Here's a spray chart for when FSU was on defense over the first weekend of games. You can click on the picture to see the full size. Sorry if the color's aren't that pretty, or the dots are too small. I'm still working on the aesthetics. My hope is that by the end of the season we'll be able to see some nice groupings and draw conclusions about what types of balls in play the 'Noles field well, and what types they have trouble with. We don't have data for the 3rd game (we were late getting there). If anyone would like to help with the in-game charting, just let me know and I'll get you a drawing of the stadium.
Note: Midway through the blowout second game, FSU basically subbed off the entire starting team. I stopped plotting balls in play at that point, because the defense was pretty terrible, and (hopefully) not representative of what we can expect from the usual position players.
My immediate reaction is that the outs seem to be piling up around short and second (but mostly up the middle). It will be interesting to see if we can get a notion of side to side and back and forth range for these guys as time guys on. So far, I've been pretty impressed with Stidham and Oravetz in these positions. With Tony Delmonico last year, I was worried about nearly every hard hit ball to short, Stidham's already looking like a more solid fielder.
ReplyDeleteI'm also curious to see what Tapley is able to do defensively at 3rd. He looks great charging in on a ball, but it's still way to early to see what kind of lateral range he's got.