. However, swings and misses in zone 5 reached more than 5400 times in 2021. If the 2022 season starts on time, will we see more swings and misses with pitches located in zone 5?