Jack Hannahan in his natural environment. (Getty Images)
When I first heard about the Jack Hannahan trade, one of my favorite parts about it was his plate discipline. Actually, aside from the whole would-not-impress-us-with-his-hitting-even-at-LL-softball aspect of Hannahan's game, I loved every bit of the Hannahan trade. You should too. Hannahan rules.*
Anyways, back to my point. Hannahan takes lots of pitches and I was encouraged by that. Friday's game illustrated what I looked forward to so much. He struck out twice and walked twice, but even the walks were beside the point as he saw 22 pitches over his four plate appearances. I love it.
Ryan Langerhans is cut from a related, but much more awesome cloth, like silk to Hannahan's rayon. In that he also takes a lot of pitches. Those two have replaced (or mostly in Hannahan's case) Endy Chavez and Adrian Beltre, neither of the two great disciples of long plate appearances. All in all, here is a breakdown of our pitches seen per plate appearance, by month.
April: 3.63, 29th in MLB
May: 3.73, 23rd
June: 3.77, 23rd
July: 3.91, 13th
Ryan Langerhans joined us right when July began. Hannahan not long after. No, it is not solely the fruit of those two studly beings, but it is not important right now to figure out which Adonis to pin the medal of praise upon. It is just noteworthy that so far with our "new" semi-standard lineup, we have been running plate discipline numbers that put us in the top half of the league for the first time since that laughable early stretch to begin 2008.
* at things not directly related to making contact with pitches and putting them in play for hits.
0 recs | 33 comments
I will comment in this thread so Matthew doesn't feel bad about LL: Facebook stealing his thunder
seattlebruin - July 21, 2009
YES!
Suck it, facebook!
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Now if only I could make a new username "Facebook" and immediately comment "Currently sucking"
It would be gold!
seattlebruin - July 21, 2009
Wasn't there already a Facebook LL group?
Scruffy Lefty - July 21, 2009
Yes, but not a page.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Whats the difference?
Scruffy Lefty - July 21, 2009
You ask a question that I have no answer to.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Functionality on the admin side.
Aaron Campeau - July 21, 2009
A group is more informal
Any random person can create a group and associate it to someone/something (I think Graham created the LL group before he was actually an LL admin/contributor). A Page is considered more “official” (although there are plenty of unofficial pages out there), and the actual individual who creates and moderates a Page doesn’t have to use their real name, i.e. all of Jeff’s posts on the new LL Page show up as by “Lookout Landing” and not “Jeff Sullivan.” And I believe multiple people can admin the Page and all of the posts still show up as by LL. Hope that clears it up…
appleshampoo - July 21, 2009
This team is fun because it has so many of my/our pet projects
Hopefully one day my HAN-A-HAN chant will catch on
Poochie - July 21, 2009
You mean your chants of HAN-AH HAN-AH HAN-AH HAN-AH
seattlebruin - July 21, 2009
No that's not how it went
Poochie - July 21, 2009
Is now
seattlebruin - July 21, 2009
I love how close this team has ended up being to Jeff's "How to Contend In '09" series
which plenty of people pretty much laughed at.
Aaron Campeau - July 21, 2009
To be fair,
we are always wrong.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Even now.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Except nobody knows it.
Not even us.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Even though I have always loved Branyan I was against him because I thought he was over the hill
Poochie - July 21, 2009
Plus Hannahan could be a decent UT IF for the next couple years
Opposite handedness!
Poochie - July 21, 2009
Rec me
Jeff Sullivan - July 21, 2009
GOD YOU'RE SO NEEDY
pdb - July 21, 2009
How can I say no?
Robert Lintott - July 21, 2009
Ok.
Slow Country - July 21, 2009
I like Hannahan the Banana-man
appleshampoo - July 21, 2009
At what point does the scale tip from Langerhans to Willits?
Or is that more of a third axis, like maybe a pitches/swing?
Faux - July 21, 2009
You mean Hannahan?
Langerhans can actually hit.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
At what point do you consider a guy a Langerhans type (takes pitches, hits good ones) or a Willits type(takes pitches, ducks instead of swinging)?
And where would you place Hannahan on that spectrum?
Faux - July 21, 2009
Ah.
When they actually do something (i.e. slugging) with the pitches they hit.
I do not have enough info yet on Hannahan to say one way or the other, but I am leaning big time toward Willits.
Matthew - July 21, 2009
Would Cedeno be better if he just never swung?
waldo rojas - July 21, 2009
Up until about 2 weeks ago, probably
Graham MacAree - July 21, 2009
The Luis Castillo plan....
if you didn’t see Dave Allen’s post at Fangraphs on him, check it out.
A guy who can’t hit has made himself a ~ league average bat simply by rarely swinging.
marc w - July 21, 2009
I don't really want to think...
About the kind of fruit that studly beings bear.
Nadingo - July 21, 2009
It is amazing to see how quickly GMZ has turned this team into one I can love.
Sec 108 - July 21, 2009
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