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	<title>Toronto &#187; PitchFX</title>
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		<title>Roberto Osuna and the Cutter Holding his Slider Hostage</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/13/roberto-osuna-cutter-holding-slider-hostage/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Mar 2017 10:00:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9428</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When Roberto Osuna burst onto the scene in spring training 2015, he featured a powerful four seam fastball, a fluttering changeup, and a slurvy slider (that some identified as a curveball), with all three offerings having received plus future grades from the scouting community as he ascended the system. Previously a starting pitcher throughout his [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When Roberto Osuna burst onto the scene in spring training 2015, he featured a powerful four seam fastball, a fluttering changeup, and a slurvy slider (that some identified as a curveball), with all three offerings having received plus future grades from the scouting community as he ascended the system. Previously a starting pitcher throughout his minor league career, Osuna made the shift to the bullpen at the Major League level and his stuff played up even further in going max-effort every inning. In this new role the future projections were almost immediately fully realized, and within months Osuna found himself discussed among the elite closers in baseball.</p>
<p>Each individual component of his arsenal was as impressive as the sum of their parts, as his fastball, slider, and changeup were all well above average at inducing fruitless swings from opposing batters. Swings against Osuna&#8217;s changeup came up empty 41.4 percent of the time, which placed in the 69th percentile among all right handed relievers to throw one hundred or more of that pitch type in 2015. With a whiff per swing rate of 27.7 percent his four seam fastball was his second best, placing in the 90th percentile. Remarkably, he topped both with his slider, which ranked as the sixth best of 117 qualifiers (95th percentile) with a jaw dropping 52.6 percent whiff rate.</p>
<p>By September of 2015, Osuna was throwing that dynamite slider over 20 percent of the time, and fully recognizing what a weapon he had, pushed that up to 30 percent in the postseason. But something happened between the Blue Jays gut punching defeat in Game 6 of the ALCS and spring training the following February: Osuna decided he wanted to start throwing &#8212; or at least bring back &#8212; his cutter.</p>
<p>Typically when a pitcher adds something new to his arsenal, he&#8217;s looking to either add a new dimension or to cover up a weakness that hitters had exposed. In this case, with Osuna, neither appears to be the case. What was once a slurvy breaking ball had progressively transformed to something resembling much more of a slutter, which isn&#8217;t at all surprising for someone who had thrown the cutter earlier in his career. By the end of the year the slider was averaging upwards of 90 miles per hour, and had an average calculated spin axis of 134 degrees for the month of October. It had more downward vertical movement than his fastball and changeup, but less than a spinless pitch. That&#8217;s not meant as a disparaging remark, either; it fit extremely well as a glove-side complement to his other two pitches that ran to his arm-side, and fell smack dab in the middle of the velocity spectrum between his 96 mile per hour fastball and 83 mile per hour changeup.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/August-2015-Slider-GIF.gif" alt="" width="480" height="270" /></p>
<p>There was some talk that Osuna had revived the cutter to help him against lefties, but that argument doesn&#8217;t hold water, either. Sure, they did some damage off his fastball (five home runs allowed) and slider (.556 slugging) in 2015, but Osuna threw 135 changeups to left handed batters and they hit just .080 with zero extra base hits against it. If Osuna was looking to get a better handle on opposite handed batters, he already had the necessary weapon at his disposal; he just needed to use it more. Spoiler alert: not only did he fail to throw it <em>more</em>, he actually used it considerably <em>less</em> against lefties in 2016 (11.4 percent) than in 2015 (21.4 percent).</p>
<p>When Osuna reintroduced the cutter in 2016, it was less of a new addition as much as it was breaking his slutter back apart into the two &#8220;traditional&#8221; pitch types.</p>
<p>For the month of April, his slider averaged a hair over 85 miles per hour &#8212; down a full five miles per hour from the last time we&#8217;d seen him. It had five inches of glove-side movement (more than double that of October 2015), and had 3.5 inches more sink. With a calculated spin axis of 85 degrees, it was a true slider. The cutter, meanwhile, was up over 91 miles per hour. It had roughly the same horizontal movement as his old slutter, but with noticeably less vertical drop.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/June-2016-Slider-GIF.gif" alt="" width="480" height="270" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/September-2016-Cutter-GIF.gif" alt="" width="480" height="270" /></p>
<p>Last season, Marcus Stroman and his plethora of riches became a frequent topic of discussion in that his <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/01/pitch-homogenization-and-marcus-stromans-breaking-balls/">curveball and slider</a> &#8212; and <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marcus-stroman-im-still-learning/">slider and cutter</a> &#8212; were becoming too similar, taking away from their individual effectiveness as they blended together. It seems that Roberto Osuna had quietly fallen under the same spell, without drawing nearly the same attention.</p>
<p>The cutter didn&#8217;t expand Osuna&#8217;s velocity profile, nor did it add a movement element that his arsenal doesn&#8217;t already possess. It gave batters something new to think about but at the same time it didn&#8217;t, as it became more or less a midpoint for all of his other pitches. Its velocity was within a standard deviation of his fastball, and by movement, it was within a couple of inches of the vertical trajectory of his changeup and the horizontal trajectory of his slider. At the macro level he added something new, yet at the micro level <em>he didn&#8217;t add anything at all</em>. It would be one thing for the vertically oriented fastball/curveball/changeup throwing Aaron Sanchez to add a cutter, as he&#8217;s lacking in the glove-side movement department. For someone already throwing one of the elite sliders in baseball, it&#8217;s ineffective at best, and unproductive at worst. To wit:</p>
<p>Osuna&#8217;s fastball and slider were still well above average at generating swinging strikes in 2016, but they fell from the upper echelons of the 90th and 95th percentile in whiffs per swing down to the 80th and 79th percentiles, respectively. These losses came at the expense of his cutter seemingly adding less than nothing &#8212; batters hit .429 against it with a .643 slugging percentage, and it gave up 12.5 percent of his extra base hits surrendered despite accounting for just 3.9 percent of his total pitches thrown. Its one saving grace was that it generated groundballs at an above average rate, but for a reliever who has allowed fewer than a base runner per inning for his career, chasing the occasional double play is certainly not worth the losses he&#8217;s taking with whiffs on his other pitches.</p>
<p>When identifying a potential problem using the PITCHf/x tool, the proposed solution is typically layered and requires more than its fair share of hypotheticals, leaps, and assumptions to reach a satisfying conclusion. That couldn&#8217;t be less the case here. Roberto Osuna&#8217;s cutter is the worst individual pitch he throws, it&#8217;s a drag on his other pitches, and he should stop throwing it altogether. For the sake of his slider, the sooner he does so, the better.</p>
<p><em>All data via <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/landing.php?player=532077">BrooksBaseball.net</a> and the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/">Baseball Prospectus PITCHf/x Leaderboard</a> unless otherwise noted.</em></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Joe Smith is Tunneling His Way to a Home Run Problem</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/10/joe-smith-is-tunneling-his-way-to-a-home-run-problem/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Feb 2017 11:44:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Joe Smith]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=8972</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the weekend the Toronto Blue Jays came to terms with free agent Joe Smith on a one year, three million dollar contract for the 2017 season. After losing mid-season sensation and setup man extraordinaire Joaquin Benoit to Philadelphia, a right handed void had emerged at the back-end of the bullpen, one which Mark Shapiro [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Over the weekend the Toronto Blue Jays came to terms with free agent Joe Smith on a one year, three million dollar contract for the 2017 season. After losing mid-season sensation and setup man extraordinaire Joaquin Benoit to Philadelphia, a right handed void had emerged at the back-end of the bullpen, one which Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins hope one of the better sinkerballers of the decade will be able to fill.</p>
<p>It’s more of an optimistic hope than a concrete guarantee because the 2016 season was none too kind to the sidearmer. His velocity and pitch usage patterns more or less remained consistent, but Smith saw his strikeout rate, walk rate, and home run rate all trend in the wrong direction for the third consecutive season, to the point where his value was below that of a replacement player by some measures. The worsening of the strikeout and walk rates didn’t help, but the greatest cause for this depreciation was a home run per fly ball rate (19.5 percent) that had more than doubled relative to the 2015 (8.5 percent) and 2014 (8.0 percent) seasons.</p>
<p>There could be some foundation behind this sudden and extreme struggle with the long ball. Smith made two separate trips to the disabled list last season; first on June 7<sup>th</sup> with a left hamstring strain, and then again on August 17<sup>th</sup> with … a left hamstring strain. In both instances Smith told the media that the injury had been plaguing him for a while, that the soreness had become too great, and that his delivery had been impacted – intentionally or otherwise – in an effort to protect his ailing leg.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/sports/angels/la-sp-angels-report-20160607-snap-story.html">From the Los Angeles Times</a>, on June 7<sup>th</sup>: <em>“It’s one of those things where once I started getting sore in abnormal areas, that set off some caution flags,” Smith said. “When you start getting sore in other places, it affects your delivery.”</em></p>
<p><a href="http://m.mlb.com/news/article/196149922/cubs-reliever-joe-smith-goes-on-disabled-list/">From MLB.com</a>, on August 17<sup>th</sup>: <em>&#8220;I&#8217;m not 100 percent and I was trying to go through it, and I&#8217;m obviously not getting the job done out there,&#8221; Smith said. ”I think everybody felt it was in the best interest to get to 100 percent and do what I was traded here to do. It&#8217;s frustrating. I just want to get back and healthy and help this team.&#8221; Smith went on the disabled list in May because of a hamstring injury. &#8220;I started changing my delivery in the lower half and created a bunch of problems, and it took a while to get back,&#8221; he said.</em></p>
<p>The hamstring injuries resulted in Smith making 18 fewer relief appearances than he’d averaged from 2011 through 2015, but despite this considerably smaller sample, the right hander surrendered a career worst eight home runs – seven of which came against his sinker or fourseam fastball. He gave up four dingers on these pitch types in 2015, and just three in 2014. We know his velocity wasn’t suddenly the issue; <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=501925&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=SI&amp;time=year&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=mph&amp;s_type=2&amp;startDate=03/30/2007&amp;endDate=02/09/2017">Brooks Baseball</a> has his sinker averaging 88.85 miles per hour in 2016, which is actually slightly up from the 88.60 it averaged the year prior. The story is much the same for his fourseam fastball. The sinker had half an inch more run and about an inch less sink, so a sharp decline in movement doesn’t appear to be the culprit either. What about location?</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-1-Smith-FB-Location-MLB-Savant.png"><img src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-1-Smith-FB-Location-MLB-Savant.png" alt="Figure 1 - Smith FB Location (MLB Savant)" width="832" height="505" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8973" /></a></p>
<p>The figure above, composed from <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/">MLB Savant</a> data, shows Smith’s sinker and fourseam fastball location in 2015 compared to 2016. There really doesn’t appear to be anything anomalous; his plan of attack is clearly to target the bottom of the zone, and use the natural arm-side run of his sinker to throw down-and-in to right handed batters, and down-and-away from left handed batters.</p>
<p>In summary: Smith’s sinker velocity is unchanged, the fluctuations in its movement don’t appear significant, and he located it about as well as he always has. It’s the same pitch, and yet the isolated power surrendered by the sinker has increased from .054, to .107, to .193 over the last three years, and the sinker-specific home run per fly ball rate has increased from 6.7 percent, to 16.7 percent, to 43.8 percent (!!!) over the same three years. What else could it be? Is Joe Smith tipping his pitches?</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-2-Vertical-Release-GIF-Brooks.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8974" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-2-Vertical-Release-GIF-Brooks.gif" alt="Figure 2 - Vertical Release GIF (Brooks)" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Uh, that seems like a definite possibility. The GIF above shows the average vertical release point for all of Smith’s appearances over the last three seasons. In 2014, the vertical release point for all of his pitch types was basically indistinguishable. In 2015 you start to see a bit more differentiation, and by 2016 there is a consistent three or four inches of separation between the vertical release point of his hard type offerings (black and grey) versus his soft type offerings (red and blue).</p>
<p>You or I might not be able to pick up this sort of seemingly minor difference while standing in the batters’ box watching Joe Smith deliver pitch-after-pitch, but professional hitters are very good at what they do. To better explain just how badly Smith is handicapping himself, we’re going to look at an exciting concept still in its infancy within the public domain: pitch tunnels.</p>
<p>In late January, the statistics team here at Baseball Prospectus <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=31030">unveiled a massive and potentially ground-breaking project</a> they had been working on behind the scenes. The entire article is a fascinating and highly recommended read, but for those here for the coles notes, the general concept of pitch tunneling is to measure how similar or dissimilar pitches look out of the hand and as they approach towards the plate, prior to entering their break patterns. Batters have a finite period of time in which to make their swing/take decision, and the longer a pitcher can disguise, for example, his fastball and his slider, the less time the batter has to react once the two pitches begin their drastically different final trajectories. The figure below better explains what exactly the BP team has measured.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-3-BP-Tunnel-Image.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-8975" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-3-BP-Tunnel-Image-1024x576.png" alt="Figure 3 - BP Tunnel Image" width="1024" height="576" /></a></p>
<p>In very general terms, pitchers want to minimize the “Release Distance” and “Tunnel Distance” (the latter of which BP describes as approximately 175 milliseconds before contact – the point at which a batter <em>must </em>make a decision), while maximizing the “Plate Distance”. From these three values, BP has also developed a pair of ratios, Break-to-Tunnel, and Release-to-Tunnel.</p>
<p>The first of those two ratios, as explained using BP’s definition, “… shows us the ratio of post-tunnel break to the differential of pitches at the Tunnel Point. The idea here is that having a large ratio between pitches means that the pitches are either tightly clustered at the hitter’s decision-making point or the pitches are separating a lot after the hitter has selected a location to swing at.” Basically, larger is better.</p>
<p>The second of those two ratios, again by means of BP’s definition, “… shows us the ratio of a pitcher’s release differential to their tunnel differential. Pitchers with smaller [ratios] have smaller differentiation between pitches through the tunnel point, making it more difficult for opposing hitters to distinguish them in theory.” In this case, smaller would seem to be better.</p>
<p>The table below details how Joe Smith has fared in these metrics over the last three seasons, and provides more empirical support to the theory that the right hander is making himself far too easy to pick up.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-4-Smith-Tunneling-Table.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8976" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Figure-4-Smith-Tunneling-Table.png" alt="Figure 4 - Smith Tunneling Table" width="413" height="158" /></a></p>
<p>The statistics for which a smaller differential or ratio is desired have been colored in green; in orange are those for which a larger differential or ratio is optimal. The first thing that jumps off the page is that, for each year, each and every metric has universally gotten larger and larger. For things like post-tunnel break and plate differential that’s good, but not only are those gains extremely minor, they don’t come close to compensating for the expansion in his release differential and tunnel differential.</p>
<p>Since 2014, Joe Smith’s average release differential between pitches has increased from 1.3 inches (0.1085 feet) to 2.2 inches (0.1868 feet). It’s noteworthy that this is an average of the release differential for <em>all </em>sequences of his pitches; sinker to slider, sinker to sinker, sinker to fourseam fastball, changeup to slider, changeup to sinker, slider to slider, etc. The tunnel differential has increased as well, so when his pitches are reaching the decision point for the batter, they’re also further separated than in previous years.</p>
<p>I don’t know nearly enough about human physiology to know whether or not a constantly nagging hamstring could have this kind of impact on the vertical release point of his sinker relative to his slider, and in the same vein I don’t yet know nearly enough about pitch tunneling to know whether or not this is a trend that Joe Smith is capable of reversing at this stage of his career, but for a guy who relies on the sinker and slider about 80 percent of the time and struggles to eclipse 90 miles per hour with the sinker like Smith does, providing batters with a heads up on what’s coming both at the release and decision points is most certainly a recipe for failure. If Joe Smith is to again find success and keep balls away from the Rogers Center bleachers, making his sinker and slider look like the same pitch again should be priority number one for pitching coach Peter Walker and bullpen coach Dane Johnson.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Patrick Corbin: Potential Andrew Miller Clone and Blue Jays Target</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/11/10/patrick-corbin-potential-andrew-miller-clone-and-blue-jays-target/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Nov 2016 14:46:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[trade]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7872</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ignore the modest save total of twelve: Andrew Miller was one of the best relievers in baseball during the 2016 regular season, and was the best reliever in baseball during the postseason. He was unquestionably the deciding factor in the Blue Jays ALCS defeat at the hands of Cleveland, as favorable scheduling and deft usage [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ignore the modest save total of twelve: Andrew Miller was one of the best relievers in baseball during the 2016 regular season, and was <em>the</em> best reliever in baseball during the postseason. He was unquestionably the deciding factor in the Blue Jays ALCS defeat at the hands of Cleveland, as favorable scheduling and deft usage by Terry Francona allowed the left hander to appear in four of the five games. During that stretch, he he struck out 14 of his MLB-record 30 postseason batters over 7.2 innings of work.</p>
<p>Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, and the rest of the front office would certainly love to get their hands on Miller, but with two reasonably priced years remaining on his contract Cleveland seems unlikely to bring him to market – and even if they did, it would be for an unpalatable ransom for a reliever coming off a massive single-season workload of 93.2 innings. While in possession of similarly dominant track records, even if one could stomach the estimated 15 million (or more) per season they’ll demand, Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman seem like equally far-fetched alternatives due to their attached qualifying offer and history of domestic violence, respectively. With all due respect to Brett Cecil, who is a very, very good reliever in his own right, if the Blue Jays want to add a dominant reliever to the 2017 bullpen without crippling their payroll, farm system, or morals, they’re going to need to get creative.</p>
<p>So creative, in fact, they might want to look backwards before looking forward.</p>
<p>Long before Andrew Miller took over the baseball world with a seemingly infinite cascade of wipe-out sliders, he was a starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, and Boston Red Sox. Miller was taken sixth overall in the 2006 amateur draft, debuted that same year, and after dabbling with a cutter and curveball in the early stages of his career, settled into a three pitch mix featuring his four seam fastball, slider, and changeup.</p>
<p>While he had the occasional bullpen stint, Miller was used primarily as a starting pitcher over the next five seasons but never performed particularly well despite the flashy pedigree and substantial signing bonus. The left hander would be traded twice; the first time headlining the package for Miguel Cabrera, the second time for someone named Dustin Richardson in a straight one-for-one before being non-tendered shortly thereafter, perfectly epitomizing how far his stock had fallen by the end of 2010.</p>
<p>Red Sox manager Terry Francona pushed to have the club bring Miller back after he was non-tendered, as he and the coaching staff felt as though they could correct a flaw in his mechanics and get his career back on track. A month later Miller came to terms with the club, but despite Francona’s aspirations, the 2011 season was yet another tumultuous adventure through the wilderness for the lefty. In one of his final moves before Boston hilariously moved on to Bobby Valentine at the end of the 2011 season, Tito made the call to transition Miller to the bullpen full time – a decision that seems absolutely brilliant in hindsight.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">***</p>
<p>The first thing that Andrew Miller did as a reliever was ditch his changeup, a dreadful pitch that had done nothing to stifle right handed batters throughout his career. He had thrown the changeup around 15 percent of the time over three years from 2009 through 2011 – more often than his slider in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, in fact. In its stead, Miller immediately began throwing that slider 40 percent of the time, and has since upped that usage as high as 60 percent in the 2016 season. Conversely, Miller’s slider is obviously a fantastic pitch. Even at his lowest point the breaking ball was getting whiffs on over 35 percent of swings taken against it, and more recently has generated whiff per swing rates of 55.1, 55.2, and 46.9 percent over the last three years.</p>
<p>Miller’s four seam fastball received the “bullpen bump” after he transitioned to relief. The pitch averaged between 91 and 92 miles per hour in the rotation in 2009 and 2010, climbed over 93 in 2011 thanks to a big September, and has averaged between 95 and 96 miles per hour in each of his five full-time relief seasons. A lot is made of velocity – admittedly sometimes too much – but as Table 1 explains, the move allowed Miller to cross a critical velocity threshold.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/Table-1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7876" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/Table-1.png" alt="Table 1" width="594" height="432" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left">The graph above was created using the <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search">PitchFX data available on MLB Savant</a>, and shows how batters perform against four seam, two seam, and sinking fastballs as pitch velocity increases. Both batting average and slugging percentage decline as velocity increases, which is expected, but what is most interesting is how the velocities appear to coalesce into tiers. Fastballs from 88 to 91 miles per hour are damaged at more-or-less the same magnitude, but there’s a sharp decline in batter performance from there to 93 miles per hour, where batting average and slugging percentage drop by about 30 and 70 points, respectively. The 93 to 95 miles per hour window is again something of a plateau, with a steep deterioration in batter success at every step from 96 and beyond. In moving from the rotation to the bullpen, Miller’s four seam fastball jumped more than a full tier, with the expected slugging percentage falling from .495 to .420. That’s monumental.</p>
<p>With this information in hand I set out with the goal of finding the next Andrew Miller, or at least, a poor man’s Andrew Miller. Using the pitching leaderboard over at Fangraphs, I ran a report for all pitchers who threw 30 or more innings in the rotation in 2016, <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&amp;stats=sta&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=30&amp;type=8&amp;season=2016&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2016&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0">which turned out 213 names</a>. From there, I began trimming the sample with criteria that meet or best describe Andrew Miller’s transformation. Pitchers who were worth more than 1.5 fWAR in 2016 were removed first, as the foundation for this exercise is to look at failed starters. From there, the population was cut further to only those pitchers with an average fastball velocity of 91.0 miles per hour or greater in order for the “bullpen bump” to facilitate a leap into the next velocity tier. The third and most pivotal step was to eliminate all pitchers that did not have two or more secondary pitches thrown in excess of 10 percent of the time, as like Miller and his changeup, there must be something to dispose of at the expense of better offerings.</p>
<p>This trimmed the list of pitchers from 213 down to 47, which was reduced further by removing the “obviously not going to be converted&#8221; starters that also met the criteria such as Sonny Gray, Jose Berrios, Daniel Norris, and Garrett Richards among many others. Now down to 30, a few names started to jump out as intriguing prospects for a bullpen conversion. Jimmy Nelson, Clayton Richard, and Lucas Harrell all have a decent fastball/breaking ball combination and a changeup just begging to be dropped, but one name truly emerged as an almost perfect candidate to be the next Andrew Miller: <strong>Patrick Corbin of the Arizona Diamondbacks.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center">***</p>
<p>The left hander made 24 starts from April through mid-August, over which he struggled to a 5.58 ERA and equally troubling fielding independent metrics. After giving up eight runs on nine hits in what would be his final start of the year on August 12th, the Diamondbacks made the decision to shift him to the bullpen for the remainder of the season. With a 2.70 ERA over 12 appearances his performance was nothing short of spectacular, but even that fails to give proper justice to how dominating Corbin was down the stretch, and how well his arsenal played up in the bullpen.</p>
<p>Despite it being the tail end of his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, the “bullpen bump” was in full effect for Corbin. His four seam fastball and sinker, which averaged 92.3 and 93.6 miles per hour in the rotation, jumped all the way up to 94.2 and 94.6 miles per hour in the bullpen; a surge of nearly two full ticks on his primary offering. Referring to Table 1 above once again, while this increase doesn’t appear to do a ton to stifle opposing batting averages, jumping from 92 to 94 carries an expected decline in opposing slugging of 37 points. The sample size is admittedly small, but this played out on the field as batters slugged .565 against his four seam fastball as a starter and just .452 as a reliever.</p>
<p>In relief, while his fastball (four seam + sinker) usage remained steady at roughly 63 percent, Corbin dropped his changeup usage from 10.46 to 5.11 percent. This decline was replaced by a growth in his slider reliance, which increased from 25.65 to 31.82 percent of total pitches thrown. That should be taken a whole lot further, too.</p>
<p>Andrew Miller’s slider is lauded for being nigh-untouchable, and rightfully so. What’s truly remarkable about Patrick Corbin is that his slider might be just as good, if not even a little better than that of Miller. Table 2 below details Miller and Corbin’s slider usage and whiff rates over the last five seasons. Despite facing batters two, three, and even four times on any given night as a starter, Corbin’s slider produced a better whiff per swing rate than Miller in two of his three healthy seasons. When the playing field was finally leveled as Corbin shifted to the bullpen at the end of 2016, his whiff rate blew past Miller and it wasn’t all that close.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/Table-2.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7877" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/Table-2.png" alt="Table 2" width="506" height="185" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left">That there is one bastard of a breaking ball. Using the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=RP&amp;month=&amp;year=2016&amp;pitch=SL&amp;ds=ws&amp;lim=100">Baseball Prospectus PitchFX Leaderboard</a>, its whiff per swing rate of 61.36 percent was the second highest among 165 relievers to throw 100 or more sliders, behind only Ken Giles of the Astros, and its groundball rate of 70 percent was tied for first. Patrick Corbin’s slider is legitimately one of the best pitches in all of baseball, and it has been criminally underutilized for far too long.</p>
<p>Honestly, it’s legitimately dumbfounding that Corbin has continued to throw a changeup at all. Its primary utility is to shut down opposite handed batters, especially for pitchers who feature a slider associated with heavy platoon splits. It hasn’t played out that way for Corbin. The lefty has thrown 886 changeups to right handed batters in his career, and they’ve demolished it for a .335 batting average and .608 slugging percentage. Meanwhile, the 1,326 sliders that Corbin has thrown to right handed batters have resulted in a .145 average and .256 slugging percentage.</p>
<p>Again, versus right handers, he’s surrendered just eight home runs with 224 strikeouts with the slider, compared to eleven dingers and just 10 strikeouts with the changeup. Moving forward, regardless of his role &#8212; though it would obviously play up better in the bullpen &#8212; Patrick Corbin should be a four seam fastball, sinker, and slider guy. Full stop.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">***</p>
<p>If the elite slider alone isn’t enough to whet your appetite, what makes Corbin even more fascinating as a relief option is the length that his history in the rotation could allow. It was noted earlier that Corbin made 12 relief appearances to conclude the season, but what was intentionally omitted at the time was that those outings covered 23.1 innings. Excluding the August 19th appearance in which he was shelled and the September 9th appearance in which he was asked to face only one batter, the following are the number of batters Corbin faced in each of his other ten outings: 8, 9, 10, 6, 8, 12, 9, 8, 7, and 9. In a surprisingly progressive fashion given the organization’s previous hierarchy, Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale basically asked Corbin to blow through the entire lineup one time, or until his own spot came up in the batting order.</p>
<p>If you forecast his workload from the final seven weeks out to a full season, Corbin’s relief usage would look something like 87 innings spanning 45 appearances. Brad Hand of the Padres led all of baseball with 89.1 innings of work out of the bullpen in 2016, so while using Corbin in that way wouldn’t be unprecedented; it would certainly fall near the current extremes. The biggest difference between the two would be that it took Hand a rather questionable and potentially abusive 82 appearances to get there.</p>
<p>Having a stable of elite relief options was in vogue during the Royals 2014 and 2015 runs to the World Series, but the 2016 postseason took things a step further as managers turned to those elite options earlier and more often. It feels like we’ve experienced a shift in philosophy; away from catering to the arbitrary “save” statistic and towards the far more logical “use your best damn guys in the biggest situations” approach.</p>
<p>It may seem like he&#8217;s been around for a while but Corbin will still be just 27 years old on Opening Day, has two years of team control remaining, and should make in the neighborhood of 4.2 million next year according to the <a href="http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/10/projected-arbitration-salaries-2017.html">MLB Trade Rumors arbitration estimates</a>. Rather than trying to reinforce the bullpen by spending top dollar or top prospects, the Blue Jays might be better served to follow this or a similar exercise, look at how the best arms came to be the best arms, and work from there to recreate them. It seems obvious, but if you want an Andrew Miller but don’t want to pay Andrew Miller prices, find the next Andrew Miller. Patrick Corbin might just be that guy.</p>
<p><em>*All PitchFX figures from <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/outcome.php?player=571578&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;time=month&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=pcount&amp;s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&amp;startDate=01/01/2016&amp;endDate=01/01/2017">BrooksBaseball.net</a> unless otherwise noted.</em></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Marco Estrada’s Changeup and its Place Among Royalty</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/15/marco-estradas-changeup-and-its-place-among-royalty/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/15/marco-estradas-changeup-and-its-place-among-royalty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Aug 2016 11:12:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Felix Hernandez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PitchFX]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The changeup can be a devastating pitch with its doppelganger-like deception; and the Blue Jays’ Marco Estrada just so happens to feature one of the finest in all of baseball. Estrada’s style is the antithesis of baseball’s modern era, where a hurler’s panache is measured by how hard he can throw. When Marco entered the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The changeup can be a devastating pitch with its doppelganger-like deception; and the Blue Jays’ Marco Estrada just so happens to feature one of the finest in all of baseball. Estrada’s style is the antithesis of baseball’s modern era, where a hurler’s panache is measured by how hard he can throw. When Marco entered the league back in 2008, the average fastball velocity was just under 91 miles per hour. Eight short years later that figure has climbed to 92.5. As well, eight starting pitchers are currently throwing their <em>slider</em> harder than the 88.97 miles per hour Estrada averages with his four seam fastball, and another seven are within a stone’s throw. In an age where maximum effort and closer-like mentalities reign supreme, Marco Estrada emits an aura of elegance on the mound, with each batter acting as a canvas for his artistic genius.</p>
<p>Baseball is a game of traditions, unwritten rules, and superstitions; and for decades the idea of throwing a changeup to a same sided batter ran contrary to all three. By its very nature the changeup is designed to mimic the fastball at a lesser pace, which results in fading action towards the arm side. This makes it an excellent weapon versus the opposite handedness – a pitch down and moving away from the swing plane is near impossible to make firm contact against – but physics dictate that against a same sided batter it will fade down and in to an area which <a href="http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/why-mike-trout-and-the-rest-of-the-league-is-having-trouble-with-the-high-stuff-082914">hitters have absolutely mashed</a>. In an excellent piece written by Ben Lindbergh for <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=21043">Baseball Prospectus back in 2013</a>, Lindbergh noted that over a six year sample from 2008 to mid-2013, changeups thrown to same sided batters accounted for between just 21 and 26 percent of the total changeups. By those measures, 74 to 79 percent of changeups were thrown in the “traditional” sense – right on left, or left on right.</p>
<p>As he’s wont to do, Marco Estrada has continued to march against the tides of archaic customs and has taken the “Danks Theory” developed by the Tampa Bay Rays in the first half of the decade to the extreme. According to Lindbergh’s research, as a team the Rays set the pace for baseball with 34.1 percent of changeups thrown to same sided batters from 2011 to mid-2013, when the league average was just a hair above 22 percent. Through 20 starts in 2016, Estrada has thrown 46.7 percent of his changeups to right handed batters, which is the eighth highest mark among 36 right handed starters to have thrown 200 changeups. Eighth doesn’t sound like a noteworthy placement, but as Figure 1 below shows, it’s weighed down by the fact that Estrada throws a ton of changeups to left handers too. When plotting the relative percentage of changeups thrown to right handed batters versus the changeup usage among all pitches versus right handed batters, Estrada (indicated in blue) is the furthest from the trend line between the two variables and stands on an island by himself.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5451" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-1.png" alt="Estrada Figure 1" width="550" height="397" /></a></p>
<p>In all counts this season, right handed batters have seen a changeup from Estrada 28 percent of the time, the second highest mark in baseball behind one Felix Hernandez (30 percent). This continues an upward trend dating back to Estrada’s first concrete opportunity at the big leagues in 2011. Figure 2 below displays his year-by-year all counts changeup usage versus right handed batters, as well as his even more pronounced growth in usage with two strikes where his 2016 rate of 46 percent again ranks second only to The King (53 percent).</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-2.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5452" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-2.png" alt="Estrada Figure 2" width="579" height="390" /></a></p>
<p>What Estrada and Hernandez are attempting runs completely against conventional wisdom, and remarkably, they couldn’t be achieving their success through more conflicting techniques. Over the past six years, Felix has coaxed more and more horizontal run (orange) while almost entirely eliminating the fluttering aspect of the changeup, causing the pitch to sink at a rate approaching that of an entirely spinless pitch (red). Marco has done the complete reverse; fully exploiting his overhead delivery by steadily decreasing the arm-side run (blue) and inflating the relative vertical movement (purple).</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-3.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5453" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-3.png" alt="Estrada Figure 3" width="616" height="451" /></a></p>
<p>Understandably, the two right handers have developed and tailored their changeups to best imitate their own respective fastballs, and this is easily observed with the calculated spin axis. The movement on Hernandez’ sinker rotates around an axis of 241 degrees, and his changeup closely follows suit with an axis of 279 degrees. Steadily approaching perfect backspin, Estrada throws his four seam fastball with spin axis of 188 degrees, with the spin axis of his changeup being calculated at 211 degrees.</p>
<p>Against right handed batters, Hernandez has countered the worrisome down-and-in stigma by throwing the changeup so hard and with so much multi-plane movement that even if it does break into their swing plane, the hitter can do little more than drive the ball into the ground; his 69 percent groundball rate with the changeup ranks fifth among 120 starting pitchers to throw at least 100 of them this season. Because it has so much sink and is incredibly difficult to get under, Hernandez is sporting a comical infield fly ball rate of <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfx.aspx?playerid=4772&amp;position=P&amp;pitch=CH">0.0 percent in 2016</a> – though it had hovered around a respectable 17 and 18 percent the previous three seasons.</p>
<p>Estrada generates groundballs at a considerably more modest rate – just 42 percent, ranking 93rd – but he more than makes up for it by inducing an almost unfathomable volume of pop-ups. His infield fly ball rate this season is sitting at <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfx.aspx?playerid=1118&amp;position=P&amp;pitch=CH">46.2 percent</a> (just under half of the fly balls he surrenders on his changeup don’t escape the infield), and while that would represent a career best, he had maintained a pop-up rate exceeding 30 percent in three of his previous four seasons.</p>
<p>Where Hernandez buries his changeup far down and away from right handers – and even runs it in on the hands like a two seam fastball – it’s essential that Estrada focuses on keeping the changeup on the outer half. By keeping it away he forces the right handed batters out onto their front foot with an unbalanced swing; too close to the inner half and the 80 mile per hour butterfly of a changeup is just asking to be pulled into left field with authority. Below, <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/">via MLB Savant</a>, are the 2016 changeup-versus-righties heat maps for Hernandez (left) and Estrada (right).</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-4-Heatmaps.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5454" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Estrada-Figure-4-Heatmaps.png" alt="Estrada Figure 4 (Heatmaps)" width="899" height="501" /></a></p>
<p>Baseball is a traditional sport, but for those willing to push the boundaries of conventional lore there is the potential for unforeseen strengths where only weaknesses were anticipated. The right-on-right changeup isn’t nearly as exotic and old-man-yelling-at-cloud prompting as valuing on-base percentage over batting average or shifting your defenders to the most advantageous fielding positions, but it was still yet another barrier that most were unwilling to cross until just recently and it has already proven to be an incredible asset to those bold enough to take the plunge. The Marco Estrada&#8217;s career doesn’t have a whole lot in common with that of the illustrious Felix Hernandez, but when it comes to retiring batters with the unusual right-on-right changeup approach, the Blue Jays would-be ace has a place among royalty.</p>
<p><em>All data via <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/">Brooks Baseball</a> unless otherwise noted; up to date as of August 11th.</em></p>
<p><i>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</i></p>
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		<title>How Aaron Sanchez Found Success vs Left Handed Hitters</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/06/sanchez-versus-lefties-has-been-an-unexpected-kind-of-story/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/06/sanchez-versus-lefties-has-been-an-unexpected-kind-of-story/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Jun 2016 13:47:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PitchFX]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez can manhandle a right-handed batter with the best of them. For his career, same sided hitters have slashed a less-than-robust .175/.243/.220 in 380 plate appearances. He allowed a home run to Adrian Beltre on May 15th, and that moment is only noteworthy because it represented the first dinger that he had surrendered to a right [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Aaron Sanchez can manhandle a right-handed batter with the best of them. For his career, same sided hitters have slashed a less-than-robust .175/.243/.220 in 380 plate appearances. He allowed a home run to Adrian Beltre on May 15th, and that moment is only noteworthy because it represented the <em>first </em>dinger that he had surrendered to a right hander in his Major League career. For good measure, through a trio of starts, he hasn’t allowed one since. This fantastic information was raised as a counterbalance to what had been a horrendous struggle for the young Sanchez as he attempted to find his permanent home in Toronto: the left handers.</p>
<p>It was a crippling vulnerability, and led managers to stack their lineups with lefties at every opportunity they could. In 2015, between the bullpen and the rotation Sanchez faced 380 batters, and despite most estimates having just 25 to 30 percent of baseball players as lefties, our right hander was facing them over 53 percent of the time. This was done because they were hitting a healthy and full-bodied .279/.390/.488 against Sanchez. Josh Donaldson, last season’s American League Most Valuable Player, is a career .274/.354/.492 hitter. Let that sink in for a moment. It was a massive concern as the rotation versus bullpen debate commenced anew in February, but as Sanchez turned in dominant outing after dominant outing in Spring Training, rightly or wrongly, the apprehension quieted. Andrew Stoeten wrote an <a href="http://bluejaysnation.com/2016/3/23/aaron-sanchez-should-probably-face-some-more-legit-left-handed-hitters-before-we-anoint-him-a-starter">excellent commentary</a> on his results towards the end of March, noting that, while you can’t criticize him for not having the most imposing lineups opposite him, the best left hander he had faced throughout the entirety of spring was the Mets’ Michael Conforto, and after him, there was another considerable step down in talent. With a full head of steam behind him, Sanchez was officially named the fifth starter less than a week later, but Stoeten’s piece brought to light a key element worth monitoring as the season unfolded.</p>
<p>We’re now eleven starts into his 2016 season, and the reason <em>Sanchez versus lefties</em> hasn’t been a story is simply because it hasn’t been a story. He’s still facing them significantly more often than not (58 percent of total batters faced in 2016), but as a group, they’re hitting just .232/.308/.355. In this modern age of advanced metrics, OPS is something of a rudimentary number, but watching it be shaved by over 200 points (.878 to .663) has been marvelous to behold. He has continued to be better against right handed batters (.229/.286/.308), but with his power two-seam fastball that’s not likely to ever change. The greatest barrier standing between Sanchez and a future silenced of the “reliever” label was attaining adequate status against opposite handed batters, and at least through two months, he’s attained it.</p>
<p>The <em>how </em>is where things really get interesting.</p>
<p>While his two-seam fastball is a dominant pitch, everyone knew that Sanchez would need to find trust in his curveball and changeup if he was going to survive – or even thrive – against left handers. Early season data suggests that some level of comfort has been achieved; his overall curveball usage has increased from <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/outcome.php?player=592717&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;time=year&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=pcount&amp;s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&amp;startDate=&amp;endDate=">12.5 percent in 2015 to 16.4 percent in 2016</a>, and his changeup has followed suit increasing from 4.3 to 8.9 percent.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/Sanchez-Pitch-Usage.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3384" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/Sanchez-Pitch-Usage.png" alt="Sanchez Pitch Usage" width="412" height="206" /></a></p>
<p>The usage patterns are even more evident when looking at splits by batter handedness. As he’s wont to do, Sanchez has pounded right handers with 85 percent hard-stuff this season (a mirror of last season), but against left handers, his approach has evolved considerably. His curveball and changeup accounted for a total of just 19 percent of pitches thrown in all counts to lefties last season, but has climbed to 31 percent in 2016. The adjustments are especially pronounced in two-strike situations, where the usage has jumped from 26 to <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/tabs.php?player=592717&amp;p_hand=-1&amp;ppos=-1&amp;cn=200&amp;gFilt=&amp;time=month&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=usage&amp;s_type=2&amp;startDate=01/01/2016&amp;endDate=01/01/2017&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1">45 percent</a>, driven primarily by the curveball.</p>
<p>At 7.96 per nine innings, Sanchez has struck out batters more frequently this year than he has in any season since he was a member of the Lansing Three-headed monster (with Noah Syndergaard and Justin Nicolino) back in 2012, and at least some of his success can be attributed to the approach change with two strikes. Curveballs will always induce more swings-and-misses than fastballs, and in addition to generating more overall, the whiff per swing rate of his curveball itself has increased from 27.6 percent to 36.6 percent here in 2016. Sanchez has accomplished this in two ways: via tighter rotation and through better planning and execution – the latter of which is a feather in Russell Martin’s cap.</p>
<p>The curveball has averaged 78.5 miles per hour this season, down from 79.9 in 2015, further expanding the velocity gap between it and his blazing fastball. Both the horizontal movement and vertical movement have increased considerably relative to 2015 as well, but the most pivotal element may be the spin rate. After averaging 1,846 revolutions per minute last season, Sanchez has throttled the curveball up to 2,097 rpm (both figures <a href="http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/pitcher/592717/?batters=A&amp;count=AA&amp;pitches=AA&amp;from=4%2F1%2F2016&amp;to=6%2F4%2F2016">via Texas Leaguers</a>). The public understanding of spin rate is still in its infancy stages; some data sources extrapolate spin rate based upon movement while others have the technology to measure spin rate based on observed rotations, and just as crucially, <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=27012">we’re still attempting to find the best way to utilize the data</a>. For one example, Alan Nathan wrote an <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25915">interesting but very technical article</a> on Baseball Prospectus last year which showed that while pitches like fastballs and changeups have almost entirely “useful spin”, breaking balls like curveballs and sliders carry “gyro spin” or non-useful spin as well, and the ratio between the two types can be just as important as the raw spin rate itself.</p>
<p>Sanchez has always had a great curveball, and while making it even tighter certainly can’t hurt, the bigger issue was commanding the pitch and getting batters to chase it. His O-Swing rate with the curve was just 25.2 percent last season, which was well below the league average of 30 percent for <em>all </em>pitch types. In 2016, it has jumped all the way to 37.3 percent, and it’s because the battery of Sanchez and Martin has set batters up for it magnificently.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/2016-FB-and-CB.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-3385" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/2016-FB-and-CB-1024x500.png" alt="2016 FB and CB" width="1024" height="500" /></a></p>
<p>The two heat maps above (via <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/">MLB Savant</a>) show Aaron Sanchez’s usage patterns versus lefties this season with his two seam fastball (left) and curveball (right). The movement of his two seam fastball carries it away from left handed batters, and he’s used it predominantly on the outer half of the plate to ensure the pitch doesn’t break into their swing plane. He has also started seeking out called strikes down-and-inside as we saw in Wednesday night’s start against the Yankees, and while he was robbed by a half-dozen missed calls by the umpire, both of these locations setup his curveball to great effect.</p>
<p>Sanchez has targeted two areas against lefties with his curveball, both of which are complementary to the fastball locations above, and both of which serve very different purposes. When he throws a curve to lefties early in the count, he’s often seeking a called strike on the outer half. The batters see the pitch starting outside and they likely assume it’s a fastball that is going to carry well outside. But the curveball moves <em>seventeen inches</em> horizontally in the opposite direction relative to his fastball (+8.35 versus -9.09 inches), and tucks in over the outside corner. Sanchez even appears to be making a concerted effort to keep the curveball elevated in these situations, and while that could cause a lot of trouble if batters are looking for it and it creeps too far in, it’s a tremendous boon to his deception when they’re not. The GIF below (via <a href="https://twitter.com/BadNewsJays">@BadNewsJays</a>) shows Corey Dickerson of the Rays taking an elevated, outside curveball in a 1-1 count for strike two, and you can tell he&#8217;s surrendered any swing consideration when the pitch is about halfway to the plate. In fact, he&#8217;s come completely out of his stance by the time Martin catches the ball.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/CB-Looking-vs-Dickerson-Strike-2.gif"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/CB-Looking-vs-Dickerson-Strike-2.gif" alt="" width="480" height="265" /></a></p>
<p>Sanchez threw the outside curveball to lefties quite frequently in 2015 as well; what he didn&#8217;t even attempt to do was throw at the back foot of lefties. It&#8217;s unusual that he seldom went to this location because with a sharp breaking ball like his, low and inside is one of the best places to attain whiffs against opposite handed batters. &#8220;Why not?&#8221; is a question better asked by those with locker room access, but the most likely explanation is that it&#8217;s a dangerous area to target with shaky command; release too early and the pitch is center-cut and moving into their swing plane, release too late and it&#8217;s probably a wild pitch or hit batter. Sanchez didn&#8217;t appear to have the requisite trust level in his curveball last season, but an offseason of hard work has paid dividends. The right hander has found that comfort and command, Martin has obliged with his game calling, and the duo have been heartless in their ruthless pounding of the back-foot curveball. Words are a fantastic medium, but sometimes it&#8217;s better to let the awkward swings of Joe Mauer and Didi Gregorius do the talking.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/CB-Swinging-vs-Mauer-Strike-3.gif" alt="" width="480" height="272" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/CB-Swinging-vs-Gregorius-Slow-Mo-Strike-3.gif" alt="" width="480" height="268" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<p style="text-align: left">This combination of curveballs might best be described as the Clint Hurdle/Russell Martin special, and it was used by one of the pitchers to whom Sanchez is most often compared: A.J. Burnett. Left for dead by the Yankees after disappointing 2010 and 2011 seasons, Burnett was traded to the Pirates and rebounded with a very good 2012 season. Martin joined the Buckos in 2013, and with him behind the plate, the then 36-year old Burnett had one of the best seasons of his career. He led the National League in strikeouts per nine innings at 9.85, and behind the scenes, Hurdle and Martin had clearly been making tweaks to his curveball approach against lefties. In 2012 with the Martin-less Pirates, Burnett threw 11.1 percent of his curveballs to lefties on the outer third of the plate, and 24.5 percent down and in. With Martin on the Pirates in 2013, Burnett increased his outer third usage to 14.6 percent while maintaining the 24.5 percent back-foot rate. Separated from his former battery-mate after signing with the Phillies for 2014, Burnett&#8217;s curveball location usage dropped back down to 11.1 and 24.3 percent, respectively.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/Burnett-2012-to-2014-CB-vs-Lefties.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-3389" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/Burnett-2012-to-2014-CB-vs-Lefties-1024x378.png" alt="Burnett 2012 to 2014 CB vs Lefties" width="1024" height="378" /></a></p>
<p>While I&#8217;m sure there are countless other instances of right handed starters following this playbook against lefties, it&#8217;s interesting that the pitcher to whom the public draws the most frequent parallels for Aaron Sanchez also found his greatest success with Sanchez&#8217;s current catcher, and Sanchez&#8217;s current curveball approach. Baseball is regarded as the game of adjustments, cascading one after another as hitters and pitchers figure things out in alternating succession. What&#8217;s most fascinating about Aaron Sanchez&#8217;s latest adjustment is that, if he maintains this new found command, there&#8217;s just no counter adjustment that the opposition can make. The threat of a 95 mile per hour fastball is always looming, and because Sanchez has shown the ability to locate it with deadly precision on the inside corner, lefties are helplessly in protect mode. Sanchez&#8217;s development has made it a coin-flip with two strikes, and with a <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/01/pitch-homogenization-and-marcus-stromans-breaking-balls/">Euclidean distance</a> of 29.142 between the fastball and curveball, the two pitches are about as far apart as you&#8217;ll ever see. Guess heads and get tails, and you&#8217;re simply not going to make contact.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Pitch Homogenization and Marcus Stroman&#8217;s Breaking Balls</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/01/pitch-homogenization-and-marcus-stromans-breaking-balls/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/01/pitch-homogenization-and-marcus-stromans-breaking-balls/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jun 2016 10:30:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PitchFX]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3191</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Prior to being selected by the Blue Jays as the 22nd overall pick back in the 2012 draft, Marcus Stroman was drawing attention as an amateur prospect primarily for two reasons: a mid-90’s four-seam fastball and an upper 80’s slider, the combination of which guided him to an impressive 136 strikeouts over 98 innings in [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Prior to being selected by the Blue Jays as the 22nd overall pick back in the 2012 draft, Marcus Stroman was drawing attention as an amateur prospect primarily for two reasons: a mid-90’s four-seam fastball and an upper 80’s slider, the combination of which guided him to an impressive 136 strikeouts over 98 innings in his Junior year at Duke University. The road to his professional career began just four years ago next week, and yet the Marcus Stroman of present couldn’t be less reflective of his scouting report of old. His transition from a four seam fastball to a sinking fastball, as well as the <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/10/05/marcus-stromans-sinker-is-evolving/">evolution of the sinker itself</a>, has been well documented and meticulously cataloged. What has drawn far less attention is the redevelopment of his breaking ball. Stroman has shifted away from the upper 80’s slider for one with a more tempered velocity – likely to maintain the same six-to-eight mile per hour gap from his fastball (previously the mid-90’s four seamer, now the low-90’s sinker) – while also expanding his repertoire to include the slider’s cousin, a curveball.</p>
<p>Stroman made 20 starts during his rookie 2014 season, and blew the online baseball community away with the impressive allotment of pitches he’d developed and refined over his 178.1 innings in the minor leagues. Using the “Pitch Comp Methodology” devised by Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs, <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/02/16/marcus-stroman-under-the-microscope/">I compared the average velocity, horizontal movement, and vertical movement variables for each of Stroman’s six pitches</a> to the other right handed starting pitchers in 2014, in hopes of identifying the most similar pitches among his closest kin. With a comp score of 0.23, the strongest relationship was found between Stroman’s slurvy curveball and <a href="http://www.fishstripes.com/2014/5/20/5723822/jose-fernandez-injury-gifs-2014-season-memorial">“The Defector”</a> thrown by the Marlins’ Jose Fernandez, which as I noted at the time, was strongly supported by the eye test. Fernandez throws his curveball extremely hard, and thanks in large part to his low 3/4 arm slot, the breaking ball has a <em>ton </em>of sweeping horizontal movement. In fact, as Table 1 below shows, by both velocity and horizontal movement, Jose Fernandez’s curveball has been at or near the top of its class throughout his entire major league career. Needless to say, it was a fantastic offering to which Stroman could receive a complementary comparison.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Fernandez-Curveball-Table.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3199" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Fernandez-Curveball-Table.png" alt="Fernandez Curveball Table" width="392" height="139" /></a></p>
<p>Leading up to the 2015 season, the potential in Stroman&#8217;s dynamic arsenal was lauded on the internet, television, radio, and even around the water cooler for five long, wintry months; everyone was ready to see just what he could do with a full slate of innings at his disposal. With the Stroman hype train in full effect, it wasn’t just Blue Jays fans who were devastated when the right hander went down with a torn ACL last spring. Despite receiving a season-ending diagnosis from the training staff, post-surgery Stroman began his long rehabilitation process with the singular mindset of returning in September. At Duke University he worked with a team of physical therapists on the leading edge of kinesiology, who developed a personalized program for Stroman. <a href="http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-toronto-blue-jays-marcus-stroman-acl-recovery/">As Ben Lindbergh wrote at Grantland</a>, the goal was designing and maintaining a system that wouldn’t push too hard as to prevent setbacks, but also to stress the right hander’s body enough in order to drive the necessary physical improvements. The enthusiastic Stroman <em>did </em>make it back for September, and in typical Marcus Stroman fashion, he’d taken advantage of his time away from the professional field to make further augmentations to his repertoire. To add to the point above and as a brief aside, Marcus Stroman’s breaking balls run contrary to conventional thought. Most envision a slider as the Frisbee-like offering that’s somewhat flat and burns away from batters on the horizontal plane, whereas when they think of a curveball, they picture a knee-buckling bender similar to what Aaron Sanchez features. Stroman’s pair of breaking balls behaves somewhat backwards; his slider carries more of the vertical depth element, and the curveball possesses the slice.</p>
<p>Stroman’s slider slowed, down to an average of 86.43 miles per hour from 88.25 the year prior; seemingly a collaborative effort as he transitioned almost entirely from the four seam fastball to the sinker. He also increased the degree of movement on both planes, adding half an inch of horizontal run and a full inch of vertical depth. Interestingly, all three factors drove the slider in the direction of his curveball, which largely remained the same from 2014 to 2015. Using average velocity, horizontal movement, and vertical movement, I calculated the Euclidean distance between the two pitches in three dimensional space. Euclidean distance between two points can be calculated by finding the square root of the sum of the squares of the differences:</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Euclidean-Distance-Formula.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3193" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Euclidean-Distance-Formula.png" alt="Euclidean Distance Formula" width="439" height="150" /></a></p>
<p>Using the formula above, the distance between point “p” (the curveball) and point “q” (the slider) can be determined by inserting the average velocities into p<sub>1</sub> and q<sub>1</sub>, the horizontal movements into p<sub>2</sub> and q<sub>2</sub>, and the vertical movements into p<sub>3</sub> and q<sub>3</sub>. Table 2 below shows the three physiological variables for Stroman’s curveball and slider, and the Euclidean distance between the two in 2014, 2015, and 2016 (up to and including his May 22nd start). Note that as we’re using different kinds of measurements (movement in inches, and velocity in miles per hour), the Euclidean distance is unit-less. The two are unquestionably behaving more and more similarly as Stroman’s career progresses.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Stroman-Curveball-and-Slider-Convergence.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3200" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Stroman-Curveball-and-Slider-Convergence.png" alt="Stroman Curveball and Slider Convergence" width="547" height="138" /></a></p>
<p>All pitches are on a continuum, and the level of distinction between offerings – whether you’re analyzing fastballs or breaking balls – can vary greatly from pitcher to pitcher. Given that Stroman’s slider and curveball appear to be converging (at least statistically), I was curious about the different levels of separation for <em>other </em>pitchers who throw both breaking balls. Using the most recent full season data (2015), 65 starting pitchers threw at least 100 sliders <em>and </em>100 curveballs. According to Brooks Baseball, when including the playoffs Stroman threw 94 and 93, respectively; sufficiently in-line with the threshold for the rest of the group to bring the total to 66.</p>
<p>There’s an intertwining of tremendous and terrible pitchers at the both ends of the spectrum. Johnny Cueto (5.116), Mike Leake (5.169), and Scott Kazmir (5.453) had the three smallest distances between their curveball and slider in 2015, and all three pitched well enough last season to received a combined 258 million in guaranteed money as free agents over the offseason. The largest distances between the curveball and slider belonged to Clayton Kershaw (19.893), Chris Bassitt (17.339), and Zack Greinke (15.979). Kershaw and Greinke both finished in the top three in 2015 NL Cy Young voting, while Bassitt had the second best “Stuff” in baseball among starting pitchers according to our own <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/community/revisiting-the-stuff-metric/" target="_blank">Mike Sonne’s calculations</a>.</p>
<p>Ranking with the ninth smallest Euclidean distance between breaking balls in 2015 was Marcus Stroman (6.679), which reinforces a preconceived notion I have that more so than his compatriots, his two breaking balls are more or less the same general pitch thrown in slightly altered ways. The figure below, <a href="http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/pitcher/573186/">via Texas Leaguers</a>, shows the horizontal and vertical movement of each pitch thrown by Stroman in 2015, with the different pitch types receiving specific colors and shapes. Curveballs appear as blue diamonds, and sliders as green diamonds.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Stroman-2015-SL-vs-CB.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3194" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Stroman-2015-SL-vs-CB.gif" alt="Stroman 2015 SL vs CB" width="480" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>Both breaking balls are in the same vicinity of the diagram and there is a bit of overlap, but the two pitch types are predominantly separated into the two clusters you’d expect given what we already know; the curveballs with the greater horizontal movement, and the sliders with the greater vertical movement. How does this compare to some of the pitchers noted above who fall even more to the extremes, in terms of similarities and discrepancies?</p>
<p>The pitchers who were determined to have the most similar breaking balls were Cueto and Leake, but they&#8217;re not great fits for comparisons for a couple of reasons. Where Brooks Baseball identified Cueto&#8217;s breaking ball distribution as 74 percent sliders and 26 percent curveballs, Texas Leaguers measured 97 percent sliders and just 3 percent curveballs. Furthermore, the pitch plot of Cueto&#8217;s entire <em>eight pitch</em> repertoire appears as one giant blob of colored markers, making it impossible to make any visual comparisons. Leake, meanwhile, isn&#8217;t a fit for comparison because he throws a knuckle curveball. Unless the Cardinals right hander is driving his knuckle or fingernail into his slider as he delivers it, they&#8217;re clearly not that similar regardless of any similarities with velocity and/or movement.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Kazmir-and-Kershaw-2015-SL-vs-CB.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3195" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Kazmir-and-Kershaw-2015-SL-vs-CB.png" alt="Kazmir and Kershaw 2015 SL vs CB" width="958" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>The left and right halves of the figure above have the 2015 movement plots for Scott Kazmir and Clayton Kershaw, respectively. In the same vein as Stroman, Kazmir had the third shortest Euclidean distance between his curveball and slider. Kershaw had the largest gap, and the methodology is backed up visually. With Kazmir, you can actually see three distinct clusters of breaking balls &#8212; the sliders with vertical movement above 0 near the cutters, the curveballs with the vertical movement below 0 in isolation, and then a third, inter-mixed group of sliders with added depth and firmer curveballs. Kershaw, meanwhile, has almost no overlap whatsoever between his cutter-ish slider and big 12-6 bender. Both breaking balls have similar levels of horizontal run due to his over-the-top delivery, but the curveballs is thrown fourteen miles per hour slower, and has an absurd thirteen and a half inches more vertical drop.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Breaking-Ball-Grips1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-3197" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Breaking-Ball-Grips1-1024x334.jpg" alt="Stroman Breaking Ball Grips" width="1024" height="334" /></a></p>
<p>Originally airing on a Sportsnet broadcast, the above graphic shows Marcus Stroman&#8217;s two breaking ball grips, side by side. On first glance they have a lot in common: the ball is gripped between his index and middle fingers and his thumb. It&#8217;s possible the index finger is slightly more bent and exerting more pressure on the ball with the curveball grip, but the biggest difference between the two is the relationship between his fingers and the seams. With the slider, both fingers run perpendicular to the seams, whereas the middle finger runs along the seam on the curveball. It&#8217;s not analogous, but it reminds me of the minor difference between four-seam and two-seam fastball grips, and could at least partially explain why the curveball is generating more run.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we can&#8217;t measure the subtle differences in the kinetics of his arm action, but the grips are very similar, the release points are nearly identical, and accordingly, the pitches have behaved similarly. The question that remains is whether or not this is a good thing. There are good and bad pitchers distributed evenly throughout the Euclidean distance scale, and baseball-wide there is next to zero correlation between the level of separation between breaking balls and their whiff rate and groundball rates. Most likely, the optimal usage is specific to the individual pitcher.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/16/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-3/">Under Mike Sonne&#8217;s &#8220;Stuff&#8221; model</a>, Stroman scores roughly league average, which runs contrary to everything we thought we learned about his arsenal leading up to the 2015 season. The probable reason behind these conflicting viewpoints is that one looks at the sum of the parts, while the other examines each piece individually. Marcus Stroman has five very good pitches, but he&#8217;s penalized by &#8220;Stuff&#8221; because there just isn&#8217;t enough separation and diversification. As he moved from the four seam fastball to the sinker, not only did he shorten his velocity band, but he eliminated a lot of the vertical element of his repertoire. Among the Blue Jays four &#8220;traditional&#8221; starters, he has the second lowest velocity gap and the least break distance between his fastball and breaking balls.</p>
<p>Stroman has obviously made it work and the right hander has been unquestionably productive since his return from the torn ACL, but it&#8217;s fair to wonder if the evaporation of whiffs and strikeouts is just as much the result of a homogenization of his off-speed and breaking balls as it is his transition to the sinker. When everything is in the lower half of the zone and thrown within a 12 mile per hour velocity band, it doesn&#8217;t matter how good each individual pitch is; the batters can undeservedly find some level of comfort. The sinker is a phenomenal pitch and he should continue to mainline it, but it feels like gains could be made by untying the curveball and slider from one another. <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marcus-stroman-im-still-learning/">In a fantastic interview with Eno Sarris of Fangraphs</a>, Stroman even acknowledged he needs to use his four seam fastball more and to make sure he keeps his off-speed and breaking balls separate from one another. Still just 25 years old, as he continues to master his craft, the growth, development, maintenance, and refinement of his repertoire should be something to behold.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>On Stroman, Sanchez, and the Struggles With Fastball Classification</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/09/on-stroman-sanchez-and-the-struggle-of-fastball-classification/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2016 10:22:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PitchFX]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=2348</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Neither Aaron Sanchez nor Marcus Stroman relies upon a four seam fastball as their primary hard-type offering. This has led many to envelop the hard-type pitches that they do throw into one single category with an interchangeable name; sinkers and two seam fastballs. While it&#8217;s an understandable association to make, given that both have great [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Neither Aaron Sanchez nor Marcus Stroman relies upon a four seam fastball as their primary hard-type offering. This has led many to envelop the hard-type pitches that they do throw into one single category with an interchangeable name; sinkers and two seam fastballs. While it&#8217;s an understandable association to make, given that both have great movement and generate a deluge of ground balls in the direction of the Blue Jays gold-glove infield, the journey that the pitches take from the release point to the catcher&#8217;s mitt have about as much in common as the stature of the men throwing them. Unless you&#8217;re Buck Martinez you wouldn&#8217;t call a cutter and a slider the same pitch, so you shouldn&#8217;t do that for fastballs with movement, either.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve talked a lot about spin angles before, and how they are one of the primary driving forces behind the characteristics of movement on a given pitch. Thinking big picture for a moment, there are two hemispheres of rotation: topspin and backspin. Topspin, a phenomenon which happens when the Magnus Force acting on the ball pushes it downwards, occurs when a pitch is thrown with a spin angle between 270 and 360 degrees, or between 0 and 90 degrees. For right handed pitchers this 270 to 360 degree range is a dead zone outside of theoretical endeavors, as it&#8217;s where a &#8220;<a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/lets-invent-a-new-pitch/">left handed curveball from a right handed arm slot</a>&#8221; would be found. While it&#8217;s physiologically possible, throwing this type of pitch is not recommended due to the strain associated with the exaggerated pronation required. The 0 to 90 degrees window is where most curveballs and sliders are found, as the only two pitch types that have more vertical movement than a spinless baseball.</p>
<p>Some sliders cross the hemisphere into backspin; creeping towards the 135 degree territory of cutters. These sliders are more of the Frisbee variety, lacking the two-plane depth and bite of their top spinning counterparts. At 180 degrees is the realm of four seam fastballs, whose movement falls almost entirely within the vertical plane. This is where the myth of the &#8220;rising&#8221; fastball took hold. The backspin can become so encompassing that the pitch hardly wavers on its course to home plate, refusing to sink and arriving upwards of thirteen inches higher than a spinless pitch of equal velocity would have.</p>
<p>The 180 to 270 degree field is where the distinction between sinkers and two seam fastballs occurs. As I stated, 180 degrees represents total backspin, but the 270 degree spin angle represents an equal point of purity of its own. When thrown by a right hander, a ball with a spin angle of 270 degrees will sink vertically at the exact same rate as a spinless pitch (i.e. a vertical movement of zero inches), while running towards the arm side as a mirror to a perfectly cut fastball. <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/10/05/marcus-stromans-sinker-is-evolving/">Marcus Stroman&#8217;s sinker is trending in the direction of this perfect apex</a>. Aaron Sanchez&#8217;s two seam fastball is not.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-1-Spin-Angle-and-V-Mov.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2361" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-1-Spin-Angle-and-V-Mov.png" alt="Figure 1 - Spin Angle and V Mov" width="732" height="498" /></a></p>
<p>On Figure 1 above, the average spin angle and vertical movement values have been plotted for all sinkers thrown by right handed starters in 2015 (minimum 100 thrown), with the pitch classifications determined by Baseball Prospectus and Brooks Baseball (neither has a &#8220;two seam fastball&#8221; variation). When removing side-arming Justin Masterson from the population we have a sample of 124 pitches. Among them, Marcus Stroman&#8217;s sinker had the fourth highest average spin angle at 262.18 degrees, and the second most average vertical movement with just +2.09 inches relative to a spinless pitch. Only Ryan Weber, Tim Hudson, and Charlie Morton had an average spin angle closer to 270 degrees, and only Morton generated more sink. Aaron Sanchez, conversely, had a spin angle of 244.67 degrees (31st highest), and +5.68 inches of vertical movement (46th). Given what we know about the physical forces acting on the ball, it&#8217;s unsurprising to see a strong correlation coefficient of 87.5 percent between spin angle and vertical movement. Stroman&#8217;s sinker is at one extreme, whereas Sanchez&#8217;s two seam fastball is located more within the central cluster.</p>
<p>Among the sample of 124 pitches, the spin angles range from 199 to 266 degrees, and the vertical movement spectrum spans over eight-and-a-half inches of sink – this is more than one pitch type.</p>
<p>The reason that many choose to combine the two pitch types into one header is that despite taking differing paths to arrive at the same destination, both are more than capable of inducing ground balls as Figure 2 below shows. The correlation between spin angle and groundball rate is a modest 18.0 percent, but the dataset has a positive trend and the 124 pitch sample as a whole has an average groundball rate of 53.6 percent.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-2-Spin-Angle-and-GB.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2362" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-2-Spin-Angle-and-GB.png" alt="Figure 2 - Spin Angle and GB" width="733" height="486" /></a></p>
<p>The Marcus Stroman sinker can once again be found at the absolute extreme, as his 76 percent groundball rate was the best among the group of right handed starters. With a 63 percent mark of his own, Aaron Sanchez ranks an impressive seventeenth as he too is pulling away from the central group by this measure. Even so, there is a considerable gap between the two, and an even bigger gap between the two Blue Jays and the rest of the sample of pitches. The spectrum of spin angles is wide, and while the spin angles correlate to vertical movement, the direct correlation to groundball rate is fairly weak.</p>
<p>You should never classify pitch types based upon their average plate appearance result, but I decided to search for a stronger correlation than the 18 percent between spin angle and groundball rate as another way of helping separate the pack based on what happens between pitch release and plate arrival. In doing so I calculated three new movement variables – net vertical movement, vertical aspect percentage, and hypotenuse movement. Net vertical movement is important due to the way in which movement is expressed – relative to a spinless pitch. When people read that one pitch has a vertical movement of 2 inches and another has 10, they assume that the 10 is better because it’s a larger number and they aren’t aware of the reference point being used. For this calculation, I instead set the reference point to one approximating a four seam fastball – more specifically, Mat Latos’ two seam fastball and its entirely unimpressive vertical movement of +10.63 inches (the worst mark in the 124 pitch sample). Therefore, Mat Latos’ net vertical movement is 10.63 – 10.63 = 0.00 inches, whereas Marcus Stroman’s is 10.63 – 2.09 = 8.54 inches. This isn’t necessarily fair to Mat Latos, but nobody is here to read about Mat Latos’ two seam fastball so we can continue accordingly.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-3-Vertical-Aspect-and-GB.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2363" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-3-Vertical-Aspect-and-GB.png" alt="Figure 3 - Vertical Aspect and GB" width="712" height="453" /></a></p>
<p>The vertical aspect calculation was a simple division of the net vertical movement by the sum of the horizontal and net vertical movement, to give a percentage expression of how much of the total movement of the pitch is in the downward direction. For Stroman, this value was a league best 55.3 percent (8.54/6.91 + 8.54). In fact, Stroman is lapping the field in a sense as the gap between him and the second place Tim Hudson (50.5 percent) is roughly the same as the gap between Hudson and the eleventh ranked Zachary Godley (45.3 percent).  Stroman and Hudson were the only two pitchers who had a better-than-equal vertical aspect. With 9.57 inches of horizontal run and just 4.95 inches of net vertical movement, Aaron Sanchez’s 34.1 percent vertical aspect ranks 71st. Quite the difference. As Figure 3 above shows, there is once again a positive correlation between the vertical aspect and groundball rate percentages, with the coefficient being a respectable 25.1 percent. We might need to rename his pitch “Wilson”, because at least statistically, Marcus Stroman’s sinker lives on an island.</p>
<p>Next, the hypotenuse movement was calculated by finding the square root of the sum of the squares of the two directions of movement – horizontal and net vertical. Sinkers/two seam fastballs move down and to the arm side, so the hypotenuse movement value would reflect the total distance moved along that hypothetical plane. According to hypotenuse movement, Stroman and Sanchez are neck in neck with 10.99 and 10.77 inches, ranking 14th and 18th out of 124, respectively. Hypotenuse movement and groundball rate have a correlation value of 16.7 percent; this intermediary point is clearly not what we’re looking for. What we <em>can </em>do with the hypotenuse, however, is determine the <em>angle</em> of movement, which is different than the spin angle of the pitch and beautifully displays the contrasting styles of Stroman and Sanchez despite their near identical total distance of movement.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Movement-Triangle.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2349" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Movement-Triangle.png" alt="Movement Triangle" width="626" height="362" /></a></p>
<p>The perspective of the above triangle is that of the pitcher facing towards the plate, with his release point being the uppermost point of the triangle. The angle of movement can be calculated by taking the inverse-sine (or arcsine) of the horizontal movement divided by the hypotenuse movement. The larger the angle, the greater emphasis the pitcher has on generating horizontal movement.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Marcus Stroman has the most acute angle of movement at 38.98 degrees due to the floor dropping out of his sinking fastball. Aaron Sanchez’s two seam, running fastball has a more obtuse and middle of the pack angle of movement of 62.65 degrees. Mat Latos’ angle of movement appears as 90.00 degrees, which obviously isn’t reflective of reality; it’s merely a side effect of using his pitch as the baseline of movement for others. Because angle of movement is basically a different representation of the vertical aspect percentage we saw in Figure 3, the coefficient of correlation is a nearly identical 25.2 percent.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-4-Angle-of-Movement-and-GB.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2364" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Figure-4-Angle-of-Movement-and-GB.png" alt="Figure 4 - Angle of Movement and GB" width="715" height="490" /></a></p>
<p>If you take away one thing from these four figures, I hope it’s that while the end result of both tends to be very positive, the trajectories of Marcus Stroman’s sinker and Aaron Sanchez’s two seam fastball don’t have a whole lot in common. The name given to the group of pitches does a disservice to those found at the true extremes who are so clearly attempting to do something different and unique. A whopping 66.9 percent of Aaron Sanchez’s pitch movement is in the horizontal direction, yet we’ll call it a sinker because it results in a lot of groundballs; running fastball seems like a more fitting name for the offering. The term sinker should be reserved for the likes of Marcus Stroman and Tim Hudson and Lance Lynn, who are out on the mound doing everything they can with their grip, their arm action, and their release to maximize the vertical movement generated. Trends in outcomes should be evaluated after the pitch type classification has been made, it shouldn’t be the determining factor of the classification itself.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Brett Cecil&#8217;s Second-Half Magic and Baseball&#8217;s Best Curveball</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/09/brett-cecils-second-half-magic-and-baseballs-best-curveball/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/09/brett-cecils-second-half-magic-and-baseballs-best-curveball/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2016 09:00:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brett Cecil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PitchFX]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=111</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Due to a calf injury suffered during an innocent looking run-down between first and second base, Brett Cecil&#8216;s 2015 season ended on October 9th during game 2 of the ALDS. The Toronto Blue Jays&#8217; season ended two weeks later, on October 23rd. Given the transcendent level at which he had been pitching, it doesn&#8217;t take [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Due to a calf injury suffered during an innocent looking run-down between first and second base, <a title="Brett Cecil" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=55695" target="_blank">Brett Cecil</a>&#8216;s 2015 season ended on October 9th during game 2 of the ALDS. The Toronto Blue Jays&#8217; season ended two weeks later, on October 23rd. Given the transcendent level at which he had been pitching, it doesn&#8217;t take much of a mental leap to envision the outcome of the latter being dramatically different if not for the former.</p>
<p>In a manner akin to his streak of second half dominance in 2014, from the 2015 All-Star break straight through to his unfortunate October conclusion,  Brett Cecil was bar-none the best reliever in baseball. His FIP of 0.45 was first, with the second place mark held by the Astros&#8217; Tony Sipp at a distant 1.59. Cecil&#8217;s xFIP was 1.15 &#8212; once again, first, and a comfortable distance ahead of the Orioles&#8217; <a title="Zach Britton " href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=50155" target="_blank">Zach Britton</a> at 1.54. At 38.5 percent, Brett&#8217;s strikeout-minus-walk rate was, you guessed it, first, well ahead of Yankees&#8217; closer <a title="Andrew Miller" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=49617" target="_blank">Andrew Miller</a>&#8216;s second place 34.7 percent. If you&#8217;re old fashioned and only really, truly care about run prevention: the last time Brett Cecil allowed an earned run was June 21st. His second half ERA was a clean 0.00. From June 24th until his October 9th injury, Cecil made <em>thirty-nine </em>appearances spanning 32 and two-third innings, and allowed a total of zero earned runs.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Table-11.png"><img class=" size-full wp-image-115 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Table-11.png" alt="Brett Cecil Half Splits" width="560" height="243" /></a></p>
<p>As Table 1 above shows, in just under 50 total second-half innings across the last two seasons, the Blue Jays&#8217; left hander has been beyond magnificent. As the graphs <em>below</em> display, something of a pattern has emerged between Cecil&#8217;s second half dominance and his increased reliance on his devastating breaking ball.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Graph-1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-120" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Graph-1.png" alt="Brett Cecil 2014 Curveball Usage and FIP" width="768" height="523" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Graph-2.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-116 size-full" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Graph-2.png" alt="Brett Cecil 2015 Curveball Usage and FIP" width="886" height="577" /></a></p>
<p>In both graphs, the blue line represents Cecil&#8217;s running curveball usage for the season, while the red line represents Cecil&#8217;s up-to-date FIP following each relief appearance. It should be noted that the first three games of each season were included in the data set but were not displayed on the graphs due to the volatility associated with such small sample sizes.</p>
<p>In 2014, Cecil&#8217;s curveball usage bounced around over his first forty-or-so appearances, but August 2nd appears to represent a turning point. The lefty threw 10 pitches, including just 2 curveballs, and gave up a pair of home runs  &#8212; both on fastballs &#8212; to raise his season FIP from 2.45 to 3.22. From that point forward, Cecil threw a ridiculous 52.8 percent curveballs, and in the process would lower his season FIP by nearly a full run from 3.22 to 2.34 over just 21 appearances. His point of self-reflection appears to have occurred about a week earlier in 2015. Following his 36th appearance of the season on July 25th, his curveball usage was at a season-low 35.27 percent and his FIP was a good, but not quite Brett-like 3.69. In the final 27 regular season games, he threw 48.6 percent curveballs, gave up zero home runs and walked just one batter, lowering his season FIP by well over a run to 2.34.</p>
<p>Now, suggesting that Brett Cecil&#8217;s curveball is an outstanding pitch and that it&#8217;s the foundation for his continued excellence is not exactly wading into uncharted waters. What&#8217;s perhaps a more interesting proposition would be to attempt to determine a quantitative measure of just how good Cecil&#8217;s curveball is, and where it stands among its peers across baseball.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Cecil-Curveball-Grip.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-122 size-medium" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Cecil-Curveball-Grip-252x300.png" alt="" width="252" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Brett Cecil is one of many pitchers who have taken up an altered grip on their curveball. The variation thrown by this second group is loosely classified as a &#8220;knuckle curve&#8221;, but even within this niche there are a pair of subclasses. A true knuckle curve has the knuckle of the index finger pressed flat against the ball, whereas for a pitcher who throws a &#8220;spike curve&#8221;, the ball is gripped with the nail of the index finger. This can be seen in the image of Brett Cecil&#8217;s grip above, <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/navarro-jays-young-arms-have-nasty-stuff/">via Sportsnet</a>. <a href="http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/the-knuckle-curveball-how-it-behaves-and-why-it-is-becoming-so-popular-050814">Previous analysis</a> has suggested that this grip is preferable if a pitcher has the requisite arm-speed, as knuckle/spike curveballs as a group have resulted in higher velocities, higher swinging strike rates, and higher groundball rates relative to their traditional counterparts. The presumption is that it has less of a &#8220;hump&#8221; out of the pitcher&#8217;s hand and is therefore harder to distinguish from a fastball.</p>
<p>Using the &#8220;Pitch Comp&#8221; methodology <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/finding-comps-for-other-signature-pitches/">introduced by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs</a> and included in many articles on <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/02/16/marcus-stroman-under-the-microscope/">Capital Jays</a> over the past year, the &#8220;best&#8221; comparables for Brett Cecil&#8217;s curveball in 2015 were identified. Quotations were thrown around the word &#8220;best&#8221; because the list of similar pitches is a rather brief one. As a quick refresher behind the methodology:</p>
<p><em>The pitches were measured based on three variables: velocity, horizontal movement, and vertical movement. Using [Pitcher X]’s values for each pitch as the control, the comparator pitches had their Z-score measured. The Z-score allows us to calculate “the probability of a score occurring within a normal distribution” as well as, perhaps more importantly for this endeavor, to “compare two scores that are from different normal distributions”. For example, the velocity formula used is as follows:</em></p>
<p><em>Z-score = ABS (pitcher velocity – [Pitcher X] velocity) / velocity Std. Dev. of the population</em></p>
<p><em>The absolute value toggle is important as if [Pitcher X] throws his fastball at 93 miles per hour, we want pitchers who throw 92 and 94 to receive the same score as they’re both equidistant from the value we’re using as the benchmark. The above calculation was done in identical fashion for both horizontal movement and vertical movement, resulting in three Z-scores for each pitch. The Z-scores are unit-less so they can be summed to create, as Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs describes, a single “Comp Rating” for the pitch. The closer to zero the rating is, the more similar the pitches are to one another.</em></p>
<p>The foundation for the analysis is the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/">Pitch F/X leaderboard found here on Baseball Prospectus</a>. The sample included both lefties and righties, and both starters and relievers, but in order to narrow down the sample to pitchers who truly feature a curveball and aren&#8217;t merely on the list as classification errors, the threshold was set to a minimum of 200 curveballs thrown.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Table-2.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-126 size-full" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Table-2.png" alt="Brett Cecil Pitch Comps (2015 Curveball)" width="623" height="165" /></a></p>
<p>The top two comparable curveballs belong to right handers, with <a title="Andrew Heaney" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=99874" target="_blank">Andrew Heaney</a> of the Angels as the top lefty with a distant comp score of 1.81, and the most similar curveball thrown by a left-handed <em>reliever</em> belongs to <a title="J.P. Howell" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=45541" target="_blank">J.P. Howell</a>, with a score of just 2.68. In general, the pitch comp methodology is a fascinating tool by which you can gain insight into similarities that go largely unseen by the naked eye, but it&#8217;s equally fascinating when it suggests that a pitch stands apart from all others as a lone wolf.</p>
<p>While the comp score didn&#8217;t offer much insight, with the list of the 121 curveballs assembled, I thought it might be interesting to attempt to apply some scouting grades to certain characteristics of Brett Cecil&#8217;s curveball. As a crash course, the scouting scale in baseball spans from 20 to 80, with 50 representing major league average, and each ten above or below that average representing one standard deviation. The premise behind using this scale is that the first, second, and third standard deviations should include 68, 95, and 99.7 percent of any data set, respectively, therefore making it unnecessary to expand the scale to 10/90, or 0/100.</p>
<p>The top two rows of table 3 below show the averages and standard deviations for velocity, whiff/swing rate, and groundball percentage among the 121 hooks. The third row shows Cecil&#8217;s values in each of those three categories. The fourth and fifth rows are the most interesting, as they are the number of standard deviations Cecil is above the average, and the corresponding score on the scouting scale to the nearest half grade. At 84.56 miles per hour Cecil&#8217;s average velocity scores a 65 and ranks in the 94th percentile, his whiff per swing rate of 54.5 percent scores a 70 in the 96th percentile, and his groundball rate of 68 percent scores another 65 in the 91st percentile.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Tables-3-and-4.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-129" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Tables-3-and-4.png" alt="Brett Cecil Curveball Scout Scores" width="642" height="182" /></a></p>
<p>The exercise from above was quickly repeated to limit the group to southpaws, which shrunk the sample from 121 pitchers to just 52. It must be noted that in order to avoid having an embarrassingly low number of pitchers in the sample, the minimum was also reduced from 200 to 100 curveballs thrown. Among his most relatable peers, Cecil&#8217;s velocity, whiff per swing rate, and groundball rate ranked 1st, 2nd, and 5th, and received scouting scores of 75, 65, and 65 due to the adjusted averages and standard deviations.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the movement element of a pitch is too convoluted by other factors to accurately and conclusively evaluate in a similarly quantitative manner. One of the foundations for pitch movement that <em>is </em>quantifiable, however, is spin angle, and the data is readily available on <a href="http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/">Texas Leaguers</a>. It featured prominently in a pair of articles I&#8217;ve written; a breakdown of <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/10/05/marcus-stromans-sinker-is-evolving/">how good Marcus Stroman&#8217;s bowling ball sinker is becoming</a>, and conversely, as a visual approximation of <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/11/30/drew-hutchisons-slider-nonsense/">how jarringly inconsistent</a> Drew Hutchison&#8217;s slider/cutter/slutter has been. The tool has been pulled from the shed once again, with one minor alteration for graphical purposes: the introduction of &#8220;absolute relative spin angle&#8221;.</p>
<p>Both of the articles cited in the previous paragraph spoke to the Magnus effect, which is a force that acts on a rotating object as it passes through a medium. The direction of the force corresponds to the angle at which the object is spinning. There are three possible absolute spin angles on a spherical baseball: 0 or 360 degrees (perfect topspin), 180 degrees (perfect backspin), and 90 or 270 degrees (perfect horizontal spin, depending upon the direction of rotation).</p>
<p>The reason that &#8220;absolute relative spin angle&#8221; must be used is because Brett Cecil&#8217;s curveball is so damn close to having perfect topspin, it drifts across the 0/360 degree margin. Simply put, the measure is the positive distance, in degrees, that the spin angle is from 0, and Brett Cecil&#8217;s two most recent seasons have been plotted on Graph 3 below on a month-by-month basis, with spin rate (in revolutions per minute) included for completeness. The right side of the graph, representing 2015, is the most fascinating. In no single month was his average curveball more than 12 degrees from perfect topspin, and in August and September &#8212; the two most pivotal months for the Blue Jays franchise over the past twenty years &#8212; Cecil&#8217;s average spin angle was an astonishing 2 and 1 degrees, respectively.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Graph-3.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-131" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Graph-3.png" alt="Brett Cecil Curveball Spin Angle and RPM" width="699" height="511" /></a></p>
<p>Given what we know about spin angle and its relationship with movement, it shouldn&#8217;t come as a shock to anyone that this near-zero spin angle (an average of 5 degrees <em>for the year</em>) resulted in the smallest amount of horizontal movement among the 121 curveballs evaluated above. Cecil&#8217;s curveball averaged just 0.43 inches of horizontal movement in 2015, which is well, well below the league average of 5.10 inches. This spin angle, alongside his overhead delivery, gives Brett Cecil&#8217;s curveball the truest 12-to-6 form in all of baseball.</p>
<p>On top of possessing top-of-the-charts velocity and a unique path of movement, Cecil completes the trifecta with an impeccable ability to command and locate the pitch. <a href="http://baseballsavant.com/pitchfx_search.php">Via Baseball Savant</a>, the image below shows a heatmap of the location for all 323 curveballs thrown by Cecil in 2015. Squints pounded the low corner &#8212; down and away from lefties, in on the back foot of righties &#8212; time and time again, with his swinging strike plot following a similar but even further pronounced pattern.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/2015-CB-All.png"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-135" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/2015-CB-All-300x275.png" alt="Brett Cecil 2015 Curveball Heatmap" width="300" height="275" /></a></p>
<p>We&#8217;ve already seen how this high-end velocity, unique movement, and pinpoint command combine to make Brett Cecil&#8217;s curveball one of the hardest with which to connect (as a reminder &#8212; his whiff per swing rate on the pitch ranks in the 96th percentile), but it&#8217;s just as challenging to pick up out of his hand in the first place thanks to its inherent knuckle-curve physiology. In 2015, batters swung at 50.5 percent of his curveballs thrown outside the zone, and 55.6 percent of those thrown inside the zone &#8212; basically a toss-up. Remarkably, this actually represents a considerable step back from 2014, when batters swung at 53.5 percent of those outside, and just 49.1 percent inside. Across the past two seasons and roughly 700 curveballs thrown, opposing batters are basically just as likely to swing at a ball-curve as a strike-curve, and that&#8217;s about as close as one can get to having a batter literally eating out of your hand. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_isJn4pXhk"><em>Just ask Brian McCann.</em></a></p>
<p>The expiring contracts of <a title="Jose Bautista" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=32570" target="_blank">Jose Bautista</a> and <a title="Edwin Encarnacion" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=31564" target="_blank">Edwin Encarnacion</a> and the circus surrounding their negotiations have garnered all of the attention this spring, and deservedly so as two of the best hitters in baseball. Still, Mark Shapiro would be wise to pay heed to the financial status of one of the game&#8217;s most dominant relievers &#8212; one who just happens to make residence in the Rogers Centre bullpen &#8212; particularly given the increasing salaries being handed out to non-closers over recent winters, and <em>especially</em> since Cecil is projected to produce the sixth-most WARP among relievers in 2016. <a title="Drew Storen" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=59345" target="_blank">Drew Storen</a>&#8216;s 8.4 million is probably a good starting point; though the topic of a Brett Cecil extension is probably deserving of an article of its own. Needless to say, however, the sooner Brett Cecil&#8217;s contract becomes a priority for the front office, the better it will likely be for everyone.</p>
<p><em>Lead photo: Peter Llewellyn-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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