Swing and Miss % - Pitching Stat

I score using Game Changer and one of the pitching stats is SM% (swing and miss %)

So I was trying to determine if a higher % is good or bad. I am not sure how accurate it would be depending on the level you play against because I know some girls swing at anything and then you do have the girls who can't lay off the high ones.

Also had a discussion with DH and I said that a foul ball wouldn't count towards it because you didn't "miss" the ball but he didn't agree with me.

I tried looking it up but wasn't really able to see how it's calculated.

Per GameChanger -

SM%: % of total pitches that are swings and misses

Taken literally, sounds like you would be right, a foul is not a miss.

And of course, a higher number would be good.

Only time I can remember somebody being disappointed to get a swing and a miss was my assistant in 12U. His DD was pitching. Other team had this really good hitter up with bases loaded, and his DD threw her a changeup, and she swung and missed. He goes, 'Crap! Fooled her too much. We really needed that to be a weak grounder to third because we're not getting another one by her.' And he was correct.

I was confused because I always like to see called strikes too because that would mean your pitcher is accurate enough to put it just in a spot where it's still a strike but it fools the batter? But then DH said the called strikes are very subjective to the umpire's strike zone that day

DD's s&m% is okay then - not great. She throws a lot of strikes but it's only 22% or so..

nixxy311 said:

I was confused because I always like to see called strikes too because that would mean your pitcher is accurate enough to put it just in a spot where it's still a strike but it fools the batter? But then DH said the called strikes are very subjective to the umpire's strike zone that day

DD's s&m% is okay then - not great. She throws a lot of strikes but it's only 22% or so..

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The statistics have to be put in context. How does it compare to other pitchers on the team? What is the team's swing/miss percentage when batting? You have to have some sort of baseline.

The swing/miss% is a measure of a pitcher's 'stuff' - how difficult she is to hit. robably correlates well with opponent batting average and K/9. It doesn't necessarily tell you how good a pitcher she is. Really fast pitchers who are hard to hit but walk a lot of batters and then are forced to throw one across the plate and give up dingers might have very good S/m %.

Maybe DD's best at bat ever was a 15 pitch walk. Pitcher was too fast for her but pitcher could not get it by her either.

Pitcher was so annoyed at DD, just could not leave it go.

Other Manager went to circle a couple times, ignore her. No luck, kept staring at DD as she work her way around the bases.

SM% is just a stat. It may or may not indicate anything useful. As others have said, to get any kind of reasonable picture, it must be used in context with other information.

A foul ball is not a SM.

CoogansBluff said:

Only time I can remember somebody being disappointed to get a swing and a miss was my assistant in 12U. His DD was pitching. Other team had this really good hitter up with bases loaded, and his DD threw her a changeup, and she swung and missed. He goes, 'Crap! Fooled her too much. We really needed that to be a weak grounder to third because we're not getting another one by her.' And he was correct.

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Too many coaches underestimate the effectiveness of throwing back-to-back change ups to a batter...if there is a big hitter in the box she may see nothing but change ups, especially if she looks bad swinging at the first one!

Good story...we were playing a really good team a few years ago at 12U. The opposing teams head coaches DD was a BIG HITTER (at least for 12U TB), anyway, we throw her a first pitch change up and she swings out of her shoes missing badly. Her dad yells at her in the box "we don't swing at change ups with less than two strikes". Guess what the next pitch was - a change up for called strike two. When she swung early and missed the third change up in a row I thought her dad was going to charge our dugout he was so mad! LOL BTW - we were a Church team at the time and this was one of the better teams in the area that thought they were an A-level TB team which made it even sweeter.

quincy said:

Maybe DD's best at bat ever was a 15 pitch walk. Pitcher was too fast for her but pitcher could not get it by her either.

Pitcher was so annoyed at DD, just could not leave it go.

Other Manager went to circle a couple times, ignore her. No luck, kept staring at DD as she work her way around the bases.

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I do really love the times when you get a batter/pitcher where the batter has a full count and keeps fouling it off. Regardless of which team I'm for or the outcome, I'm always impressed that they are both staying in it. We have a girl who leads our team in QAB and she had one at bat where her fouls kept going left and over the fence. They were good hard hits but just not straight. I think even the other team felt bad for her when she did eventually strike out - but she does get walked a fair bit too.

nixxy311 said:

I was confused because I always like to see called strikes too because that would mean your pitcher is accurate enough to put it just in a spot where it's still a strike but it fools the batter? But then DH said the called strikes are very subjective to the umpire's strike zone that day

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This assumes that every batter is going to swing at every single pitch she thinks might be a strike. There probably are some batters with this mentality. Most of them are not very good.

Plenty (most, I'd guess) of called strikes (that ARE actually strikes; let's ignore blown calls) are a batter knowing it's a strike and taking it anyway. It could be in a bad location. It could be a wild pitcher who the batter is forcing to throw a strike. It could be a 3-0 count. It could be a curveball when the batter is looking for something else (and is good enough to recognize the pitch and let it go).

You can probably glean something from called strike %, but swinging strike % is a lot more useful. High-level baseball analysis uses it a lot to determine how well a pitcher is pitching.

CoachJD said:

This assumes that every batter is going to swing at every single pitch she thinks might be a strike. There probably are some batters with this mentality. Most of them are not very good.

Plenty (most, I'd guess) of called strikes (that ARE actually strikes; let's ignore blown calls) are a batter knowing it's a strike and taking it anyway. It could be in a bad location. It could be a wild pitcher who the batter is forcing to throw a strike. It could be a 3-0 count. It could be a curveball when the batter is looking for something else (and is good enough to recognize the pitch and let it go).

You can probably glean something from called strike %, but swinging strike % is a lot more useful. High-level baseball analysis uses it a lot to determine how well a pitcher is pitching.

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Very good point. One of the things I have discuss regularly with my DD (and the other players on her team) is about pitch selection when batting. With zero strikes, DD is looking for a pitch in her preferred location. If it's not there - even if it's a sure strike - she takes. With one strike, her hitting zone expands to (her perception of) strike zone size. With two strikes, she's looking to get her bat on anything close. If it's somewhere she can square it up, great. If not, she's hoping to foul it off, and get a better pitch to hit on the next one.