Darren Hauck/AP

I noticed yesterday that FanGraphs has added a fantastic new feature to their site.  They call it plate discipline stats, and it gives us the ability to go one step further into analyzing the player's performance.  It's not quite the level of detail that you get from Pitch F/X data, but frankly, it's a helluva lot easier to get to and to comprehend.

So what do these plate discipline stats tell us?  Well it gives us an idea of how a hitter address the strike zone.  It lets us see how often they are swinging at pitches in the zone compared to pitches outside of the zone.  Also, it tells us how often they are making contact on those pitches they swing at.  Unfortunately, it does not tell us what kind of contact they are making, but maybe we'll get there some day.

The great thing for us is that it allows us to examine the source of our frustrations a little further.  Many of us have been, uh, concerned about the amount of aggressiveness certain players are showing during their at bats.  These data will  hopefully give us a better idea of whether or not that concern is warranted.  Specifically, we'll be able to tell a little better whether or not a certain player is being aggressive in the zone or if they are just hacking away at whatever the pitcher throws up there.  After the jump you'll find a table of some of the Reds hitters this season, so go ahead and take the leap of faith that I'm not playin' witcha...

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David Kohl/AP

It's a much needed off day, for both the team and the fans. 

• Justin has done some mathy examinations of the Reds lineup.  The results are interesting, though a bit hard to follow (unless you understand Markov Chains).  If you can follow the results, be sure to read the comments as MGL pops in with his own projections.  Generally lineup order does not make a significant difference (as much as who is in the lineup), but it's still fun to see how things might be improved by some fiddling.
  
• If you haven't checked out Doug Gray's Reds Pitch F/X site, you should.  You'll learn things like, as of Friday, Corey Patterson had only swung and missed 4 times this year.  That's like Jeff Keppinger type performance.
• Still confused as to what happened to the Reds's bats this season? It looks like it was all Juan Castro's fault.
• Um, Gary Majewski kinda sucks.
  
• Frank Thomas may be the most selfish baseball player in the history of selfish baseball players.  I know you are wondering, so I'll tell you that Adam Dunn has 2 sacrifice hits in his career.  EdE has the highest number of PAs for an active Reds player without a sacrifice hit.  Selfish.  Send him down! :)
• This hit a little too close to home after this weekend.  But it's still funny.
  
• If you are a fan of baseball, science, and publicly financed broadcasting, this is right up your alley.  They even try to explain Cubs fans scientifically.  My theory is that there is a chemical in Old Style that permanently destroys a person's ability to not root for suckiness.
• I'm not an MLB media user anymore (used to have Gameday Audio), but it seems to me there is a lot of backlash with the way MLB.tv is doing things this year.  Coupled with their attempts to control all of baseball on the internet, it's becoming another disappointing set of PR moves by MLB.  I don't understand the idea of limiting a fans ability to enjoy the game.  Seems counter-productive to me.
  
• Anybody notice that Kyle Lohse has only allowed 2 runs over his first 17.1 innings so far this year?  He's looking like a steal right now for the Cardinals.  Then again, he looked pretty good after 4 starts for the Reds last year.

Anything else that I missed?