http://saber-fighters.blogspot.com/2016/02/rookie-pitchers-and-strikezone.html
While the result wasn't overwhelming, it was consistently shown that over the 3 years of data i analyzed (13-15) veterans were given a bit more leeway than rookie pitcher when it came to called strikes. One of the reasons I theorized was that this could be due to rookies and pitch counts. For example, maybe rookies were more likely to be in 3-0 counts, which would likely result in a high percentage strike likely in the 95%+ range. If the frequency of this situation was significantly greater for rookies then for veterans it could shift the total "strike likelihood percentage" I calculated for all rookies higher. So I set out to see if this was in fact true.
I took the same data, all the pitch fx data from 2013-2015, and this time also incorporated counts for balls and strikes. Below i'll show you the tables which represented the frequency of each count for rookies and veterans for each year.
Before I get to the data, i'll provide you the conclusion. It's pretty amazing how consistent this ended up being across all three years across both groups. I guess that's really part of the beauty of baseball and statistics, you get large enough sample sizes that things work out. So the bottom line would be that I wouldn't believe the specific count to any batter and some sort of inordinate amount of pitches thrown in either a heavy ball or heavy strike count to be a driver here at all. The frequency with which rookies and veterans find themselves to be in a similar count on any batter is remarkably similar.
This finding, or lack of a finding, would seem to indicate to me that it's much more likely that there does exist a pure, albeit small, bias against rookie pitchers.
| 2013 Rookies | ||||
| Strikes | ||||
| Balls | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | 48.4% | 8.4% | 1.5% | 58.3% |
| 1 | 14.6% | 7.1% | 2.1% | 23.7% |
| 2 | 5.3% | 3.4% | 2.0% | 10.7% |
| 3 | 3.9% | 2.1% | 1.2% | 7.2% |
| 72.2% | 21.0% | 6.8% | ||
| 2013 Veterans | ||||
| Strikes | ||||
| Balls | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | 49.4% | 8.4% | 1.4% | 59.2% |
| 1 | 14.0% | 6.7% | 2.2% | 22.9% |
| 2 | 5.4% | 3.6% | 2.2% | 11.2% |
| 3 | 3.4% | 2.0% | 1.3% | 6.7% |
| 72.3% | 20.7% | 7.0% | 100.0% | |
2014 rookies
| Rookies | ||||
| Y | Y Total | |||
| Row Labels | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | 49.2% | 8.2% | 1.4% | 58.9% |
| 1 | 14.2% | 6.7% | 2.2% | 23.1% |
| 2 | 5.3% | 3.6% | 2.0% | 10.9% |
| 3 | 3.7% | 2.2% | 1.3% | 7.2% |
| Grand Total | 72.4% | 20.8% | 6.9% | 100.0% |
2014
| Veterans | ||||
| N | N Total | |||
| Row Labels | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | 49.3% | 8.5% | 1.5% | 59.3% |
| 1 | 14.0% | 6.7% | 2.4% | 23.2% |
| 2 | 5.1% | 3.5% | 2.3% | 10.9% |
| 3 | 3.3% | 2.0% | 1.3% | 6.7% |
| Grand Total | 71.8% | 20.7% | 7.5% | 100.0% |
| 2015 Rookies | ||||
| Strikes | ||||
| Balls | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | 48.7% | 8.3% | 1.4% | 58.4% |
| 1 | 14.4% | 6.6% | 2.2% | 23.1% |
| 2 | 5.4% | 3.5% | 2.2% | 11.1% |
| 3 | 3.9% | 2.3% | 1.3% | 7.4% |
| 72.3% | 20.7% | 7.0% | 100.0% | |
| 2015 Veterans | ||||
| Strikes | ||||
| Balls | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | 49.6% | 8.4% | 1.5% | 59.5% |
| 1 | 13.8% | 6.7% | 2.3% | 22.8% |
| 2 | 5.1% | 3.5% | 2.3% | 10.9% |
| 3 | 3.5% | 2.0% | 1.3% | 6.8% |
| 72.0% | 20.6% | 7.4% | 100.0% | |
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