I can't imagine that many readers of this site do not have at least some form of addiction to Baseball Reference, a veritable data goldmine for any baseball junkie. I know I sure do.

Recently I have taken to coming up with some point of interest, and really digging in to see if any trends or incremental insights can be gleaned. Even if they cannot, it can be fascinating to present data in an organized format to see how teams differ with regard to their approaches (and abilities). What follows is a summation of how the American League fared when the count was 3-0 in 2007, with the final column presenting the AVG/OBP/SLG line for teams after 3-0.

       PA   AB   AVG   SLG   Post-3&0 AVG/OBP/SLG
BOS   175   11  .455  1.182     .277/.761/.563
NYY   153    7  .429   .571     .350/.776/.675 
TOR   148    9  .444   .667     .327/.767/.523
BAL   129    3  .333   .667     .235/.713/.395
TBR   133    8  .500   1.500     .316/.749/.518

CLE   176   16  .375   .813     .330/.789/.594    
DET   128    9  .444   .778     .324/.732/.613
MIN   125    6  .333   .500     .315/.773/.554 
CHW   132    6  .333  1.333     .324/.732/.613
KCR   101    7  .286   .714     .232/.717/.316

LAA   168   15  .600  1.267     .371/.806/.670
SEA   130   10  .200   .200     .301/.743/.398
OAK   141    0   NA     NA      .351/.815/.670
TEX   105    4  .250   .500     .297/.739/.525

I am not sure that there are conclusions to be drawn from any of this, but it sure looks interesting. What stuck out most for me were the Oakland Athletics, and what seems to be evidence of an organizational approach to hitting. We have long-known that the A's favor a patient style at the plate. A casual search looking at past articles related to Oakland's philosophical beliefs on how to approach an at-bat will yield a lot of words like "patience" and "selectivity" and "taking a walk".

It may just be semantics and not reflective of meaningful differences between the two clubs but being a Red Sox fan and living in Boston, when Theo Epstein speaks of an organizational approach, he will use a term like "strike zone management" or "pitch recognition". Oakland seems to believe that taking more pitches is an end to itself, while Boston might think that so long as you can recognize effectively a ball and a strike, aggressiveness is not necessarily a bad thing.

It's hard to say who is right based solely on the data above (or if there is any right way at all). Oakland did not put one ball in play on a 3-0 count in 2007. Of their 141 recorded plate appearances with three balls and no strikes, Oakland walked all 141 times. Equally interesting, they led the American League with a 1.485 OPS after 3-0.

There does appear to be a downside to this approach, however. Only Texas found themselves in more 0-2 counts than Oakland in 2007. If your mandate is to take pitches, you can find yourself in a quick hole. When the count was 0-2 last year, Oakland hit .150/.161/.238. After 0-2 they hit .175/.216/.281.

I am not sure that there are meaningful conclusions to be drawn with respect to whether or not there is an optimal hitting strategy; on 3-0 or otherwise. But mining the data gets you closer to answers, and Lord knows there is more than enough data out there.

Update ==========

Apropos of nothing and with a hat tip to Defensive Indifference, check out this curve ball Clayton Kershaw threw to Sean Casey on Sunday. Apparently he was sitting 95-98 all game, too.