December 23, 2010

Arbitration Relief

The Nationals signed Sean Burnett to a two-year deal, avoiding arbitration with the relief pitcher. Burnett made huge strides in 2010, upping his strikeout rate for the second year in a row while finally getting control of the strike zone.

What changed for Sean was his approach with two strikes. In 2008 and 2009, he tried to get batters out in the strike zone:

Sean Burnett with two strikes on the batters, 2008-2009

Sean Burnett with two strikes on the batters, 2008-2009

In 2010, with two strikes, he made batters go after pitches that were tough to hit.

Sean Burnett with two strikes on the batters, 2010

Sean Burnett with two strikes on the batters, 2010

That’s a very nice adjustment by Sean, and it paid off.

Thanks to Baseball Analytics for the heat maps.

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