Plot pitch locations with the strike zone with ggplot2

Plots pitch locations from the catcher's perspective with the batter's strike zone overlaid, from Statcast pitch data as returned by statcast_search() or mlb_pbp() (the latter via its pitchData.coordinates.* columns renamed to plate_x / plate_z). Colors default to Baseball Savant's pitch-type palette via statcast_pitch_colors().

Usage

ggpitchzone(
  data,
  x_value = "plate_x",
  y_value = "plate_z",
  color_value = "pitch_type",
  sz_top = "sz_top",
  sz_bot = "sz_bot",
  point_alpha = 0.6,
  point_size = 2
)

Arguments

data: A data frame of pitch data containing plate-crossing coordinates and strike-zone bounds.
x_value: Column with the horizontal plate-crossing coordinate in feet (catcher's perspective). Defaults to "plate_x".
y_value: Column with the vertical plate-crossing coordinate in feet. Defaults to "plate_z".
color_value: Categorical column to color points by, as a string. Defaults to "pitch_type", colored with the Savant palette; pass another column (or NULL for uncolored points) to override.
sz_top: Column with the batter's strike-zone top (feet). Defaults to "sz_top"; the zone rectangle uses the column means.
sz_bot: Column with the batter's strike-zone bottom (feet). Defaults to "sz_bot".
point_alpha: Alpha for the pitch points. Defaults to 0.6.
point_size: Size of the pitch points. Defaults to 2.

Value

A ggplot2 object: pitch locations from the catcher's perspective with the strike zone drawn as a rectangle.

Examples

# \donttest{
  try({
    pitches <- statcast_search("2024-06-01", "2024-06-01")
    ggpitchzone(pitches)
  })
#> Warning: Removed 11 rows containing missing values or values outside the scale
#> range (`geom_point()`).

# }