Investigating Dave Hudgens, Part 1: Plate Discipline Stats

On the second to last day of the season, Terry Collins was re-upped. One of his first proclamations was that pitching coach Dan Warthen would be back for another year. Perhaps he should have started with Dave Hudgens, as the hitting coach has made quite an impact in just one year with the team.

In an effort to really suss out Hudgens' effect on the lineup, we'll start a multi-part series on the subject. First we'll revisit the key players that put up a significant number of at-bats both last year and this year. By investigating the change in their approach at the plate -- their advanced plate discipline stats -- we can see if Hudgens' philosophy took hold. Then we'll take a look at the heat maps for those key players and see if