Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Looking Ahead to 2012 - Michael Pineda

In a move that came out of nowhere, the Yankees traded Jesus Montero, their top prospect, for Michael Pineda.  Pineda had a very good rookie year for Seattle in 2011, but getting him came at a heavy price.  It’ll probably take at least five years to see if the trade was worth it, but it’s already been analyzed and judged heavily and will surely continue to be. 

2011
Pineda wasn’t a lock to make the Mariners’ rotation out of spring training last year, but he made the team thanks to a good spring training.  His first half/second half splits have been beaten to death, but I’ll re-post this table that I posted right after the trade.

fb% Percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
gb% Percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
ld% Percentage of batted balls that were line drives
bb/bf: walks per batters faced
k/bf: strikeouts per batters faced
babip: batting average on balls in play
fip: Fielding independent pitching
xfip: Expected fip (uses league average hr/fb rate instead of actual hr)

A is Pineda through July 4, and B is Pineda afterwards.

If you go by ERA, Pineda was much worse in the second half (2.58 through July 4, 5.71 after).  However, there’s a lot of noise in ERA that isn’t necessarily related to the pitcher’s performance.  Every peripheral stat of Pineda’s except for his HR/FB rate and his BABIP was better in the second half, and those are probably the two most volatile stats a pitcher can have.

Stats are only part of the story, but what about his stuff? Here are Pineda’s average velocities by pitch type for each month in 2011.

FFv: Four-seam fastball velocity
SLv: Slider velocity
CHv: Changeup velocity

Here are Pineda’s average four-seam fastball velocities for each game in 2011.

4/5: 95.2
4/12: 95.5
4/17: 97.2
4/22: 95.5
4/28: 95.2
5/4: 96.9
5/10: 95.8
5/16: 94.5
5/21: 94.0
5/27: 95.3
6/1: 94.1
6/6: 95.7
6/11: 95.2
6/17: 94.2
6/23: 93.0
6/28: 94.1
7/4: 93.9
7/9: 94.6
7/19: 95.4
7/24: 94.6
7/30: 94.8
8/9: 94.7
8/15: 94.5
8/21: 92.8
8/27: 94.1
9/3: 93.6
9/10: 94.7
9/21: 91.4

There was a gradual decrease as the season wore on, and the big drop between 9/10 and 9/21 is a little alarming, but he only threw 44 fastballs in that 9/21 game(out of 81 total pitches) and I don’t know if it’s anything more than a blip.  His average fastball velocity through the end of June was 95 mph, and it was 94.1 mph over the rest of the season.

Velocity’s an important part of being a good MLB pitcher, but it’s not the only part.  Much has been made about Pineda’s underwhelming velocity so far this spring, where’s he’s topping out below where he averaged last year.  He’s also throwing with less velocity than he did last spring.  However, he’s not trying to make the team like he was last year, and he’s probably focusing more on developing his changeup which has lagged behind his fastball and slider.  Because of that, I think the obsession with his velocity in exhibition games is a little misguided, although I suppose controversy sells and there’s not a whole lot else that’s controversial for this year’s version of the Yankees so far.

2012 Projections
Pineda’s moving from a pitcher’s park to a disgraceful bandbox.  Although Seattle has a better defensive reputation than the Yankees, the Yankees’ defensive OF is a good one and as a flyball pitcher he shouldn’t see that much of an impact from any decline in the defense behind him.

RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RAR: Runs above replacement level (using RA adjusted for park)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RAR divided by 10)

For more information on the projections above you can look at the first post in this series.

I’ve included his 2011 and the league average as frames of reference.  League average is based on role (starters vs. relievers), and is not adjusted for park so unlike with hitters mentally adjust that down a bit.

Pineda’s professional innings progression looks like this.

2006: 20.1 IP in Rookie ball
2007: 59.0 IP in Rookie ball
2008: 138.1 IP in Class A
2009: 47.1 IP in Rookie and A+
2010: 139.1 IP in AA and AAA
2011: 171.0 IP in MLB

Pineda missed a large chunk of 2009 with an elbow injury, but returned from that having put on about 25 pounds and a few MPH of velocity.  Last year was his career high in innings pitched, and it came in the majors where innings are more stressful due to the greater caliber of competition.  That may or may not explain some of his lower velocity, which means he may be able to get it back as his stamina increases.  It’s probably worth noting that velocity peaks pretty early in most pitchers’ career, and Pineda may never throw as hard as he did last year.  That doesn’t mean he can’t be a good pitcher without it, of course.

Pineda’s projections are reasonably consistent across the board.  They’re low on innings since he has never pitched as many innings as he did last year, and ZiPS is probably seeing a rougher transition to the AL East and DNYS than the others.  According to Baseball Reference there were 28 AL pitchers that had at least 3.0 WAR last year.

Baseball Reference: Playing in the AL, For 2011, (requiring WAR_pitch≥2), sorted by greatest WAR for Pitchers

Pineda himself just missed the cut off with 2.8.  Pineda’s average projection would qualify for the most basic definition of a #2 starter in the AL (one of the top 28 pitchers in the league).  Obviously, we hope for more than that.

CAIRO Percentile Forecasts

The 65% forecast seems like the bare minimum for what Pineda can do to justify being traded for Jesus Montero, who’s going to win the AL MVP and Cy Young.  For whatever it’s worth, since 2000 there have been 21 Yankee pitchers who put up a season of 3.9 WAR or more.

Baseball Reference: Playing for the NYY, From 2000 to 2011, (requiring WAR_pitch≥3.9), sorted by greatest WAR for Pitchers

I hated seeing Jesus Montero get traded, but Mariners fans also hated seeing Pineda get traded.  That probably means that the trade was a fair one.  Getting Pineda for Montero made a lot more sense than trading him for a half season of Cliff Lee or for Felix Hernandez being paid at market rate.  Pineda’s not as good as either pitcher right now, and may never be, but he’ll be under team control for the next five seasons and he’ll probably be getting paid less than he’s worth and it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see him elevate himself into the upper echelon of MLB pitchers if he can refine his changeup and get that fastball back.

Put it this way, if Dellin Betances had done in AAA what Pineda did last year in the majors we’d all be convinced he was on the precipice of being a very good MLB pitcher.  Also, throw in the fact that Pineda did this while being a year younger than Betances. 

With a pitcher, you assume more risk than you do with a position player.  But while Montero had a nice MLB debut, he really hasn’t hit all that well in AAA the last two years and it’s still uncertain he’ll be anything more than a DH.  I hope he goes on to have a solid career, while Pineda develops into the best pitcher in baseball and/or pitches them to a few World Series wins.  If that happens and Jose Campos develops into an eighth inning guy, the Yankees will have probably won the trade. 

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Regular Season vs. Postseason

Player A, 2009-2011

	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
REG	.267	.368	.486	.368
Postseason	.156	.257	.333	.262

 

 

 

Nick Swisher

 

--Posted at 1:34 pm by Jonathan / 16 Comments | - (0)

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Friday, September 23, 2011

The Rise and Fall of Bartolo Colon’s Fastball

FFv: Average velocity of four seam fastball on specific date
FTv: Average velocity of two-seam fastball on specific date

--Posted at 8:38 am by SG / 44 Comments | - (0)

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Saturday, August 27, 2011

A.J. Not Staying Low

A few days ago, we looked at A.J. Burnett's numbers broken down by zone. He does much better, as most pitchers do, when keeping it down in the zone. In fact, this season he has the best overall opposing batting average and slugging percentage on pitches low in the zone.

His pitch location from yesterday was mostly middle and up:

Of the 116 pitches that A.J. Burnett threw last night, just 15 were located in the lower part of the zone. Not surprisingly, three of his five strikeouts came on pitches down in the zone, and he gave up just one hit in seven plate appearances decided on a low pitch. And basically everything up was hammered:

If only Irene could have come a day earlier....

All heat maps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

Vs. Baltimore Lefties Vs. Baltimore Righties

--Posted at 1:51 pm by Jonathan / 21 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Breaking Burnett Down by Zone Location

So now A.J. Burnett may really lose his spot in the Yankees rotation. I wanted to see if there was anything he's done this season that may provide hope that he could bounce back. When I broke down the zone location to up, middle and down, I found something pretty interesting.

First, the bad:

2011 A.J. Burnett - Up in the Zone

Basically the middle of the strike zone includes any pitch that hits the middle seven inches of the zone (which is normalized depending on the height of the batter). So anything above the top of that seven inch mark (whether inside or outside the actual strike zone) is designated as 'up'. The same applies for pitches down in the zone which you will see further down in the post.

This season, A.J. ranks in the bottom 21% of the league in opposing batting average (.271) on pitches up (min. 500 pitches thrown in that zone). The league average is .240. His opponent slugging percentage of .474 ranks in the bottom 11% of the league and is nearly 100 points worse than the league average. Sadly, this is actually an improvement over last season when he ranked in the bottom 5 and 3 percent of the league in opponent average (.318) and slugging (.588) respectively.

2011 A.J. Burnett - Middle of the Zone

When throwing over the middle of the zone, Burnett has not only been flat out terrible, he's basically been the worst pitcher in the league. He ranks second to last in opponent batting average (.379), and dead last in opponent slugging percentage (.707), opponent wOBA (.452), and HR/FB (23.3%).

Yet, here's how he's done on pitches down in the zone:

2011 A.J. Burnett - Down in the Zone

As bad as A.J. Burnett has been throwing middle and up, he's been that awesome on pitches down. Batters are hitting just .117 against him in 259 plate appearances decided on a low pitch (1162 total pitches), which is the best in baseball this season. Opponents are also slugging just .157 on low pitches, which also leads the league.

Most of this success on low pitches is probably due to his knuckle curve, which has been by far his best pitch this season (and has accounted for 50.9% of his low pitches). Opponents have a .188 wOBA versus his curve this season compared to a .407 wOBA against all of his other pitches. Burnett obviously can't rely on just one pitch, and we're seeing that quite clearly this season. The decline of his fastball is probably the biggest culprit here, as hitters are putting up a .439 wOBA against it, ranking him in the bottom 1% of the league (Only Edinson Volquez and Kyle Davies have been worse with their fastballs). That number has been increasing every year since PitchFX data began keeping track (2008: .364, 2009: .385, 2010: .403).

His stuff is simply getting worse. Maybe moving him to the bullpen will help him regain something, but is it best for a Yankees pen that has been exceptionally good this year?

All heat maps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 1:22 pm by Jonathan / 37 Comments | - (0)

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Friday, August 12, 2011

Is the Bloom Off the Rose Of Colon?

Since his return from the DL, Bartolo Colon has been a bit less effective than he was prior to going on the DL.  Here are his splits as a starter through yesterday.

dates	ip	bf	h	hr	bb	k	ra	era	fip	xfip
4/20-6/11	67	265	55	8	15	59	3.09	2.96	3.66	3.56
7/2-8/11	41	184	50	4	14	31	5.23	3.70	3.97	4.45
Total-	108	449	105	12	29	90	3.90	3.24	3.78	3.90

Dates	fb%	gb%	ld%	bb/bf	k/bf	babip
4/20-6/11	36.2%	49.5%	14.4%	5.7%	22.3%	.261
7/2-8/11	36.2%	43.5%	20.3%	7.6%	16.8%	.343
Total-	36.2%	46.9%	16.9%	13.3%	39.1%	.296

bf: batters faced
fip: Fielding independent pitching
xfip: Expected fip (uses league average hr/fb rate instead of actual hr)
fb% Percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
gb% Percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
ld% Percentage of batted balls that were line drives
bb/bf: walks per batters faced
k/bf: strikeouts per batters faced
babip: batting average on balls in play

A few things stand out to me.

1) He was outpitching his peripherals prior going to the DL and it was probably not sustainable.
2) Since returning he’s walking batters more frequently and striking them out less frequently.
3) He’s traded some ground balls for line drives (not a good trade).
4) Despite all that, his peripherals since July 2 are still decent

Since we’re talking about breaking up an already small sample size of 108 innings into even smaller chunks of 67 and 41 innings, we really can’t say with any certainty what Colon is right now.  So my next thought was to look at his Pitch FX data and see if there were any obvious differences.

%	FF	FFv	FT	FTv	SL	SLv	CH	CHv
4	45.6%	92.1	39.4%	90.4	9.7%	82.4	5.4%	82.0
5	52.7%	92.4	32.7%	90.9	11.6%	83.7	3.1%	82.2
6	40.1%	93.0	50.0%	91.3	7.6%	84.4	2.3%	83.5
7	54.3%	92.3	24.7%	90.9	16.6%	83.6	4.4%	82.3
8	55.2%	93.0	30.6%	91.9	12.0%	84.5	2.2%	83.0
Total	50.7%	92.4	33.2%	90.9	12.3%	83.5	3.8%	82.3

First column for each pitch type (FF = Four-seam fastball, FT = Two-seam fastball, SL = slider, CH = changeup) is percentage of times he threw each pitch by month and the second column for each pitch type is the average velocity for that month.

There can be some ambiguity in pitch classifications, so I don’t know if he really did throw the two-seam fastball 50% of the time in June.  Aside from that, the numbers seem fairly consistent in terms of average velocities and percentage of each pitch thype thrown.

So how about the results of the pitches?

Month	Ball	Str_C	Str_S	Foul	In play
4	34.0%	26.1%	5.4%	15.1%	19.4%
5	33.1%	23.7%	6.2%	16.2%	20.8%
6	34.1%	21.8%	5.9%	18.2%	20.0%
7	32.7%	23.0%	5.4%	19.3%	19.6%
8	31.9%	20.9%	5.5%	21.4%	20.3%

Ball: Pitches that missed the strike zone, includes HBP, pitchouts
Str_C: Called strikes
Str_S: Swinging strikes, includes missed bunts
Foul: All fouls including outs
In play: All balls hit into play, including HRs

Seems like he’s still got command and his percentage of pitches that were balls has remained fairly steady.  The percentage of called strikes is down this month and that seems to be in line with the uptick in both foul balls and balls in play.

So I think what we’re seeing here is batters starting to be a bit more aggressive as an adjustment to the fact that Colon has pounded the strike zone heavily.  I’m sure we’re also seeing that Colon was pitching over his head earlier this year and is moving closer to what would be a reasonable expectation. 

As long as he can stay in the general vicinity of his season performance to data, that shouldn’t be a problem.  I do continue to worry about his avaiability over the rest of the season, but at this point you keep your fingers crossed and hope.

--Posted at 10:40 am by SG / 10 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Some Mo Pitch FX stuff

I just wanted to do a quick comparison with some of Mariano Rivera’s Pitch FX data from last year and this year, so here it is.

First, here’s the 2010 data.

%	FF	FFv	FC	FCv
4	8.8%	91.8	91.2%	90.6
5	11.6%	91.5	88.4%	90.9
6	18.3%	92.1	81.7%	91.4
7	22.8%	92.5	77.2%	91.3
8	17.9%	92.5	82.1%	91.1
9	16.5%	91.6	83.5%	91.0
10	1.8%	93.1	98.2%	91.5
All	14.6%	92.1	85.4%	91.1

FF: 4 seam fastball
FC: Cutter

Really basic here, just the percentage of time he threw his cutter and four-seamer by month, with the average velocities as well.

Month	Ball	Str_C	Str_S	Foul	In play
4	32.6%	20.3%	9.4%	23.9%	13.8%
5	37.2%	18.2%	5.0%	20.7%	19.0%
6	34.0%	19.8%	10.8%	22.6%	12.7%
7	31.4%	15.3%	10.2%	23.4%	19.7%
8	37.8%	9.4%	6.3%	21.3%	25.2%
9	32.0%	13.8%	8.3%	24.3%	21.5%
10	32.1%	19.6%	3.6%	25.0%	19.6%
All	33.8%	16.7%	8.1%	23.1%	18.4%

 

Ball: Pitches that missed the strike zone, includes HBP, pitchouts
Str_C: Called strikes
Str_S: Swinging strikes, includes missed bunts
Foul: All fouls including outs
In play: All balls hit into play, including HRs

I’m just trying to keep this simple, so I’m not separating out hits from outs or whatever.  I’m more interested in what Rivera’s pitches are doing as they get to home plate and what the batters are doing to them.  What I find interesting here is the marked drop in August.  Despite no obvious drop in velocity, he pretty clearly wasn’t quite as effective.  He threw more balls, got fewer called and swinging strikes, and batters hit a lot more balls into play. He pitched nine innings in August 2010 and only allowed two runs, but he walked three and struck out just two, so that kind of jibes with a decreased effectiveness at the pitch level, even if it didn’t manifest itself in runs.

The good news is that Rivera seemed to rebound a bit in September and was fine in October, which is the most important thing.

So what about 2011?  Are we just seeing another August dip?  We won’t know for a while, but here are the numbers.

%	FF	FFv	FC	FCv
3			100.0%	90.1
4	9.1%	91.0	90.9%	90.5
5	14.6%	91.5	85.4%	90.9
6	10.9%	92.3	89.1%	91.6
7	15.7%	93.0	84.3%	91.8
8	23.5%	93.2	76.5%	92.3
All	12.9%	92.2	87.1%	91.2

Month	Ball	Str_C	Str_S	Foul	In play
3	15.8%	10.5%	21.1%	21.1%	31.6%
4	27.3%	16.0%	7.5%	31.0%	18.2%
5	33.1%	19.7%	6.3%	20.5%	20.5%
6	25.6%	17.8%	10.1%	27.1%	19.4%
7	25.9%	18.5%	11.9%	24.4%	19.3%
8	27.5%	15.7%	7.8%	23.5%	25.5%
All	27.5%	17.4%	9.1%	25.9%	20.1%

We obviously don’t have enough data to make any meaningful observations about Rivera’s 2011 August.  I do have to admit that as a fan this year, ignoring whatever the numbers tell me, Mo hasn’t been quite as dominant as he’s been over the last few seasons.  If that means he’s now just a very good closer instead of the greatest of all time, there are worse things that could happen.  He is 41, and it is going to happen at some point.  I’d imagine that we’ll see Mo being used a bit more sparingly if he continues to look human.

Or it could just be yet another chapter of WWWMW™, one that we’ll look back on at the end of the year and laugh at.  Again.

--Posted at 12:20 pm by SG / 8 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Phil Hughes’ Pitch Location

--Posted at 2:02 pm by Jonathan / 16 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

CC Sabathia vs. CC Sabathia

I was wondering if an uptick in velocity was the reason for CC Sabathia’s strong run of late, so I played around with his Pitch FX numbers to see what they showed.

3/31-6/19	Avg Speed	Count	Stk	Sw	Sw%	LWTS
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	93.2	673	452	37	8.2%	-4.98
SI (Sinker)	92.6	374	241	35	14.5%	-4.53
CH (Changeup)	86.2	279	194	46	23.7%	-5.33
SL (Slider)	81.2	372	242	49	20.2%	-1.41
CU (Curveball)	77.2	26	13	1	7.7%	-0.18

Stk: Strikes
Sw: Swinging strikes
LWTS: Linear weights against pitch (lower is better for pitcher)

6/25-7/10	Avg Speed	Count	Stk	Sw	Sw%	LWTS
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	95.0	210	146	19	13.0%	-4.97
SI (Sinker)	93.4	45	32	0	0.0%	1.56
CH (Changeup)	87.4	43	27	8	29.6%	-1.23
SL (Slider)	82.5	135	93	34	36.6%	-8.04

He’s definitely throwing harder over his last four starts, but the biggest improvement seems to be from the slider.  He’s also changed his pitch selection a bit.

Pitch Type	3/31-6/19	6/25-7/10
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	39.0%	48.5%
SI (Sinker)	21.7%	10.4%
CH (Changeup)	16.2%	9.9%
SL (Slider)	21.6%	31.2%
CU (Curveball)	1.5%	0%

Those are the percentages of times he threw each pitch type.

Whatever it is, let’s hope it lasts.  It’s been great to watch.

--Posted at 12:02 pm by SG / 16 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Yankees.com: Hughes progresses, but Yanks can’t help

CLEVELAND—Phil Hughes returned with five innings that flashed promise for the rest of his season on Wednesday night, but Justin Masterson gathered more buzz with his effort, dealing the Yankees a commanding 5-3 loss to the Indians.

Masterson silenced the Bombers’ bats over eight dominant innings as the Yankees lost two of three in Cleveland, completing their six-game road trip with an even record.

One of New York’s three hits off Masterson came off the bat of shortstop Derek Jeter, who talked his way into the starting lineup and doubled with one out in the eighth inning for career hit No. 2,997.

To quote David Cone, it was Hughes’s best start of the year, but that isn’t saying a lot.

I don’t understand a universe where pitching Sergio Mitre in a 3-0 game in the eighth inning makes sense, but even if the Yankees had pitched a scoreless eighth that just means they’d have faced Chris Perez to start the ninth and he pretty much mowed them down once he came in.  Really, the Yankees lost this game when Justin Masterson took the mound.  They hit some balls well throughout the game, but a few nice catches and a pair of game-saving plays by Asdrubal Cabrera in the eighth effectively ended any realistic chance they had of winning tonight.

The story tonight was Hughes though.

The Good

His velocity was a lot better than it’s been this year, particularly early on.  It dipped a bit as the innings went on, but his last two fastballs of the night were still clocked at 92 and 91 mph respectively.

He went five innings and only gave up two runs.

The Bad

Unfortunately, pretty much everything else.  Hughes faced 25 batters and 10 of them reached base safely.  If Cleveland hadn’t stranded 8 of those 10 runners, Hughes’s line could have been really ugly.

Of the 87 pitches Hughes threw, Cleveland batters swung and missed exactly two of them (one changeup and one curve).

The Ugly
According to FIP or xFIP, Hughes was actually lucky to only have allowed two runs.

Here are some charts comparing Hughes’s basic Pitch F/X data from 2010, 2011 prior to tonight, and tonight.

Average velocity by pitch type

Date	FA-Vel	CU-Vel	FC-Vel	CH-Vel	Pitches
2010	92.5	75.8	88.8	84.5	3003
2011	89.3	72.1	84.1	81.2	207
6-Jul	91.5	74.3	88.5	83.6	87

Average horizontal break by pitch type

Date	FA-X	CU-X	FC-X	CH-X	Pitches
2010	-5.7	6	-0.4	-9.3	3003
2011	-4.3	6.7	1	-7.5	207
6-Jul	-3.7	6.8	0.9	-8.5	87

Average vertical break by pitch type

Date	FA-Z	CU-Z	FC-Z	CH-Z	Pitches
2010	10.2	-8.7	6.8	6.8	3003
2011	11.4	-6.5	7.8	7.7	207
6-Jul	7.5	-8.2	5.2	5.0	87

FA: Fastball
CU: Changeup
FC: Cut Fastball
CH: Changeup

I don’t know how much we should make of most of the variations within this data.  It could as easily be a calibration issue as anything, but I think the velocity data should be somewhat informative.  Hughes was closer to his 2010 self stuff-wise in this start than he’s been this season.  So I think we’re now almost back to where we were at the end of 2010, with the Hughes that was not nearly as effective in the second half of the season as he was in the first half.

That’s a far sight better than the Hughes that wasn’t a major league pitcher anymore, but there’s obviously still a lot of work to be done here.  He’s certainly going to get another start, so let’s hope he takes another step forward.

--Posted at 9:13 pm by SG / 44 Comments | - (0)

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Friday, July 1, 2011

Star-Ledger: Derek Jeter to play in Trenton this weekend before returning to Yankees

NEW YORK — Derek Jeter will play in two rehab games in Trenton this weekend before rejoining the Yankees on Monday in Cleveland in his run for 3,000 hits.

“I feel good now,” Jeter told reporters after working out at the Yankees’ minor-league complex in Tampa, Fla. “I’m ready to get out of here.”

Eduardo Nunez will have three more games to showcase his fielding skills.

Also, here’s a quick look at how Swisher has turned it around in the last month (below the break):

 

2011 - Nick Swisher vs. RHP

Most of Swisher's success has come off the hard stuff. All 7 of his left-handed home runs have been off fastballs, as have 5 of his 9 doubles.

I also just wanted to let you all know that I'll be covering the first game of the subway series for Stats Inc., and I hope to be able to update the site with anything interesting. I also plan on taking in the second game as well, because I just love interleague play so much....

--Posted at 1:38 am by Jonathan / 27 Comments | - (0)

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Monday, June 27, 2011

Logan’s Location

As SG mentioned in the game recap from yesterday, Boone Logan has been good against lefties lately, after struggling earlier in the season. Through his first 14 appearances, he gave up 9 hits to lefties in 29 plate appearances, including two doubles and one home run.  However, he's turned things around as of late, yielding just 4 hits to left-handed batters in his last 26 faced.  Location seems to be a big part of his turnaround.

The big difference has been Logan's ability to throw outside to lefties.  Earlier in the season, you can see that he was leaving the ball over the heart of the plate. But since May 15th, he's been able to keep the ball away, and the results have been much improved.

2011 Boone Logan vs. LHB

	P	PA	AVG	BABIP	K%	wOBA
First 14 Games	106	29	.360	.364	6.9%	.413
Last 14 Games	107	26	.269	.286	34.6%	.236

Logan has struck out 11 lefty batters this season, 9 of which have come since mid-May. Since tightening up his location, Lefties have been swinging and missing more against him. Prior to May 15th, opposing LHB were making contact on 81.4% of their swings against Logan. But in the past 6 weeks, that number has dropped to 70.2%.

Opposing batters are also chasing more of Logan's pitches out of the zone (25.6% to 31.3%). This is one of the many benefits that come with locating on the edges. Batters are forced to swing more at those questionable pitches outside so as to avoid getting caught looking.

So if Damaso Marte and Pedro Feliciano just play catch for the rest of the season, Logan's effectiveness could be all the more crucial; especially if the Yankees plan on winning more than one game against the lefty heavy Boston Red Sox this season.

--Posted at 12:46 pm by Jonathan / 19 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Worst Low Ball Hitters

(2011 data through June 7th)

Any pitch that located below a line 6 inches above the bottom of the PitchFX strike zone is included, even if it was outside of the actual strike zone.

Since 2009, Russell Martin has a .146 batting average in 263 plate appearances decided on a low pitch, 8th worst in baseball. At least he should know where pitchers will throw him at this point.

--Posted at 1:17 pm by Jonathan / 14 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Heat Map: Bartolo Colon vs. Baltimore Orioles (5/18/11)

Bartolo Colon threw 87 pitches yesterday, and while he didn't get the win, he held the Orioles to 3 hits over 8 innings. He threw mostly fastballs (90.8%), a few sliders, and one changeup according to PitchFX data. His fastball averaged a -5.8 BrkX (horizontal movement from spin) reading and 8.5 BrkZ (vertical movement from spin) reading, both slightly better than league average. He yielded 10 ground balls, 5 line drives, and 4 fly balls, while striking out 7. And as you can see, he located his pitches extremely well, avoiding the middle of the plate while jamming lefties up and in. He also threw to the outside edge of the plate to righties and lefties, recording 5 of his strikeouts on pitches away, 4 of them looking.

All heat maps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 3:37 pm by Jonathan / 5 Comments | - (0)

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Monday, April 18, 2011

Derek Jeter: Hit Type Data

Derek Jeter 2011 Hit Type

	%	AVG	BABIP	SLG	HR%	wOBA
Line Drive	10.0%	.250	.200	.250	0.0%	.180
Fly Ball	10.0%	.200	.200	.200	0.0%	.180
Ground Ball	76.0%	.289	.289	.316	0.0%	.269
Pop Up	2.0%	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	.000
Total In Play	100.0%	.265	.260	.286	0.0%	.241
Total	100.0%	.241	.260	.259	0.0%	.268

Although it's only been 61 plate appearances into 2011, Derek Jeter seems to be picking up where he left off last season. His ground ball tendencies seem to be intensifying and even when he does get under a ball, he doesn't get much distance on it. In case you happened to notice, bunt data is not included in the chart which is why the percentages don't add up to 100.

Since Jeter's major hitting woes appeared to begin in 2010, here's his combined 2010 and 2011 hit type data, followed by his prior two seasons.

Derek Jeter 2010-2011 Hit Type

	%	AVG	BABIP	SLG	HR%	wOBA
Line Drive	15.9%	.660	.640	.920	2.0%	.669
Fly Ball	16.2%	.294	.229	.686	7.8%	.392
Ground Ball	65.5%	.245	.245	.260	0.0%	.226
Pop Up	1.2%	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	.000
Total In Play	100.0%	.318	.305	.431	1.6%	.322
Total	100.0%	.267	.305	.362	1.3%	.314

Derek Jeter 2009-20102008-2009 Hit Type

	%	AVG	BABIP	SLG	HR%	wOBA
Line Drive	19.8%	.756	.747	.977	2.3%	.753
Fly Ball	20.3%	.308	.209	.790	12.1%	.437
Ground Ball	57.0%	.267	.267	.273	0.0%	.242
Pop Up	1.5%	.059	.059	.059	0.0%	.053
Total In Play	100.0%	.373	.352	.518	2.9%	.380
Total	100.0%	.319	.352	.444	2.5%	.366

Watching Jeter hit has been pretty frustrating over the last year. The ground ball tendencies wouldn't be so annoying if he was making better contact overall. The drop in average on his line drives has been a big problem for Jeter. Since he's not really a home run hitter, he relies more on liners to prop up his average and power numbers. Jeter's .640 BAbip on line drives since the start of the 2010 season puts him in the bottom 8% of all major league hitters. I'd love to say that he's hit a rough patch of luck, but it's just not the case.

Derek Jeter Contact & SLG% (Click to enlarge)

I posted Jeter's contact graphics a few months ago but I figure they're worth revisiting. The one area he tends to hit the ball well is also the area he has been making less contact. If Jeter is experiencing an overall drop in bat speed, it would explain why he's making less contact in his power zone, as well as why his ground ball and line drive averages are down. The balls he puts in play would not be hit as hard, making it a lot easier for opposing defenses to field and convert them into outs. I'm not saying this is the case, (I don't have access to hit velocity data) but it would certainly explain a lot.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 5:53 pm by Jonathan / 35 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Phil Hughes Through Two Starts

Yes, Phil Hughes' fastball velocity is down. We get it. Is that his only problem? Probably not, but it sure makes it harder for him to be successful with his other pitches.

Some readers have commented on his location issues. I haven't really noticed Hughes sitting in the middle of the zone in his last two starts, but let's take a look at how he's locating compared to the last three seasons.

Phil Hughes Pitch Location (All Pitch Types) (Click to enlarge)

The major difference so far has been Hughes' attempt to come in on lefties. The main reason for this is that he's been relying on his cutter more over his first two starts, while shying away from his velocity-challenged fastball.

Phil Hughes Pitch Selection vs. LHB

	FB%	CHNG%	CURV%	SLD%	CUT%
2008-10	63.5%	4.4%	20.5%	1.3%	10.2%
2011	11.9%	6.0%	13.4%	0.0%	68.7%

Phil Hughes Pitch Selection vs. RHB

	FB%	CHNG%	CURV%	SLD%	CUT%
2008-10	61.5%	0.1%	17.0%	3.2%	18.1%
2011	12.9%	1.4%	20.0%	0.0%	65.7%

Having to rely more on his cutter has not produced positive results for Hughes. Batters are hitting .412 off it, compared to .290 in his three previous seasons; he's only induced a handful of swings and misses on the pitch as well. In his three previous seasons, Hughes was able to get opposing righties to chase his cutter out of the zone 38.4 percent of the time. So far this season, he's produced just 2 total swings on 21 cutters out of the zone to RHB. This could be a sign that his location is somewhat iffy. But it could also be a side effect of the ineffectiveness of his fastball. With batters seeing the cutter more, it's likely easier for them to lay off the pitch when it's thrown to the outside edge of the plate. And the reduced velocity on his fastball means batters have more time to identify the pitch, differentiating it from the cutter.

Phil Hughes vs. LHB

	P	PA	K%	BB%	Miss%	Strk%	Foul%
2008-10	2806	666	20.3%	11.4%	18.2%	62.7%	46.6%
2011	67	17	0.0%	5.9%	3.0%	70.1%	48.5%

Phil Hughes vs. RHB

	P	PA	K%	BB%	Miss%	Strk%	Foul%
2008-10	2700	676	22.0%	5.5%	21.5%	67.6%	46.2%
2011	70	16	6.3%	18.8%	6.7%	55.7%	53.3%

With only two starts under his belt, you can't really get too bent out of shape about any of these numbers, although they don't inspire much confidence going forward. His swing and miss rate is pretty awful even for the limited sample. Basically, opposing batters are making contact on 95 percent of their swings against Hughes. He's obviously not going to be racking up the Ks at that rate.

On the plus side, with all that extra contact, Hughes' walk rate is down nearly 50% against lefties.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 10:47 am by Jonathan / 12 Comments | - (0)

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Friday, April 1, 2011

CC’s Slider (3/31/11)

CC Sabathia's Slider Location

Sabathia didn't have his best slider in the Yankees' opener yesterday. His location was off as it hung up in the zone quite a bit. Over the last three seasons, batters have made contact on his slider 56.1 percent of the time. On 24 sliders yesterday afternoon, the Tigers made contact on 77.8 percent of their swings (of a whopping total of 9), primarily on pitches in the strike zone. Obviously, it's only one game's worth of data, but it was clear he wasn't able to keep the pitch down like he normally does.

BrkX and BrkZ values provided by PitchFX measure the number of inches the ball moves horizontally and vertically as a result of the spin on the ball read from when it is 40 ft from home plate. Sabathia traditionally gets about 5.1 inches of BrkX (horizontal) movement on his slider. Yesterday it averaged 2.8 inches. From 2008-2010, PitchFX data has Sabathia throwing 2060 sliders in regular and postseason games combined. Only 450 of those sliders have had a BrkX reading less than 3.0.

Again, one game's worth of data is not enough to draw any significant conclusions on one pitch. Besides, it was cold, and the man is still in Captain Crunch withdrawal. If he's still hanging his slider up in the zone in a couple weeks, then I'd be worried.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 5:37 pm by Jonathan / 23 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Granderson: Before and After Long

SG's Looking Ahead piece on Curtis Granderson had me scrambling to the heat maps. Make of this what you will.

2010 Curtis Granderson ISO

I also noticed that Granderson was producing better results on pitches up in the zone. If we isolate pitches thrown to the top 5 inches of the average strike zone and higher, Granderson's slugging percentage went from .403 to .816. His swing rate, as well as miss rate, didn't really change at all. We're only dealing with 365 and 288 pitches in this specific zone over the two time periods respectively, however, so you can't read too much into his results. Although I will say that a change in his expected OBP might indicate a better approach. Before August 10th, Granderson had an exp-OBP of .363 with a 17.2% exp-BB% on pitches up. From the 10th on: .421 exp-OBP, 20.8% exp-BB%.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

Update:Granderson's pitch frequency, as requested by Ivy:

2010 Curtis Granderson Pitch Frequency

Update 2: Granderson's 2008-09 ISO as requested by (not the real) jerry seinfeld:

Curtis Granderson 2008-09 ISO

Looks like the previous two years are more in line with his performance after August 9th. That could be a sign that something in his swing changed in 2009 before he worked with Long. Perhaps the injury early on altered something in his mechanics that negatively effected his approach. According to the article SG linked too, Long did help shorten Granderson's swing which supposedly helps in catching up to fastballs more. This could be one reason why he seems to have regained power on pitches out and over the plate.

--Posted at 12:57 pm by Jonathan / 18 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

B Pro: Fast: The Real Strike Zone

Why would umpires be influenced to change their strike zones in so many different ways? What physical or mental factors influence them, and is there any evidence to support those theories? Are the umpires really as inconsistent as the data presented by the articles to date would suggest?

This article is a very interesting look at things that may influence the strike zone.  One of the things I found particularly interesting was the look at pitch framing and how it varies among catchers.  Catcher defense is still one of the most difficult areas to try and fully quantify statistically, but this article seems to be a step in the right direction.

The analysis in this piece was done using Pitch FX data, by Mike Fast, who I think is the best Pitch FX analyst out there right now, so I thought it was worth linking.

--Posted at 9:37 pm by SG / 12 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Fall and Rise of Joba’s Fastball

A few weeks ago we looked at some data on Joba’s slider over the last 3 seasons. Here’s a look at his fastball over that period.

Joba’s Fastball vs. LHB

	P	AVG	SLG	Contact%	PVX	PVZ	VEL
2008	591	.284	.367	92.6%	3.4	-12.3	94.6
2009	1041	.286	.456	92.6%	2.2	-12.7	92.2
2010	419	.274	.405	89.5%	1.4	-12.9	94.1

Joba’s Fastball vs. RHB

	P	AVG	SLG	Contact%	PVX	PVZ	VEL
2008	494	.222	.287	74.4%	4.2	-12.3	95.9
2009	762	.327	.570	86.9%	3.1	-12.5	93.1
2010	383	.298	.404	84.9%	3.2	-12.8	95.1

The drop in velocity isn’t news. Joba lost about 3 ticks on his fastball in 2009. However, 2010 saw a bump in velocity. This could be a sign that Joba’s arm is rebounding from the shoulder issue that occurred in August of 2008. Then again, a full season of bullpen work, rather than 150+ innings as a starter could have something to do with it.

The vertical movement (PVZ) on Joba’s fastball increased each season, but this is probably attributed to his drop in overall velocity. It’s odd that the horizontal movement on his fastball against lefties continues to drop, especially considering that the red on his heat map (scroll below) seems to edge inward each year (again, a righty throwing a fastball inside more will get a higher reading on his PVX due to the angle of the pitch when crossing the plate). However, a closer look shows that he threw far less inside fastballs in 2010, as the light blue is nearly all gone inside on his heat map to LHB. Thus, while the bulk of his pitches may have been moving in off the outside corner, Joba avoided throwing as many inside fastballs to LHB last season.

There are a number of other factors that may account for this phenomenon, including a possible change in release point and whether Joba altered where he set himself on the rubber. And as SG pointed out, some of the variation may be due to calibration or systemic error rather than any change on Joba’s part. From the data I’ve seen from the rest of the league so far, I’d say that the pitchFX software has been fairly consistent over the last 3 years. I wouldn’t count out some calibration issues, however, any actual deviation resulting from hardware issues over the course of a season is probably minor given the bulk of the data.

A look at the following graph shows that Joba’s fastball velocity rose steadily throughout the 2010 season.

Joba’s Fastball since 2008
Again, we can only speculate as to the cause, although I’d love to think it’s mainly due to his shoulder fully healing. But more than likely it’s a combination of a decreased workload and a buildup of arm strength.

Lasty, here’s a look at Joba’s heat maps for the last 3 seasons.

Joba’s Fastball Pitch Frequency
You can see that in 2009, Joba’s fastball was catching the inner half of the plate a bit more, particularly against RHB. Combining this with a considerable drop in velocity was deadly, as his .570 SLG% against points out. His 2009 fastball against RHB also caught the upper half of the zone much more, particularly on the mid to outer half of the plate. This is typically a bad place to leave a 92 mph fastball.

In 2010, Joba’s location to RHB changed dramatically as he threw his fastball to a much lower spot, nearly abandoning the upper half of the zone. Doing so shaved over 150 points off his SLG% against to RHB.

Every week that passes seems to indicate that Andy Pettitte is more likely to retire. The Yankees need to fill out their rotation. Now, I understand that this isn’t the same JOBA! of 2007-08. But it might not be the worst thing in the world if the Yankees began to transition him back to a starting role at some point, especially if his arm truly is getting stronger.

Since Boston has already locked up the 2011 AL East title, what’s the harm?

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 3:51 pm by Jonathan / 41 Comments | - (0)

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Monday, December 13, 2010

Joba’s Slider

I wanted to take a closer look at Joba’s PitchFX numbers over the past 3 years to see if anything stood out besides the obvious loss in fastball velocity. Below is some data on Joba’s slider.

Joba’s Slider vs. LHB

	P	AVG	SLG	Contact%	PVX	PVZ	VEL
2008	157	.188	.292	47.1%	7.6	-18.3	85
2009	201	.175	.263	60.6%	6.4	-17.4	85
2010	106	.222	.444	57.6%	6.3	-18.3	86

Joba’s Slider vs. RHB

	P	AVG	SLG	Contact%	PVX	PVZ	VEL
2008	230	.159	.222	47.4%	7.3	-17.7	86
2009	353	.271	.402	63.6%	6.4	-16.5	85
2010	241	.217	.348	64.6%	6.6	-16.7	87

Joba’s pitch count obviously received a bump in 2009 because of the 31 starts he made that year. But overall, batters made better contact on the pitch than in 2008. You can also see that his slider lost a good deal of both vertical and horizontal movement in 2009. He lost nearly a foot per second of vertical movement against LHB and 1.2 against RHB, while losing almost equally as much horizontal movement.

Quick note: I'm posting pitch data as splits because there is usually a noticeable difference in PVX depending on which side of the plate a pitcher throws to. For instance, a right handed fastball tends to cut from right to left. So a pitcher who spots his fastball to the 3rd base side of the plate vs LHB will usually have less horizontal movement overall. This is because the angle the pitch is thrown actually offsets the movement on the pitch. The same RHP will get more movement throwing his fastball away from RHB because he is throwing across his body more and the angle of the throw aligns with the movement of the pitch.

In August of 2008, Joba went on the DL with shoulder inflammation, but returned to pitch in September of that year. I looked at the overall data on his slider in that final month and it was right in line with his pre-DL numbers (PVX of 7.8, PVZ of -18.0). So I’m not sure why he lost so much movement on his slider in 2009, but doubt the injury contributed much at all. I guess he could have been pitching through the injury in September ’08 and only felt the full effects the following season. But I doubt the Yankees training staff would have allowed this to happen. At this point, we can only speculate/complain about the extent his shoulder injury affected his performance.

However, Joba’s heat maps show that location may have been part of the problem with his slider.


You can see that his slider was not dropping out of the zone nearly as much in 2009. It’s possible that since he wasn’t getting as much movement on his slider, it hung in the zone more after 2008. Or perhaps he simply had more trouble locating it in addition to a loss in movement. But it’s pretty apparent that his slider lost some bite after his rookie season.

Granted, it’s really tough to gauge a true level of progression or decline from these numbers since he bounced between starter and reliever each year. I think it’s reasonable to expect his numbers to regress somewhat in his second season with the league getting more looks at him, as well as the increase in work load as a full time starter. But there’s no denying that Joba’s slider was among the best in the league in 2008, and he’s yet to duplicate his success with it since.

Later in the week I'll post some numbers on Joba's fastball since 2008.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 5:23 pm by Jonathan / 102 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Andy Pettitte’s Cutter

Andy Pettitte is undecided about returning for another season with the Yankees. All indications are that if he does return, this will be his last season.

Andy has been an effective pitcher for the Yankees since his return to the team in 2007. In fact, he was working on one of his best seasons yet before succumbing to injury in July of this year.

For Andy, it's all about the cutter. The success of every outing is almost entirely determined by how well he's throwing his cut fastball, and he's been very proficient at locating the pitch. This is one of the big reasons he's done so well late in his career.

Andy Pettitte's Cutter vs. LHB 2008-10
Andy Pettitte's Cutter vs. RHB 2008-10
Andy Pettitte's Cutter since 2008

	P	PA	AVG	SLG	wOBA
vs. LHB	518	167	.151	.233	.169
vs. RHB	1037	293	.223	.385	.299

In 2010, Andy's cutter ranked in the 95th percentile in opponents' AVG, SLG and wOBA, as well as Contact%. One more year of that, or something close to it, would help the Yankees' rotation considerably, and may even be necessary if Lee signs elsewhere.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 4:29 pm by Jonathan / 38 Comments | - (0)

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Monday, November 8, 2010

Burnett’s 2010 Fastball

A.J. Burnett Overall

	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
2009	.250	.338	.401	.334
2010	.285	.363	.457	.367

A.J. Burnett vs. LHB

	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
2009	.222	.312	.352	.303
2010	.286	.373	.444	.368

A.J. Burnett had a much tougher time against left handed batters in 2010 than in his first season as a Yankee. In addition to the jump in his overall line, Burnett's K-Rate against LHB dropped from 24.9% in 2009 to 16.2% in 2010, striking out 43 fewer.

One thing that stood out was the drop in effectiveness in A.J.'s fastball in 2010, particularly against lefties.

A.J. Burnett's Fastball vs. LHB

	PA	AVG	SLG	wOBA
2009	274	.276	.474	.378
2010	190	.371	.648	.472

A.J.'s 2010 fastball averaged 93.2 MPH, a loss of 1 MPH from 2009. He was also much less effective in throwing the pitch down and away to LHB in 2010.

A.J. Burnett's Fastball vs. LHB 2009
A.J. Burnett's Fastball vs. LHB 2010
A.J. Burnett's Fastball vs. LHB (Highlighted Zone)

	PA	AVG	SLG	wOBA
2009	83	.250	.325	.271
2010	52	.298	.489	.378

In addition to the drop in velocity, Burnett's fastball also lost some downward movement. In 2010, his fastball was dropping at a rate of 11.6 ft/sec as it crossed the plate, about 4% less than 2009. This loss of movement combined with a drop in velocity may have contributed to his reduced K-Rate to lefties, and decreased the effectiveness of his fastball down in the zone.

UPDATE: Burnett's Pitch Frequencies below the break.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

A.J. Burnett's Fastball vs. LHB 2009
A.J. Burnett's Fastball vs. LHB 2010
Really not too much a change in location, although perhaps slightly more pitches over the middle inside part of the plate in 2010. As far as down and away, it doesn't look like much changed in 2010.

A.J. Burnett's Fastball Velocity 2009-2010
I'm still figuring out the software, so forgive the lack of detail in this graph. The exact middle represents 94 MPH, right where A.J.'s 2009 ended. You can see his 2010 fastball velocity remained consistently below 94 throughout the season, even in the early months when he didn't completely suck.

--Posted at 11:41 am by Jonathan / 60 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

Phil Hughes’ 2010 Cutter (Part Two)

Phil Hughes' Cutter vs. LHB

	AVG	SLG	wOBA
April - May	.185	.407	.331
June - July	.381	.667	.441
August - October	.250	.500	.344

Phil Hughes' Cutter vs. RHB

	AVG	SLG	wOBA
April - May	.225	.275	.232
June - July	.444	.778	.530
August - October	.316	.632	.411

Below the break you'll find heat maps for Hughes' pitch frequency throughout the season.

Phil Hughes' Cutter - April-May
Phil Hughes' Cutter - June-July
Phil Hughes' Cutter - August-October 2nd
Since his performance numbers are based on plate appearances decided on a cutter, we're working with a relatively small sample size, especially when looking at splits.

Nonetheless, when viewed with his overall pitch frequency, two things stood out to me. First, against RHB in June and July, Hughes kept the cutter down more, and apparently this got him into more trouble. Second, Hughes avoided throwing the cutter in to lefties in June and July. However, when I split the map in half, I found he got hit harder when throwing the pitch inside during that period (.385 SLG% on the outer half compared to 1.125 SLG% on the inner half). As noted in the previous post, his cutter had less movement in June and July. This is pure speculation, but if Hughes knew he wasn't getting as much cut on that pitch, he may have avoided throwing it in to lefties.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 4:19 pm by Jonathan / 36 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Phil Hughes’ 2010 Cutter

Phil Hughes season was neither awful, nor spectacular. After a great first couple of months, Hughes slipped a bit with a stretch of less than optimal starts. And despite what the media might say, his problems were probably not caused by a skipped start in June.

I wanted to take a look at Phil's cutter to see if there was any noticeable change throughout the season. Here are a few nifty heatmaps along with some interesting data points.

Phil Hughes' Cutter - April & May
On the left, you can see all the hits coming off Hughes' cutter and their locations in the field throughout April and May this season. On the right, you can see the movement on his cutter. This is determined as the pitch is crossing the plate. The x-axis indicates a 13 mph feet/sec drop from a pitch as it crosses the plate, with each grid line equaling 4 mph feet per second (one line above the axis would equal 9 mph ft/sec in downward movement, one line below equals 17 mph ft/sec). The y-axis equals 0 mph ft/sec in horizontal movement.

So the above heat map indicates that Hughes' cutter in April and May had an average downward movement of 12.5 mph ft/sec and a right to left movement averaging 7.8 mph ft/sec. Here are the heat maps for the rest of the season.

Phil Hughes' Cutter - June & July
Phil Hughes' Cutter - August, September & October (regular season only)
The first thing that stands out is Hughes' June and July heat map. He was not as consistent with his cutter's movement, as you can see the blue creep toward the center of the map a bit more. Same thing from August on, although not nearly as bad. In April and May, Hughes did not seem to throw any flat cutters, as you can see nothing at all nearing that y-axis of 0 mph ft/sec.

	PA	P	H-PlateVel	V-PlateVel
April - May	75	251	7.8	-12.5
June - July	51	166	7.1	-12.7
August - October	33	126	7.3	-13.3

PA: Plate Appearances decided on a cutter
P: Cutters thrown
H-PlateVel: Horizontal movement in mph ft/sec
V-PlateVel: Vertical movement in mph ft/sec

	Cntct%	Fly-Dist	HR	wOBA
April - May	83.5%	289	2	.276
June - July	81.0%	299	3	.493
August - October	76.3%	309	3	.385

Cntct%: Contact Rate (in play + foul / swings) on cutters
Fly-Dist: Fly ball distance on cutters

Interesting that Hughes got more swings and misses on his cutter as the season went on (I recall complaining more and more about his inability to get swings and misses). In the middle of the season, Hughes' cutter had the lowest average right to left movement. Not surprising that he was hit hardest during that stretch. It's also interesting that Hughes' cutter had more drop as the season went on, almost an entire mphfoot per second from the beginning of the season to the end. I'm not sure what exactly this tells us, if much of anything at all. Perhaps it can be connected to a decrease in spin on his cutter, as he maintained an overall velocity of 89 mph on the pitch throughout the season. It could also be attributed to a slight change in release point or delivery.

I'll try to dig up anything else on Hughes that may be of interest.

All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 9:59 pm by Jonathan / 72 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Robinson Cano’s Postseason

How good has Robinson Cano been for the Yankees this postseason?  Last night he hit his 4th HR in the ALCS and raised his line to .387/.406/.871 with a .522 wOBA over 32 plate appearances.

Robinson Cano's ALCS In Play SLG%

The handedness of the opposing pitcher has made little difference for Cano as he's hit two HRs off LHP (both against C.J. Wilson in two different games) and two off RHP (Tommy Hunter, Game Two and Colby Lewis, Game Five).  In the regular season, 13 of his 28 homers came against lefties.

Two of Cano's postseason HRs and his one triple came on sliders.  This should come as no surprise as Cano has slugged .706 against sliders in 2010, first in the AL among LHB with a minimum of 50 PA featuring sliders.  His .420 wOBA against the pitch is second in the AL behind Justin Morneau.

Robinson Cano's vs. Sliders in 2010

As the Yankees look to mount a comeback in the ALCS, they will need Cano to continue his outstanding hitting.  Of course, they better hope his back doesn't give out from carrying the team for 5 games.

All heatmaps courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 4:46 pm by Jonathan / 17 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Cliff Lee’s Precision

Cliff Lee’s Pitch Frequency Game 3

If the Yankees don’t sweep the next three games, more of this awaits in Game 7.

All heatmaps courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 9:59 am by Jonathan / 29 Comments | - (0)

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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Hughes with Two Strikes

Phil Hughes had a little trouble with two strikes against the Rangers’ hitters on Saturday.  He went to two strikes on two lefty batters, walking one and yielding a double to the other.  After two strikes to 10 right handed Rangers, Hughes allowed 4 hits (2 doubles, 1 triple) while striking out 3.

Phil Hughes Contact Rate with 2 Strikes (26 pitches) Phil Hughes In Play Rate with 2 Strikes (26 pitches)

The top map shows the contact rate (number of balls in play + fouls / number of swings) against Phil Hughes with two strikes on Saturday.  Too much red there.  The bottom map shows the in play rate (balls put in play / swings).  It seemed as though Hughes was trying to elevate his pitches with two strikes against the Rangers, but they weren’t missing.  Just for comparison, here’s his 2010 in play map:

 

2010 Phil Hughes In Play Rate with 2 Strikes to RHB (1016492 pitches)

UPDATE: Just realized I only put up the in play rate for RHB.  Here it is for LHB:

2010 Phil Hughes In Play Rate with 2 Strikes to LHB (524 pitches)

All heatmaps courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 11:54 pm by Jonathan / 50 Comments | - (0)

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Saturday, October 16, 2010

ALCS Game One Strikezone

Here are the heatmaps for both C.J. Wilson and CC Sabathia from last night’s ALCS Game One, separated by balls and called strikes as determined by home plate umpire Gerry Davis.

C.J. Wilson’s Called Ball Frequency (36 pitches) CC Sabathia’s Called Ball Frequency (42 pitches) C.J. Wilson’s Called Strike Frequency (46 pitches) CC Sabathia’s Called Strike Frequency (37 pitches)

Early in the game, it seemed as though Sabathia was not getting the paint on the inside outside corner to lefty righty batters.  However, it looks like Gerry Davis wasn’t calling pitches on the upper left side of the zone much for either pitcher.  It just seemed to harm CC more since he kept trying to hit that spot early on.

However, when comparing Wilson’s called strikes to Sabathia’s called balls, it appears Wilson was getting that lower right portion of the zone more.  In fact, CC seemed to miss out on a few calls that were probably within that lower right portion of the strikezone.

UDPATE:
Just realized there’s a nifty “Called Strike Rate” heatmap available.  Sorry. I’m still getting used to the software. 
Here they are for both pitchers:

C.J. Wilson’s Called Strike Rate CC Sabathia’s Called Strike Rate

All heatmaps courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform

--Posted at 11:27 am by Jonathan / 3 Comments | - (0)

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Mariano Rivera’s Pitch Frequency

I was recently granted access to a platform called In Depth Baseball.  It’s a pretty impressive tool that provides heatmaps using pitchfx and hitfx data.  One of the most telling heatmaps I was first shown was Mariano Rivera’s pitch frequency.

Mariano Rivera’s Pitch Frequency in 2010 (915 pitches) vs. All 2010 Major League RHP

Notice how Rivera barely touches the middle of the plate.

Here are Mo’s Righty-Lefty heatmaps vs. the rest of the league:

Mariano Rivera’s 2010 Pitch Frequency against LHB (439 pitches) vs. All 2010 Major League Pitchers
Mariano Rivera’s 2010 Pitch Frequency against RHB (476 pitches) vs. All 2010 Major League Pitchers

As you can see from the top map, Rivera lives on the inside corner to lefty batters.  In fact, the majority of his pitches fall outside the designated strikezone.  Meanwhile, the rest of the league favors throwing down and away to LHB.

Against RHB, Mo spreads out his pitches a bit more.  However, notice how he barely ever throws to the middle inside part of the plate to righties.  He also busts righties up and in, again in contrast to the rest of the league.

As a matter of comparison, here are the pitch frequency heatmaps for 3 other AL closers:

Neftali Feliz’s 2010 Pitch Frequency (1072 pitches) vs. All 2010 Major League RHP
Joakim Soria’s 2010 Pitch Frequency (1086 pitches) vs. All 2010 Major League RHP
Rafael Soriano’s 2010 Pitch Frequency (890 pitches) vs. All 2010 Major League RHP

All three of the above closers tend to pitch to the middle of the plate, a striking contrast to Rivera’s pitch frequency. 

Lastly, here’s Mariano’s pitch frequency since 2008:

Surgical.

--Posted at 3:05 pm by Jonathan / 47 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A Tale of Two Long Relief Outings

Given what we’ve seen out of Javier Vazquez so far in 2010, the last thing any of us should be getting excited about are two decent relief outings.  Well, maybe that or Derek Jeter coming up in the ninth inning with the tying run on first base and one out.

That doesn’t mean it might not be interesting to look at some of the data from those outings and see if it shows us anything.

August 25 vs. Toronto

Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes	%
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	89.9	91.3	-6.1	11.6	28	18	64.3%
CU (Curveball)	71.8	75.7	8.0	-2.3	11	8	72.7%
SL (Slider)	84.6	86.1	1.1	5.5	10	7	70.0%
CH (Changeup)	78.7	81.0	-8.5	7.7	6	3	50.0%

August 30 vs. Oakland

Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes	%
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	89.4	91.7	-6.0	9.1	30	19	63.3%
CU (Curveball)	72.2	82.1	6.7	-3.1	17	13	76.5%
CH (Changeup)	77.9	81.5	-7.3	4.8	11	7	63.6%
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	88.8	89.6	-10.5	5.5	8	6	75.0%
SL (Slider)	83.3	85.6	2.1	5.4	4	2	50.0%

There’s a slight increase in his average fastball velocity, but that is SOP for a pitcher who moves from the rotation to the bullpen and it’s not enough to really think he’s going to get back to where he was last year. 

What caught my attention last night was that Vazquez seemed to be throwing some of his offspeed stuff more slowly.  That’s similar to the adjustment that Mike Mussina made in 2008.

Unfortunately, it looks like that was perception more than reality, because the average velocity of his curveball and changeup are about the same in both outings.

The interesting thing that popped up in the PitchFX data to me is the appearance of a two-seam fastball.  Although the PitchFX pitch classification algorithm is still a work in progress and there’s some gray area in there, the difference in the average horizontal break and average vertical break between the FF (four seamer) and FT(two seamer) is large enough to make me think they are two distinct pitches.

Obviously, the lost velocity seems to be Vazquez’s biggest issue, but in terms of his statistics and not his physical tools, the biggest issue he’s had this year is his HR rate.  He’s allowing 1.75 HR per nine innings compared to 1.19 in his career and 1.08 and 0.82 in 2008 and 2009 respectively.  His HR/FB rate of 13.6% is also higher than his 11.3% career rate, although he was worse than that in 2005 for Arizona.

In addition to a high HR/RB rate, Vazquez is giving up more fly balls as a percentage of his batted balls against than at any other season in his career prior to 2010 (data only available from 2002).  In his career about 40.6% of the batted balls against him have been fly balls, compared to 47.3% this year.

It doesn’t take Binder to tell you that a pitcher who gives up a high number of fly balls and sees more of them going out of the park is not going to be very good.

So if Vazquez has started using a two-seam fastball to get more ground balls (he induced 8 yesterday out of 10 balls in play compared to 4 out of 13 balls in play in his first relief outing), it may mean he can pitch better than he has so far over the rest of the season. 

Or it could just be four and two-thirds lucky innings against a team that’s not particularly adept at hitting.

--Posted at 8:30 am by SG / 35 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Dustin Moseley in August

I was planning on doing a follow up review of Javy Vazquez, focusing on his starts since the All-Star Break.  But since he’s no longer in the rotation, I figure all five people that would have read it won’t care anymore.

So instead, I took a look at another starter.  Unlike some teams, the Yankees starting rotation does not consist of multiple 1a starters.  As a result, we’ve been treated to the ‘Dustin Moseley the Starter’ era.  While one can’t say he’s pitched great, he hasn’t exactly bombed like the other 3/5ths of the current Yankees rotation.  In most of his starts, he’s kept them in the game, even if it wasn’t so pretty. 

Moseley is a sinkerball pitcher who can spot his pitches fairly well.  His change and curveball are decent secondary pitches, although he tends to throw the curve sparingly, while saving the change for left handed batters.  I noticed that MLB’s pitchFX has been wrongly categorizing Moseley’s slider as a cut fastball.  It’s somewhat understandable given that it doesn’t break as much as a traditional slider.  While this would normally raise a red flag as to it’s effectiveness, he’s thrown the slider for decent results so far this season.

Here’s a look at some numbers from Moseley’s August starts:

Moseley gave up 5 runs over 7.1 innings as the Yankees fell 8-2 to the Jays.  Moseley actually didn’t pitch as bad as his line reveals.  He pitched into the 8th and got a ton of ground balls.  The Wells solo HR in the 8th inning put a negative cherry on top of what would otherwise look like an acceptable start from your 5th starter.  Although, that Travis Snider HR was pretty annoying.

This was actually Moseley’s best start in August.  He gave up two runs over 6.1 innings, while yielding six hits and two walks.  He also struck out a season high 5 batters.  He effectively kept the ball out of the air and on the ground, with Bill Hall’s HR the only big mistake.

This was a stinker, even with TSBG saving Moseley an earned run by throwing out Blanco at the plate in the first. To be fair, Moseley did have to wait out a 31 minute rain delay before the bottom half of the third inning in Kansas City.  I’m not sure if the weather had any effect on his pitch selection, but he was definitely relying on that sinker more than usual.  If he’s not mixing in his other pitches, his sinker becomes a lot easier for opposing teams to recognize.

Two words: Miguel Cabrera.  Carry on.

Another non-terrible start from a 5th starter.  However, he allowed quite a few hard hit balls, some of which luckily found gloves.

So far in August, opponents have a line of .295/.365/.518 against Moseley, with a .385 wOBA and .285 BABIP.  His FIP in August is 5.54 compared to a 5.28 ERA.

While he’s so far avoided getting clobbered, the numbers aren’t very encouraging going forward.  Ultimately, Moseley’s highest value will be in the pen.  As a sinkerball pitcher, he could have value late in games, especially with men on base.  However, the bullpen isn’t an area that Yankees have had trouble with lately.  With an Andy Pettitte return date still uncertain and CC the only reliable starter, it looks like Moseley will probably get a few more starts.

It stinks not having sixteen aces.

--Posted at 9:49 pm by Jonathan / 43 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Javier Vazquez’s Fastball Velocity

As requested by Mike K.

date	#	game_velocity	rolling_avg
4/9/2010	37	89.6	89.6
4/14/2010	28	88.8	89.3
4/20/2010	46	88.9	89.1
4/25/2010	20	89.2	89.1
5/12/2010	45	89.1	89.1
5/17/2010	1	90.7	89.1
5/21/2010	30	88.4	89.0
5/27/2010	62	89.4	89.1
6/6/2010	32	89.5	89.1
6/12/2010	24	87.7	89.0
6/18/2010	50	90.0	89.2
6/23/2010	46	89.1	89.2
7/10/2010	42	89.6	89.2
7/21/2010	24	87.9	89.1
7/26/2010	38	89.2	89.1
8/6/2010	23	87.3	89.1
8/11/2010	20	88.0	89.0
8/16/2010	40	88.5	89.0

# is the number of pitches classified as fastballs in that specific game, game_velocity is the average velocity for the specific game, and rolling average is the cumulative average fastball velocity.

If he’s having “dead arm”, it’s not really reflected in his average velocity, although the dip after the All Star Break is curious.  I suppose dead arm can also mean command issues, but I’m not buying that he’s fine and just needs to get over a dead arm.  He’s either hurt, or he’s no longer got it.

--Posted at 9:27 am by SG / 14 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Is Mo Throwing Harder This Year?

I’ve been under the impression that Mariano Rivera has been throwing harder this year than he did in 2009, but when I looked at his Pitch FX data that’s really not the case.

Vel	2009 FF%	2010 FF%	2009CT%	2010 CT%
86	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
87	1.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
88	0.9%	0.0%	0.6%	2.3%
89	5.6%	1.7%	4.7%	3.4%
90	20.1%	1.7%	19.5%	22.8%
91	31.6%	23.3%	33.4%	35.2%
92	26.9%	48.3%	28.6%	24.5%
93	11.5%	20.0%	11.4%	10.1%
94	1.3%	3.3%	1.5%	1.4%
95	0.4%	1.7%	0.0%	0.3%
avg	91	92	91	91

2009 FF%: Percentage of 2009 fastballs at this specific velocity
2010 FF%: Percentage of 2010 fastballs at this specific velocity
2009 CT%: Percentage of 2009 cutters at this specific velocity
2010 CT%: Percentage of 2010 cutters at this specific velocity

His four-seam fastball is a bit faster, but other than that he’s around where he was. 

So next I wondered if maybe his velocity was trending upwards.

The blue line is his average velocity in 2010, and the red line is his average velocity in 2009 over the same time period.

It may be, although I don’t know how much precision we can expect from Pitch FX.

Obviously he’s still able to still pitch very effectively, so it’s not an issue.

--Posted at 1:02 pm by SG / 37 Comments | - (0)

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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Alex Rodriguez versus Inside Fastballs

In yesterday’s game chatter thread, Senor Matt Waters asked about Alex Rodriguez’s performance against inside fastballs, so let’s take a look.

The PitchFX field px denotes the horizontal location of a pitch as it crosses the plate relative to the center of home plate.  The center of the plate is zero, so pitches that have a negative px are pitches that are closer to the right-handed batter’s box, measured in feet from the center.

These are all the four-seam fastballs that Rodriguez has seen that had a px value less than zero that were recorded in PitchFX.

des	2007-9	2010
#	1936	871
stkS%	7.1%	5.4%
stkC%	16.3%	15.5%
ball%	43.1%	48.5%
foul%	18.7%	18.3%
hbp%	0.7%	0.6%
1b%	4.8%	3.8%
2b%	0.0%	0.0%
3b%	0.5%	1.6%
hr%	0.1%	0.0%
groundout%	4.4%	5.2%
flyout%	1.7%	1.3%
lineout%	0.5%	1.7%
popout%	1.8%	1.6%

stkS%: percentage of swinging strikes
stkC%: percentage of called strikes

2007-2009 data is not complete, and there are pitches in all years that didn’t get classified so there may be gaps here.  I’ll also mention that with the sample size we’re dealing with here there’s a chance that any variance we see here may just be noise.

At least so far, Rodriguez has been making contact more frequently with inside fastballs if you look at the percentage of swinging strikes.  The question is if a difference of 1.7% in swinging strike percentage is statistically significant.  It looks like it falls somewhere within two standard deviations, so it’s close.  While making contact more frequently would seem good, if it is indicative of a change in his swing where he’s sacrificed some power for a better chance at making contact it may not be.

He’s grounding out more frequently as well.  In many cases, when a player’s swing is early he’s more likely to hit a ground ball, and when his swing is late he’s more likely to hit a fly ball, so the higher groundout% and lower flyout% could point to his timing being off.  He’s also lined out a bit more frequently on a percentage basis.

I don’t see anything in this data that should be a cause for alarm.  If his bat had slowed I’d expect to see more swinging strikes and fly balls, and that’s just not evident here. 

That doesn’t mean Rodriguez hasn’t started declining, because that’s not a question of if, just a question of when and how much.  I just don’t think he’s fallen off the cliff yet.

--Posted at 1:01 pm by SG / 15 Comments | - (0)

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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

PItch A vs. Pitch B

results	Pitch A	Pitch B
ball%	37.5%	38.1%
stkS%	5.9%	5.7%
foul%	18.2%	18.0%
stkC%	23.3%	22.0%
in play, outs(%):	7.9%	11.8%
In play, no out%:	4.0%	3.3%

ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%:  percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out

Update: Pitches C and D:

results	Pitch C	Pitch D
ball%	30.7%	36.9%
stkS%	18.8%	28.8%
foul%	25.7%	13.8%
stkC%	8.9%	11.3%
in play, outs(%):	9.9%	6.9%
In play, no out%:	3.0%	2.5%

--Posted at 12:38 am by SG / 50 Comments | - (0)

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Monday, April 26, 2010

What To Make of Javier Vazquez?

We’re four starts into Javier Vazquez Strikes Back, and it’s safe to say that so far it’s been even worse than the prequel.  As someone who liked the Yankees getting Vazquez both times when the trades were initally made, I’m beyond frustrated at how he’s pitched so far. 

Generally when a player is struggling, we can look at indicators in the underlying data that may point to something that should give us hope going forward.  For hitters it could be something like an unsustainably low (BABIP)batting average in balls on play.  For pitchers we can look at the same thing using a statistic like FIP, which regresses BABIP to league average and focuses on the things a pitcher has the most control over, namely home runs allowed, walks and hit batsmen, and strikeouts.  FIP is scaled to ERA to allow for a direct comparison.

In Vazquez’s case, if we look at his FIP, we see he’s allowed five homers in 20 innings while walking/hitting 12 batters and striking out 18.  That comes out to a FIP of 6.28, which is obviously pretty bad.

The homers are the big problem in Vazquez’s FIP, and we can see that so far this season he’s allowed homers on 18.5% of the fly balls hit against him.  His career rate is 11.2%.  If he had instead maintained that rate, his FIP would be a more reasonable 5.00, which is still not good.

Given the fact that it’s only been four starts, the sample size of the above data is just too small to be considered meaningful.

However, the biggest issue I see is the decline of Vazquez’s fastball velocity.  Mike Fast, one of the leading Pitch FX analysts, had an article at the Hardball Times about the impact of velocity on a pitcher’s value.  What he found was that starting pitchers improve by about a run per nine innings for every additional four mph.  This year, Vazquez’s average fastball has been clocked around 88.8 mph, compared to a career value of 91.3.  He was at 91.1 last year, so he’s lost something like 2.3-2.5 mph this season for whatever reason.  If we assume that Fast’s estimate applies to Vazquez in the same way it applies to the typical pitcher, that means that whatever we thought Vazquez’s true talent RA was entering this season should now be .625 higher.  So if we thought he was a 4.00 RA pitcher, he’s now more like a 4.625 pitcher.

A lot has been made throughout his career that Vazquez has been a disappointment, with stuff and peripherals almost always being solid but with actual results varying wildly.  One of the things that gets blamed for that is inconsistent mechanics.  So I thought it might be useful to find a similar poor stretch by Vazquez for the years we have Pitch FX data (2007-2010) and see if he went through a lower velocity period.  I found a stretch in 2008 when Vazquez was with the White Sox that was pretty bad, so let’s look at that.

dates	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	HBP	K	RA	ERA	FIP	lwRA	avg	obp	slg	babip	gb%	fb%	ld%
6/6/2008-6/28/2008	5	5	27.7	38	24	23	6	15	1	27	7.81	7.48	5.80	7.96	.330	.403	.574	.386	30.5%	46.6%	22.9%
other starts	28	28	181	176	89	85	19	46	5	173	4.43	4.23	3.50	4.24	.251	.300	.416	.307	34.2%	51.6%	14.2%
total	33	33	208	214	113	108	25	61	6	200	4.88	4.67	3.80	4.73	.263	.316	.438	.318	33.6%	50.8%	15.6%

lwRA: linear weights RA calculated using context-neutral linear weights batting runs allowed
babip: batting average on balls in play calculated as ( H - HR ) / (AB - HR - SO + SF)
gb%: percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
fb%: percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
ld%: percentage of batted balls that were line drives

Vazquez wasn’t very good in 2008, but his stretch from June 6 through June 28 was particularly awful, almost 2010 awful.  A big part of it was a high BABIP of .386 compared to .307 for the rest of the season.  He also walked 11.2% of the batters faced during that time period, compared to 6.1% over all the other games that season.  He struck out 20.1% of the batters he faced from June 6 to June 28, compared to 22.9% in the other games.  In addition, his homers per fly ball rate was 10.9% compared to 5.9% in the other games.

So now, let’s see if his PitchFX data sheds any light on this.

6/6/2008 - 6/28/2008	#	max	min	avg	ball %	stkS%	foul%	stkC%	In play, out(s)%	In play, no out %	HBP %
All Fastballs	307	95.0	86.3	91.8	33.2%	8.5%	22.5%	17.3%	10.7%	4.2%	0.3%
Change-up	64	85.6	74.8	81.4	54.7%	10.9%	20.3%	9.4%	4.7%	4.7%	0.0%
Slider	104	88.0	77.6	83.6	38.5%	11.5%	18.3%	15.4%	10.6%	3.8%	0.0%
Curveball	66	79.4	65.3	73.4	50.0%	4.5%	15.2%	25.8%	7.6%	1.5%	0.0%
Total	541	88.0	65.3	79.5	38.8%	8.9%	20.5%	17.0%	9.6%	3.9%	0.2%

#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%:  percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch

All other 2008 starts	#	max	min	avg	ball %	stkS%	foul%	stkC%	In play, out(s)%	In play, no out %	HBP %
All Fastballs	1420	97.1	86.0	91.9	32.4%	8.2%	22.5%	18.1%	11.7%	4.9%	0.1%
Change-up	323	89.6	72.4	82.0	38.1%	17.3%	17.0%	9.0%	13.9%	3.4%	0.0%
Slider	533	90.8	78.2	84.8	29.6%	15.0%	21.0%	14.3%	12.9%	4.9%	0.2%
Curveball	332	84.6	63.5	74.2	40.1%	10.2%	15.4%	21.7%	11.1%	3.0%	0.6%
Total	2608	90.8	63.5	80.3	33.5%	11.0%	20.6%	16.6%	12.2%	4.5%	0.2%

He was averaging 91.8 mph with his fastball when he was getting hammered, and he averaged 91.9 mph when he was more effective.  So nope, velocity wasn’t an issue.  It actually looks like command of his non-fastball pitches was the bigger issue, comparing the ball% of his changeup, slider and curve between the two charts.  I guess that could be a mechanical issue.

Since this didn’t show me anything in terms of Vazquez having periods of lower velocity, I decided to figure out his average fastball velocity for every start that has data in Pitch FX to see if he’s had similar issues in the past. 

date	#	avg_vel
4/7/2007	13	91.0
4/19/2007	49	92.0
5/1/2007	54	92.3
5/13/2007	61	92.5
5/27/2007	28	91.4
6/1/2007	54	92.7
6/6/2007	57	92.5
6/23/2007	46	90.8
7/3/2007	70	92.4
7/8/2007	71	92.4
7/19/2007	48	89.5
7/24/2007	76	93.5
7/29/2007	73	94.1
8/4/2007	70	90.4
8/10/2007	49	93.2
8/16/2007	63	92.9
8/21/2007	60	92.1
8/26/2007	66	93.3
9/7/2007	68	93.3
9/12/2007	78	94.7
9/17/2007	65	92.4
9/22/2007	82	92.3
9/28/2007	67	93.4
4/2/2008	44	90.8
4/7/2008	25	92.0
4/13/2008	26	91.6
4/18/2008	59	91.5
4/23/2008	47	92.1
5/5/2008	60	93.9
5/10/2008	40	91.4
5/15/2008	54	91.9
5/21/2008	59	91.4
5/26/2008	55	91.4
5/31/2008	42	92.9
6/6/2008	56	92.4
6/11/2008	62	91.4
6/17/2008	71	92.3
6/22/2008	63	91.2
6/28/2008	55	91.7
7/3/2008	50	92.9
7/9/2008	41	90.2
7/21/2008	54	92.9
7/27/2008	43	91.0
8/1/2008	42	89.9
8/7/2008	75	91.5
8/12/2008	72	91.9
8/17/2008	69	90.8
8/23/2008	60	93.0
8/29/2008	61	93.0
9/3/2008	49	93.3
9/9/2008	62	92.7
9/14/2008	62	93.1
9/18/2008	46	89.8
9/23/2008	37	90.6
9/27/2008	39	92.6
10/2/2008	47	90.1
4/3/2009	17	89.4
4/8/2009	45	90.4
4/14/2009	54	89.8
4/19/2009	46	91.0
4/24/2009	48	90.2
4/29/2009	38	90.9
5/4/2009	53	91.2
5/9/2009	55	91.6
5/15/2009	54	91.2
5/20/2009	28	90.4
5/25/2009	48	91.1
5/30/2009	35	91.7
6/6/2009	33	90.9
6/11/2009	62	91.4
6/17/2009	48	92.5
6/22/2009	49	91.1
6/27/2009	52	91.7
7/2/2009	50	91.1
7/7/2009	38	90.5
7/19/2009	46	91.4
7/24/2009	48	91.7
7/30/2009	50	92.1
8/4/2009	38	91.5
8/9/2009	45	92.4
8/16/2009	43	91.8
8/21/2009	39	91.5
8/27/2009	52	90.3
9/2/2009	67	91.4
9/8/2009	45	91.6
9/13/2009	38	91.7
9/19/2009	50	90.4
9/25/2009	47	91.1
9/30/2009	41	91.1

Of the 90 starts we have Pitch FX for, Vazquez’s average fastball velocity was less than 90.0 mph five times.  I guess if we want to be hopeful we can note that two of those five starts were in April of 2009 and he eventually got back over 91 mph on average.

I really want to see Vazquez do well, because I think he got a bum deal in his first stint as a Yankee, but I’m just not sure it’s going to happen.

--Posted at 7:11 am by SG / 100 Comments | - (0)

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