Happy Felix Day
In the spirit of Felix Day, another chart – this one from Felix’s last start against Texas.
I promise, I’m almost done with the graphs and will get back to writing soon.
And yes, that big blue clump in the upper left hand corner – that would be establishing the fastball. It’s worth noting that the only run of the game came in the first inning, and the M’s lost 1-0.
Feierabend’s Learning Curve
When you don’t have time to write 10,000 words, draw a picture. Here’s today’s:
It’s the same pitch-by-pitch graph I did for Morrow and RR-S over the weekend, but this time, it’s comparing Ryan Feierabend’s start yesterday with Jarrod Washburn’s last start in Cleveland. I think the graph helps illustrate one of the main things that Feierabend is going to have to work on: keeping hitters off balance, and this won’t show up in average velocity readings.
Washburn and Feierabend have nearly identical average velocities on most of their pitches – they’re both 85-90 with the fastball, 75-80 with both their breaking ball and change-ups. However, as you can see in the graphs above, Feierabend is much, much more consistent with his velocities – there’s basically nothing in that 80-85 range all game. Washburn, on the other hand, has a much greater variety, with a far more random scattering of pitches than Feierabend’s fast-or-slow approach.
This is basically what people mean when they talk about keeping hitters off balance. It’s not just about mixing your pitches (though that’s important too), but mixing velocities within your pitches. This is what Feierabend needs to get better at.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Feierabend needs to learn from Jarrod Washburn. Washburn really represents his upside – a pitch to contact flyball lefty who looks okay in front of good defenses and in a generous home park – so emulating Jarrod isn’t a bad idea for him. With a little bit of work, Feierabend could basically replicate what the Mariners think they’ll get from Washburn next year, and hopefully, if he improves the final month, the team will realize that Wash is simply not worth $10 million to this organization when he’s so easily replaced.
Game 142, Yankees at Mariners
Mussina v Silva
Silva pitch type, 2008
Fastball 69%
Slider 10%
Change 21%
Mussina pitch type, 2008
Fastball 51%
Slider 19%
Curveball 25%
Changeup 6%
I’m a long-time fan of Mussina: you may remember not that long ago I was wildly advocating the Mariners trying to pick him up when the Yankees were unhappy with him. And I have to admit that as much as I rail against the stupidity of the arbitrary standards for Hall of Fame admission, if there is going to be a “twenty-game winner” check box that counts for five points, well, I wish him luck getting it.
Not tonight, of course. But Mussina’s going to need to pick up three wins in these four likely starts:
Tonight, against the M’s.
Saturday, against the Rays.
Thursday the 18th against the White Sox.
Wednesday the 24th against the Blue Jays.
Now there are two rest days in there, and the Yankees suck, so say they skip forward in the rotation where possible. Then there are five:
Tonight.
Friday the 12th against the Rays
Wednesday the 17th against the White Sox.
Tuesday the 23rd against the Blue Jays.
Sunday the 28th against the Red Sox.
He gets the extra start, and probably against a Red Sox team, but one looking ahead to the playoffs and possibly resting some regulars.
What makes me sad, though, is the thought of the Yankees potentially stooping to get him some vulture wins to get him to twenty. But stupid standards often drive stupid decisions, and if it’s the difference between getting him into the Hall or not, well, good luck with that.
Clement Out For Season
Jeff Clement has a torn meniscus and will have surgery that will sideline him for the rest of 2008. The new general manager will have to be one to make the call, but at this point, moving Clement to first base seems like the right move. He’s pretty lousy behind the plate, and knee problems for a catcher aren’t a minor deal.
Game 141, Yankees at Mariners
Ponson vs. Ryan Rowland-Smith.
In the spirit of Dave’s Graphing Weekend, and since a few of you guys liked the ones I did for Morrow’s start last night, here’s a graph of Rowland-Smith’s last start versus Cleveland. Velocity is still on the vertical axis and pitch count is on the horizontal axis.
There are basically three distinct areas where you’ll see mostly consistent values – his fastball in the upper 80s, his change-up around 80, and his breaking ball around 70. Despite the fact that he doesn’t throw very hard, as you can see, he throws a ton of change-ups to keep RH batters off balance. Against lefties, he threw 9 fastballs and 8 curveballs with no change-ups. Against righties, it was 48 fastballs, 33 changeups, and 9 curveballs.
The change-up is really the pitch that allows RR-S to get RH hitters off balance, and if he succeeds as a starter long term, that pitch will be the reason why.
More Morrow Graphing
Because it’s nice to have something fun to talk about again. Here’s another graph of Morrow’s pitches as the game goes on, with velocity on the vertical axis and his pitch count on the horizontal axis. I’ve also included the trendline.
A few things jump out, but the most obvious is shown best by the trendline, but can also be seen in the density of pitches in each region – as the game went on, Morrow threw more and more offspeed stuff. You can see it’s basically all fastballs to start off, but then he mixes in some slower stuff in the second inning. Then, around the 40 pitch mark, he just starts throwing a ton of breaking balls, going chnage-curve-curve-slider-change-slider in the Damon/Jeter at-bats in the 4th inning. He went back to his fastball later, but then at the end of the game, he was basically Jamie Moyer – 12 of his last 16 pitches were offspeed.
His fastballs at that point in the game were also down to the 94 range rather than the 96 MPH heaters he was throwing up an inning before. It is pretty likely that he just ran out of gas in the 8th inning, which is to be expected considering his situation. However, if out-of-gas Brandon Morrow can still throw 94 and has the confidence to work in a bunch of breaking balls, then out-of-gas Brandon Morrow is still twice as good as Carlos Silva.
Congratulations Brandon
That couldn’t have gone any better.
Some numbers for the night from Pitch F/x:
106 pitches thrown, 72 strikes (17 of them swinging), 34 balls
62 fastballs, 16 changeups, 15 sliders, 12 curveballs, 1 splitter
Average fastball velocity: 95.7 MPH
Fastest pitch – 98.4 MPH fastball
Slowest pitch – 80.7 MPH curveball
Morrow only threw his fastball 58% of the time tonight, compared to 76% of the time when he was a reliever. That’s a huge change in approach, and one that he absolutely had to make. That he was able to sustain a fastball with an average of 96 MPH for 106 pitches is pretty remarkable, honestly – no other starter in baseball consistently rushes their fastball up to the plate at that speed. Not even Felix.
If he’s going to keep throwing 95 and mixing in offspeed stuff 40% of the time, he’s going to be terrific.
And, just for fun, here’s a histogram of Morrow’s pitches tonight. He might be the easiest pitcher in baseball to discern between his fastball and offspeed stuff.
Game 140, Yankees at Mariners
Pettitte v Morrow.
I didn’t get down to Tacoma to catch any of Morrow’s starts, but I’m not sure that it matters: he only made five starts, twenty three innings. How stretched out can he be, really? The adjustments he’s going to have to make are as much in approach and particularly pacing as anything else. No matter how well he did in Tacoma, the temptation to resort to throwing gas and giving up on his other pitches when he’s in a jam could throw the whole thing off.
And apologies to the 5 people who saw this go up a day early at the scheduled *time*.
Armstrong, Lincoln interfered, sucked when we had a GM
A quick reminder on how active Lincoln and Armstrong’ have been even with a sitting, non-interim GM, and the results. From this Times blog piece:
The first was on who engineered the Kenji Johjima contract extension. Lincoln told me that it was Allan Nero, Johjima’s agent, who first approached the M’s with the extension idea. After that, it was primarily the team’s owner, Hiroshi Yamauchi, Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong who did the deal. Bavasi had limited involvement in it.
It’s not just something with Lee and the interim title. And GM candidates will know this.
Next choice: which printer does resumes best?
For the record, Armstrong says he was the one who blocked the Jarrod Washburn trade to the Twins. Says he wants “value” back, not just more saved money. He feels Washburn has been the only one other than Hernandez getting hitters out the past three months and that the team still needs that to get through the year. He also says, if the new GM doesn’t deal Washburn, the team could still find value in having Washburn stick around.
What good general manager candidate is going to want to work for a team where Armstrong — Armstrong! — blocks baseball moves that would help the franchise? Armstrong says he wants candidates to offer a comprehensive plan for how they’d rebuild the franchise over the next years. Presumably, anyone who says “I’ll extract a promise that I can act freely within bounds set by the ownership group, then give you a cell number that’ll ring an intern I’ll hire who sounds just like me and can pretend to be interested in your opinion, and spend the next couple seasons trying to undo the damage you and yours have wrought here” will be thanked for their time and shown the door.