Curtis Granderson's New Swing

Written by Josh W. | 20 August 2010

Recently, as I'm sure many of you know, Granderson changed his swing. He went to Kevin Long earlier in August, and spent two days working with Long on some adjustments to make his swing simpler. So far the results have been excellent; Granderson looks like a different player. Today I would like examine his new swing using pitch f/x data.

I wanted to see what the benefits of his new swing were. More plate coverage perhaps?

In order to do this, I must first visualize his old swing:

granderson_old_swing_contour

This is the run value, by location, of all pitches thrown to Curtis before the series in Kansas City. I have only shown pitches that were in the strikezone. Blue is bad for Granderson (negative run value). The yellow is slightly good for Granderson, and anything approaching red is good.

It looks like Granderson handled pitches down and in pretty well, but not so much everywhere else.

If we break down his run values by vertical location, we get:

	runs per 100 pitches
lower third	-1.36
middle third	-1.975
upper third	-2.884

I guess before the swing change he was a "low-ball" hitter, relatively anyway. He fared poorly everywhere.

If we break down his run values by horizontal location, we get:

	runs per 100 pitches
inside third	0.2064
middle third	-4.29
outside third	-2.33

Oddly, Granderson performed worst on pitches down the middle. I would have guessed that he struggled the most against pitches that were on the outer-third, but I suppose it's likely that he takes a lot of those pitches, minimizing their negative value. Granderson is a very heavy pull hitter (courtesy of FG):

Season	Split	OBP	SLG	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wRC	wRAA	wOBA	wRC+
2010	as L to Left	.161	.185	.346	.019	.161	-1.3	-7.9	.150	-16
2010	as L to Center	.329	.415	.744	.085	.329	9.6	0.2	.325	103
2010	as L to Right	.400	.887	1.287	.487	.324	34.3	20.8	.543	250

For this reason, it was pretty predictable that he performed the best on pitches on the inner third of the plate. This was also the only positive run value of any of his location splits. These numbers also show how shockingly horrible Grandeson has been when hitting the ball to the opposite field. He has been so bad that the formula of wRC+ breaks down into the negatives!

more after the break:

New Swing

granderson_new_swing_contour

This is the run value, by location, of all pitches through two days ago since he made the swing change. Again, I have cut out pitches outside of the strikezone. Blue is bad for Grandreson, and approaching red is good. White is pretty much neutral.

It looks like Granderson has destroyed pitches up in the zone. Keep in mind the small sample size though; some of these samples are so small I'm not sure it's meaningful to look at the numbers.

If we break down run values by vertical location, we get:

	run value per 100 pitches
lower third	-4.05
middle third	3.8
upper third	13.64

Yes, Granderson had definitely crushed pitches up in the zone. In this sample, Granderson looks to be much more of a high ball hitter than a low ball hitter.

If we break down run values by horizontal location, we get:

	run value per 100 pitches
inside third	4.166
middle third	6.2
outside third	-1.216

This time, Granderson performed very well on pitches inside and down the middle. Interestingly, he still struggled on pitches in the outer third of the strikezone. This makes me doubtful of the possibility of him ever hitting pitches on the outside third of the plate.

Conclusion:

Before the swing change, Granderson seemed to only be able to handle pitches on the inner third of the plate. The adjustments he has made with Kevin Long have seemed to help him drive pitches down the middle and up in the zone. However, he still seems to struggle with pitches on the outer third of the plate.