Much has been made of the Brewers collective slump on offense, but at this point of the season we ought to dive into the issue and see what we can actually learn about our batters' plate approaches.

First, what goes into a plate approach? Presuably each hitter has a goal in the box, and this goal could be more or less specific due to a particular line up spot, or a particular game situation. But, I think there are at least four general aspects of a plate approach: (1) the ability to get on base, (2) the ability to see a lot of pitches, (3) the ability to draw a walk, and (4) the ability to get a hit. (3) sort of requires (2), and both (3) and (4) are related to (1), and help to compose (1). I think I placed the ability to see a lot of pitches in front of the actual abilty to draw a walk and get a hit because walking and hitting will depend upon the types of pitches a batter sees, and presumably a batter will be able to judge pitches better when he sees more pitches. Of course, there are extreme cases: a batter could presumably bat 1.000 by getting a hit off the first pitch every time, and a batter could also bat 0,000 by getting outs after 10 pitches every time.

In the middle, we find major league hitters, who more than likely know their pitch, and know what they're looking for in a given situation, and thus at the plate will find a certain combination of seeing pitches, getting on base, and then their rewards: getting hits and taking walks.

So, first things first: what are the Brewers' OBP?

1. Kendall .366

2. Fielder .362

3. Hart .357

4. Hardy .321

5. Weeks .319

6. Braun .296

7. Hall .278

8. Cameron .277

This list right here helps to explain the Brewers' collective slump -- 5 of 8 batters are currently getting on base at below the league average.

But, let's dig further....how many pitches are these batters taking?

NP/PA

1. Cameron 4.30 (202/47)

2. Hall 4.20 (609/145)

3. Weeks 4.04 (658/163)

4. Hardy 3.96 (523/132)

5. Fielder 3.85 (573/149)

6. Kendall 3.76 (466/124)

7. Hart 3.59 (506/141)

8. Braun 3.53 (536/152)

I found this list to be incredibly counter-intuitive. I thought for sure that Weeks would be at the top, and though he's not far off, surely Hall and Cameron are somewhat surprising entries (especially given their current OBP). Hardy also falls in the surprising camp of batters that see a good nuber of pitches without getting on base. The only below league average OBPer on our team that does not seem to have a surprising NP/PA is Braun -- it shouldn't be all that surprising that a batter that takes 3.53 NP/PA would get on base at a clip below .300....what will help to develop this point is to see if Braun's future hot streaks correspond with taking more pitches. It could be that Braun is more like Hart, who does not take a lot of pitches, but gets on base at a good clip anyway (basically due to hits).

So, while we're thinking of the significance of taking pitches, we can enhance our understanding of taking pitches by looking at the results. Here are the Brewers' BB/PA and H/PA. For the sake of keeping this at least a little compact, I did not include other productive PAs, like a HBP, SH, or SF...

1. Fielder 12.8% (19/149)

2. Weeks 12.3% (20/163)

3. Cameron 10.64% (5/47)

4. Hardy 10.61% (14/132)

5. Hall 8.9% (13/145)

6. Kendall 7.3% (9/124)

7. Hart 7.1% (10/141)

8. Braun 4.6% (7/152)

1. Hart 26.2% (37/141)

2. Braun 25% (38/152)

3. Kendall 25% (31/124)

4. Hardy 21.2% (28/132)

5. Fielder 20.8% (31/149)

6. Hall 18.6% (27/145)

7. Cameron 17% (8/47)

8. Weeks 16.6% (27/163)

Here we can get a snapshot of how different batters are balanced in creating the largest portion of their OBP (most players construct the largest part of their OBP with hits and walks). Not surprisingly, Fielder is fairly balanced, as are Cameron and Weeks, although their BB and H totals might be close to one another because of hitting slumps rather than offensive balance. A larger number of PA might help to affirm or refute this.

What seems clear is that Braun, Kendall, Hart, and Hardy have the most unbalanced distribution between walks and hits; of course, this is because each of them rely heavily upon hits to get on base. None of us will complain about this lack of balance when they get on base regularly (like Hart), and by comparison, most fans would probably have a player like Hart get on base largely through the hit than a player like Weeks get on base roughly equally between hits and walks, but fail to get on base regularly (as Weeks is currently having problems with...).

Now, I feel confident suggesting some type of aggregate list. Adding each of these together, I offer the following list (using OBP as a tiebreaker):

Fielder: 13

Kendall: 16 (.366)

Hardy: 16 (.321)

Hart: 18 (.357)

Weeks: 18 (.319)

Cameron: 19 (.277)

Hall: 20 (.278)

Braun: 24 (.296)

Presumably, then, if we wanted to put together the best line up according to plate approaches, we might end up with a batting order that looked something like this. What's interesting is that  Kendall, Fielder, Hart, and Hardy comprise the top 4 in OBP (in that order), so the list roughly mimicks OBP, although perhaps what we gain by looking at NP/PA, H/PA, and BB/PA is a certain way to distribute those top OBP players. In this case, we place the balanced Fielder first, and then the hit-heavy Kendall, Hardy, and Hart follow.

I hope that this has been a thought provoking exercise into what can be found in an analysis of the plate approach, and perhaps this will also help us figure out how to organize a batting order.

*************************************************************

One amendment to this list I would like to also suggest is utilizing the number of extra base hits as an analysis of the plate approach. Part of me wonders if it would be best to consider that a player's plate approach might best be judged by (1) the ability to get on base, (2) the ability to collect extra bases (i.e., get to second without requiring an SB or sacrifice), (3) number of pitches, (4) number of hits, and (5) number of walks.

One could argue that given two players that hit and get on base equally, the player that collects more extra base hits is more valuable because of their ability to get to second.

Here's how the Brewers look in XBH/PA, and here's how that changes our rankings of plate approaches:

Adjusted: XBH

Braun: 10.5% (16/152)

Hall: 8.9% (13/145)

Cameron: 8.5% (4/47)

Kendall: 8.1% (10/124)

Weeks: 7.4% (12/163)

Fielder: 7.4% (11/149)

Hart: 7.1% (10/141)

Hardy: 3.0% (4/132)

Fielder: 19

Kendall: 20

Hall: 22 (.278)

Cameron: 22 (.277)

Weeks: 23

Hardy: 24

Hart: 25 (.357)

Braun: 25 (.296)

What is interesting about this shift is that Fielder and Kendall remain the most valuable batters based on plate approaches, even considering their ability to hit extra base hits. Cameron and Hall jump up to the middle of the order -- even with their shortcomings to get on base, their slugging ability might make their vacations on the basepaths more meaningful. Oddly enough, Weeks remains at 5, Hardy and Hart fall to the bottom of the order, and even his ability to slug an extra base hit in 10% of his PA does not bring Braun out of the 8th spot (although now he's tied with Hart, who is arguably more valuable because of his OBP all together....)