One of the themes I’ve used over the years is that mistakes in baseball are often the result of a pattern recognition error. A.J. Pierzynski reaching base against the Angels in the 2005 playoffs is a great example, as was the poor umpire’s call in the Armando Galarraga near perfect game.

There was one Alcides Escobar swing during the World Series that stuck with me. I believe it’s the foul ball in this at bat. Watching it live, the broadcast crew was impressed that Escobar got wood on the ball, and the pitcher seemed to be a bit dismayed at the same thing. The pitch was well outside of the strike zone. It was a pitch that was designed to get Escobar to swing, but swing and miss. So when the pitch is properly executed and a different result happens, there is room for surprise.

Alcides Escobar makes contact for a double during the World Series. Photo: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

The fielders see this as well. The spend a season behind a pitcher, learning what he throws, seeing the result of well executed pitches. The see a well executed pitch, and the pattern recognizer in their head is figuring out the most likely outcome; a grounder to short, a swing and miss, a fly ball to left. It happens so far they probably don’t realize what is happening, but they might even react to what they think is going to happen before the event occurs.

So what happens whey they see “swing and miss”, but suddenly the ball is coming at them? Are they as ready for it as they should be, or did the blown pattern recognition cause them to hesitate for a split second? Does the above foul ball play with their software, lowering the probabilities of other plays so they don’t react as well as they should?

I suspect trackman would be a good tool for studying this. Power hitters tend to swing at where they think the ball will go, contact hitters swing at the actual ball. Trackman might be able to tell them apart. Contact hitters tend to drag their bat through the strike zone, so they can adjust to a changing flight path (Tony Gwynn and Derek Jeter were that king of hitter). So a pitch that may be a swing and miss for most hitters in the league, suddenly is coming back at fielders for the type of hitters the Royals employ. The Royals owned a high BABIP, but few strikeouts and few home runs indicate they were not swinging hard. Disrupting the timing of the fielders might account for more balls than expected falling in for hits.