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	<title>Toronto &#187; Tim Mayza</title>
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		<title>Tim Mayza Is Tipping His Pitches</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/04/30/tim-mayza-is-tipping-his-pitches/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/04/30/tim-mayza-is-tipping-his-pitches/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:47:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tim Mayza]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=15697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tim Mayza has incredible raw stuff. Over the first 18 and 2/3 innings of his major league career he’s struck out 33.3 percent of the batters he’s faced, which is among baseball’s elite. Roberto Osuna posted an identical strikeout rate in 2017 and ranked 18th among the 235 relievers with 30 or more innings of [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Tim Mayza has incredible raw stuff. Over the first 18 and 2/3 innings of his major league career he’s struck out 33.3 percent of the batters he’s faced, which is among baseball’s elite. Roberto Osuna posted an identical strikeout rate in 2017 and ranked 18th among the 235 relievers with 30 or more innings of work last season. Strikeouts aren’t a new thing for Mayza; since the beginning of the 2015 season he has struck out 25.3 percent of the hitters he’s faced in the minor leagues, too.</p>
<p>Strikeouts aren’t the only thing Mayza has piled up over his professional career. Observers have been flummoxed by the amount of contact – and hard contact – he has surrendered. Mayza has given up 26 hits over those 18.2 innings in Toronto, after being a hit-per-inning (228 in 229.2 innings) guy across parts of six minor league seasons. Strikeout rate is one of the single best end-points we have for “stuff”, and guys with elite stuff generally don’t get hit around in this manner.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Relationship-between-K-Rate-and-BAA.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15699" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Relationship-between-K-Rate-and-BAA.png" alt="Relationship between K Rate and BAA" width="480" height="344" /></a></p>
<p>The figure above plots the strikeout rate and batting average against for the aforementioned 235 relievers with 30 or more innings pitched in 2017. There is a reasonably strong correlation between the two, in the direction one would expect: guys with the stuff to support a high strikeout rate generally don’t surrender a whole lot of base hits. Based on the slope of the trend line, a guy with a strikeout rate of 33.3 percent like Tim Mayza should have an opposing batting average of .199. Instead, reality has presented a much uglier .317 career batting average against.</p>
<p>Mayza isn’t simply being BABIP’d either; those 26 base hits have included six doubles and three home runs. Interestingly, eight of the nine extra base hits surrendered have come against his fastball, and not one of them was a cheapie: all eight left the bat between 97 and 109 miles per hour. Just one extra base hit – a 90.2 mile per hour ground ball double – came off Mayza’s slider.</p>
<p>The slider has not been a problem. With Toronto, the opposition has hit just .250/.250/.271 against it. The 172 sliders he threw in 2017 resulted in a whiff per swing rate of 52.1 percent, which ranked third among the 80 lefthanded pitchers to throw 100 or more sliders. In addition, its 55 percent groundball rate ranked ninth among the same group. Batters have struggled to make contact with Mayza’s slider &#8211; and when they do, the ball doesn’t go particularly far.</p>
<p>In this modern era of baseball, with hitters amplifying their launch angles to generate more power, pitchers have countered by throwing more and more breaking balls. With his fastball getting crushed and his slider nearly untouchable, the answer for Tim Mayza would seem to be clear as day. But it’s not, because Mayza is already throwing his slider approximately 50 percent of the time and there’s something far more peculiar (and fixable) happening: he’s tipping his pitches.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Vertical-Release.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-15700" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Vertical-Release-1024x572.png" alt="Vertical Release" width="500" height="280" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Horizontal-Release.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-15701" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Horizontal-Release-1024x569.png" alt="Horizontal Release" width="500" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>The two figures above, via <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=641835&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&amp;time=game&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=z0&amp;s_type=2&amp;startDate=03/30/2007&amp;endDate=04/26/2018">Brooks Baseball</a>, show Mayza’s game-by-game average release points for his four seam fastball and slider. The two pitch types are consistent in how inconsistent they are from one another. For his career, the two pitches have averaged eight inches of vertical release differential (with the fastball higher) and 6.5 inches of horizontal release differential (with the slider further from the rubber). A quick calculation using Pythagorean Theorem gives an average differential of 10.3 inches between the release points of the two pitch types.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguers-Mayza.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15702" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguers-Mayza.gif" alt="Texas Leaguers (Mayza)" width="480" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>The figure above, via <a href="http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/">Texas Leaguers</a>, offers a more visual representation of Mayza’s hand position at his release point from the perspective of the catcher. A few sliders were thrown from the fastball domain, but otherwise, the release points of the two pitch types couldn’t be much more clearly defined. The camera angle from the TV broadcast might make this a bit more challenging to pick up, but for a seasoned hitter at the plate, Mayza might as well be throwing differently colored baseballs.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguer-Logan.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15703" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguer-Logan.gif" alt="Texas Leaguer (Logan)" width="480" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>For a bit of context, the figure above is Boone Logan’s release point plot over the same period of time. In terms of velocity and movement, Logan’s slider is among Mayza’s most comparable peers. The two even have similar enough fastballs. The biggest difference between the two is that Logan’s release point looks like a freshly opened bag of Skittles in contrast to Mayza’s, which appears to be a re-enactment of a battle from the game of Risk.</p>
<p>Another way of analyzing Mayza’s pitch tipping issue is through the <a href="https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/37436/prospectus-feature-updating-pitch-tunnels/">Pitch Tunneling feature at Baseball Prospectus</a>. One of the metrics it measures is “Release Distance”, which tells us exactly how far apart two back-to-back pitches are released in a sequence. In total, 631 pitchers threw 100 or more pitch pairs/sequences in 2017. Mayza had the sixth largest (read: worst) average release tunnel at 5.8 inches across 261 total sequences. The league average across this sample was just 2.6 inches.</p>
<p>Mayza’s tunneling ability looks even worse when breaking down the 261 sequences by specific pitch patterns.</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center"><strong>Usage Pattern</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85"><strong>Count</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="132"><strong>Avg. Release<br />
Tunnel (in.)</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center">SL → FB</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">56</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="132">9.99</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center">SL → SL</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">73</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="132">2.21</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center">FB → SL</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">61</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">10.41</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" width="130">FB → FB</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">71</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">2.22</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" width="130">Same → Same</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">144</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">2.21</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" width="130">Diff. → Diff.</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">117</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">10.21</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>When Mayza doubles up on a pitch – which he did a total of 144 times in 2017 – his average release tunnel of 2.21 inches was really good. The inconsistencies occurred when he went slider to fastball or vice versa, for which he had an average release tunnel of a dreadful 10.21 inches. Without doing a similar analysis for all 631 pitchers in the sample it is impossible to precisely quantify where 10.21 inches would rank, but I think “poorly” should serve as a sufficient qualitative answer.</p>
<p>The final piece of evidence is perhaps the most damning of all; a video recorded from behind home plate when the lefty was warming up prior to an appearance in the Arizona Fall League in 2016. The circumstances are as close as you or I will ever get to standing in the box against Tim Mayza, and the yellow marking on the outfield fence offers an ideal reference point. Mayza throws seven pitches in the 56 second clip: three fastballs, followed by two sliders and two more fastballs. On each fastball, Mayza’s hand cuts through the yellow coloration on the outfield fence, and on each slider, his hand remains noticeably below that threshold. If we can pick up the difference in release point in real time, rest assured the competition can as well.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAenDt7SEKE" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" ></iframe></p>
<p>The left handed relief depth chart for the Blue Jays isn’t a particularly deep one, and manager John Gibbons has regularly voiced his preference for having a second lefty out there. Not only is Mayza currently the number two lefty by default – there’s no other left handed relievers on the 40 Man Roster – but with Aaron Loup’s startling inconsistencies over the last three-plus years, it could be argued the top spot is available if Mayza could string together some impressive appearances when he returns from Buffalo. With his only flaw so apparent and seemingly fixable, Mayza may be just a mechanical adjustment away from seizing a valuable and lucrative opportunity.</p>
<p><i>Lead Photo © Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</i></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>What Kind of Pitcher Can Tim Mayza Be?</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/31/what-kind-of-pitcher-can-tim-mayza-be/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/31/what-kind-of-pitcher-can-tim-mayza-be/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Aug 2017 15:09:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tim Mayza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13207</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s no secret that this season hasn’t exactly gone as hoped for the Toronto Blue Jays and their fans. Coming off of back-to-back ALCS appearances and returning a mostly similar roster, the club currently sits at 61-72 and are only the in the wild card race if you squint really hard. Poor performance is certainly deserving [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s no secret that this season hasn’t exactly gone as hoped for the Toronto Blue Jays and their fans. Coming off of back-to-back ALCS appearances and returning a mostly similar roster, the club currently sits at 61-72 and are only the in the wild card race if you squint really hard. Poor performance is certainly deserving of some blame (I’m looking at you, Jose Bautista and Marco Estrada), but the bigger story this season has been injury. An entire roster (plus two) have made disabled list trips. The club has used six catchers, five second basemen, 13 starters, and Josh Donaldson has started three games at shortstop. It really has been something of a comedy.</p>
<p>The club has also used 22 relief pitchers, but here there have been some nice surprises. Danny Barnes, Ryan Tepera, and Dominic Leone entered the season as afterthoughts, but all three have established themselves not only as major league relievers, but as viable late-game options. There may be a new name to add to this list as well.</p>
<p>Tim Mayza opened a lot of eyes right at the beginning of spring training (<a href="https://twitter.com/JoshuaHowsam/status/837012983989456897" target="_blank">including yours truly</a>) after a dominant run, but was sent back to New Hampshire to begin the year. After a rough start to the season, the power-armed lefty righted the ship before earning a promotion to Triple-A Buffalo. After allowing just two runs in 19 2/3 innings with the Bisons, Mayza got the call to join the big club.</p>
<p>It has been something of an up and down debut for Mayza, as he has allowed 11 hits and two home runs in 7 1/3 innings, but the high end skill level has also generated 13 strikeouts in that time. If he had enough innings to qualify, his 33.8 % miss rate (percentage of misses on swings) would rank 11th in baseball. His overall swinging strike rate of 17.9% would be tied for third. In short, he misses a lot of bats.</p>
<p>The combination of power and bat-missing stuff led BP Toronto reader <a href="https://twitter.com/MurphyBruno/status/900839690798059520" target="_blank">Murphy Bruno to ask</a> how Mayza and Cleveland ace reliever Andrew Miller compare as pitchers. The short answer is…they don’t really. Miller throws his fastball a bit harder, his slider a lot slower, and gets way more break on that slider. But this question led me to see if there really is a good comp for Tim Mayza.</p>
<p>In order to do that, I looked at fastball velocity and movement, slider velocity and movement, and overall swing and miss rates.</p>
<p>First, the fastball:</p>
<p>Per Brooks Baseball’s PITCHF/x leaderboards, there have been 81 lefthanded relievers since 2007 whose fastball averaged within 1 mile per hour of Mayza’s heater. That’s obviously way too big of a sample. When we eliminate those whose fastball has over two inches more break either horizontally or vertically, that list gets a little bit smaller:<strong><strong> </strong></strong></p>
<table class="tableizer-table">
<thead>
<tr class="tableizer-firstrow">
<th>Player</th>
<th>Num</th>
<th>Velo</th>
<th>H Mov</th>
<th>H Mov  vs Mayza</th>
<th>V Mov</th>
<th>V Mov vs Mayza</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Robbie Ray</td>
<td>72</td>
<td>95.27</td>
<td>-6.72</td>
<td>1.1</td>
<td>11.15</td>
<td>-0.48</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Glen Perkins</td>
<td>2458</td>
<td>95.18</td>
<td>-6.89</td>
<td>1.27</td>
<td>10.07</td>
<td>0.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sean Doolittle</td>
<td>3633</td>
<td>95.1</td>
<td>-5.22</td>
<td>-0.4</td>
<td>11.51</td>
<td>-0.84</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sam Freeman</td>
<td>1222</td>
<td>95.08</td>
<td>-4.69</td>
<td>-0.93</td>
<td>9.46</td>
<td>1.21</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Mike Dunn</td>
<td>4205</td>
<td>95.06</td>
<td>-3.9</td>
<td>-1.72</td>
<td>10.94</td>
<td>-0.27</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rex Brothers</td>
<td>2960</td>
<td>95.04</td>
<td>-4.18</td>
<td>-1.44</td>
<td>10.11</td>
<td>0.56</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Robert Carson</td>
<td>378</td>
<td>94.79</td>
<td>-3.68</td>
<td>-1.94</td>
<td>11</td>
<td>-0.33</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Kevin Siegrist</td>
<td>3083</td>
<td>94.66</td>
<td>-6.95</td>
<td>1.33</td>
<td>10.07</td>
<td>0.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jarlin Garcia</td>
<td>346</td>
<td>94.63</td>
<td>-7.45</td>
<td>1.83</td>
<td>8.72</td>
<td>1.95</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Josh Hader</td>
<td>424</td>
<td>94.55</td>
<td>-5.64</td>
<td>0.02</td>
<td>10.22</td>
<td>0.45</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Franklin Morales</td>
<td>2017</td>
<td>94.51</td>
<td>-5.57</td>
<td>-0.05</td>
<td>9.79</td>
<td>0.88</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Mike Minor</td>
<td>423</td>
<td>94.49</td>
<td>-4.51</td>
<td>-1.11</td>
<td>9.41</td>
<td>1.26</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Hong-Chih Kuo</td>
<td>1898</td>
<td>94.42</td>
<td>-5.57</td>
<td>-0.05</td>
<td>9.62</td>
<td>1.05</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Atahualpa Severino</td>
<td>62</td>
<td>94.38</td>
<td>-6.33</td>
<td>0.71</td>
<td>9.86</td>
<td>0.81</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Phil Coke</td>
<td>1944</td>
<td>94.32</td>
<td>-6.09</td>
<td>0.47</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>1.67</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Tim Mayza</strong></td>
<td><strong>74</strong></td>
<td><strong>94.27</strong></td>
<td><strong>-5.62</strong></td>
<td><strong>0</strong></td>
<td><strong>10.67</strong></td>
<td><strong>0</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Tony Cingrani</td>
<td>2127</td>
<td>94.26</td>
<td>-6.32</td>
<td>0.7</td>
<td>8.99</td>
<td>1.68</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Wil Ledezma</td>
<td>800</td>
<td>94.22</td>
<td>-7.02</td>
<td>1.4</td>
<td>10.52</td>
<td>0.15</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Michael Kirkman</td>
<td>1205</td>
<td>94.18</td>
<td>-7.17</td>
<td>1.55</td>
<td>9.71</td>
<td>0.96</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ross Detwiler</td>
<td>894</td>
<td>94.04</td>
<td>-6.72</td>
<td>1.1</td>
<td>9.55</td>
<td>1.12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>C.J. Wilson</td>
<td>1001</td>
<td>94.02</td>
<td>-4.72</td>
<td>-0.9</td>
<td>8.97</td>
<td>1.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ian Krol</td>
<td>1741</td>
<td>94.02</td>
<td>-7.12</td>
<td>1.5</td>
<td>9.46</td>
<td>1.21</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alan Embree</td>
<td>1663</td>
<td>94</td>
<td>-6.67</td>
<td>1.05</td>
<td>10.05</td>
<td>0.62</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Boone Logan</td>
<td>2183</td>
<td>93.98</td>
<td>-6.81</td>
<td>1.19</td>
<td>9.54</td>
<td>1.13</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jonathan Sanchez</td>
<td>164</td>
<td>93.97</td>
<td>-6.59</td>
<td>0.97</td>
<td>10.27</td>
<td>0.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Adam Morgan</td>
<td>115</td>
<td>93.89</td>
<td>-6.83</td>
<td>1.21</td>
<td>8.86</td>
<td>1.81</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Matt Harrison</td>
<td>322</td>
<td>93.88</td>
<td>-5.66</td>
<td>0.04</td>
<td>10.06</td>
<td>0.61</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Brad Hand</td>
<td>1149</td>
<td>93.85</td>
<td>-7.33</td>
<td>1.71</td>
<td>8.91</td>
<td>1.76</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Patrick Corbin</td>
<td>212</td>
<td>93.82</td>
<td>-5.33</td>
<td>-0.29</td>
<td>8.73</td>
<td>1.94</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Will Smith</td>
<td>1494</td>
<td>93.78</td>
<td>-4.66</td>
<td>-0.96</td>
<td>10.6</td>
<td>0.07</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jordan Norberto</td>
<td>781</td>
<td>93.78</td>
<td>-5.8</td>
<td>0.18</td>
<td>10.44</td>
<td>0.23</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rob Rasmussen</td>
<td>307</td>
<td>93.73</td>
<td>-6.69</td>
<td>1.07</td>
<td>8.78</td>
<td>1.89</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Manny Parra</td>
<td>2045</td>
<td>93.67</td>
<td>-6.59</td>
<td>0.97</td>
<td>9.22</td>
<td>1.45</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Andrew Chafin</td>
<td>923</td>
<td>93.66</td>
<td>-7.4</td>
<td>1.78</td>
<td>8.8</td>
<td>1.87</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Drew Pomeranz</td>
<td>666</td>
<td>93.54</td>
<td>-4.07</td>
<td>-1.55</td>
<td>9.97</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Josh Outman</td>
<td>813</td>
<td>93.43</td>
<td>-4.91</td>
<td>-0.71</td>
<td>9.58</td>
<td>1.09</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Zac Rosscup</td>
<td>666</td>
<td>93.39</td>
<td>-4.88</td>
<td>-0.74</td>
<td>10.6</td>
<td>0.07</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Adam Liberatore</td>
<td>878</td>
<td>93.39</td>
<td>-6.83</td>
<td>1.21</td>
<td>9.34</td>
<td>1.33</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Chad Bell</td>
<td>425</td>
<td>93.38</td>
<td>-6.61</td>
<td>0.99</td>
<td>9.39</td>
<td>1.28</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Drake Britton</td>
<td>143</td>
<td>93.37</td>
<td>-6.55</td>
<td>0.93</td>
<td>8.81</td>
<td>1.86</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ashur Tolliver</td>
<td>127</td>
<td>93.3</td>
<td>-7.39</td>
<td>1.77</td>
<td>8.76</td>
<td>1.91</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Pedro Viola</td>
<td>163</td>
<td>93.28</td>
<td>-7.18</td>
<td>1.56</td>
<td>9.02</td>
<td>1.65</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alex Torres</td>
<td>1358</td>
<td>93.27</td>
<td>-5.23</td>
<td>-0.39</td>
<td>10.04</td>
<td>0.63</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Martin Perez</td>
<td>65</td>
<td>93.27</td>
<td>-6.84</td>
<td>1.22</td>
<td>9.09</td>
<td>1.58</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>That&#8217;s still 44 names though, so we need to narrow this down a bit further. Next up is the slider, Mayza’s big time out pitch. This is where things become much clearer. In the PITCHF/x era, there have been 11 pitchers who throw their slider harder than Mayza. That’s it. As a result, simply looking at velocity leaves just six players from our fastball comp list: Mike Dunn, Rex Brothers, Rob Rasmussen, Hung-Chih Kuo, Jordan Norberto, and Chad Bell. That list includes top lefty relievers (Dunn, Kuo when healthy), a first year player (Bell), a couple of flameouts (Rasmussen, Norberto), and an enigma (Brothers) so that doesn’t help us too much.</p>
<p>Thankfully, we still have the movement to look at. As I mentioned above, the Miller comp really didn’t work partially because the slider break was so different. So taking those six names and applying a 1” difference rule, similar to the one that we applied to the fastball, we lose all but two pitchers, Rasmussen and Brothers.</p>
<table class="tableizer-table">
<thead>
<tr class="tableizer-firstrow">
<th>Player</th>
<th>Velo</th>
<th>H Mov</th>
<th>H Mov vs Mayza</th>
<th>V Mov</th>
<th>V Mov vs Mayza</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Tim Mayza</td>
<td>86.95</td>
<td>-0.86</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>1.42</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">Chad Bell</span></td>
<td>85.99</td>
<td>-0.64</td>
<td>-0.22</td>
<td>3.46</td>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">-2.04</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rob Rasmussen</td>
<td>86.37</td>
<td>-0.59</td>
<td>-0.27</td>
<td>2.11</td>
<td>-0.69</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rex Brothers</td>
<td>87.38</td>
<td>-0.18</td>
<td>-0.68</td>
<td>1.25</td>
<td>0.17</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">Hong-Chih Kuo</span></td>
<td>86.14</td>
<td>1.15</td>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">-2.01</span></td>
<td>1.21</td>
<td>0.21</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">Jordan Norberto</span></td>
<td>86.03</td>
<td>1.26</td>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">-2.12</span></td>
<td>1.55</td>
<td>-0.13</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">Mike Dunn</span></td>
<td>87.74</td>
<td>1.78</td>
<td><span style="color: #ff0000">-2.64</span></td>
<td>2.35</td>
<td>-0.93</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Now that we have such a small sample we can do some simple, direct comps.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/slidfast.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13211" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/slidfast.png" alt="slidfast" width="517" height="235" /></a></p>
<p>The velocity chart doesn’t clear up a whole lot. Rasmussen’s fastball is closer, but Brothers’ slider is closer. The break suggests something else though, so let&#8217;s try a different approach:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/break.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13212" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/break.png" alt="break" width="737" height="90" /></a></p>
<p>The first noticeable change comes with the overall break difference between the fastball and the slider. Rasmussen doesn’t meet a 1” threshold on overall break difference, which suggests there may be a noticeable difference in stuff. This still isn’t enough to disqualify him, though.</p>
<p>But we have one more thing to look at. As I mentioned earlier, it was those swings and misses that caused me to look at Mayza in the first place, so we can’t very well ignore that here:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/miss1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13238" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/miss1.png" alt="miss" width="359" height="88" /></a></p>
<p>That ends the Rasmussen “hopes.” Despite similar stuff, the former Blue Jays didn’t have nearly the bat-missing abilities of either Brothers or Mayza. So in the end, we come up with a pretty close to perfect comp with Rex Brothers. Their fastballs are only 3/4 of a mile per hour apart, the sliders even less than that, and the shapes of both pitches are very similar. Their groundball rates are also reasonably similar if you look at Mayza&#8217;s minor league track record (though Mayza&#8217;s tiny sample in the bigs is very different from his past). Add in the similar contact rates and you end up with two very comparable pitchers.</p>
<p>As previously stated though, Brothers is something of an enigma. He once held a ton of promise, even serving as Colorado’s closer for a while. In his first three seasons in the big leagues, Brothers put up a 2.82 ERA (in Coors!) with 218 strikeouts in 175 2/3 innings. He had occasional control issues (82 unintentional walks in that span), but he was unequivocally a dominant, late-inning reliever. Things haven’t gone quite as well since then. Brothers was actually released by the Rockies following a poor 2014 and an up and down 2015. He pitched the entire 2016 season in the minors before re-surfacing this year with the Braves where he is once again struggling (7.63 ERA despite 22 Ks in 13 1/3 innings).</p>
<p>That comparison obviously doesn’t look ideal for Mayza, but with a closer look, the years where Brothers struggled the most (2014-2016) were when his stuff took a noticeable dip (his fastball fell to an average of 93.5 mph during that span). As a result, he stopped getting as many punchouts in those years (8.1 k/9 in the big leagues).</p>
<p>The Tim Mayza we’re seeing is actually much closer to the Rex Brothers of 2011-2013, along with a sprinkling of 2017. If he can refine things just a bit, we could definitely see an ace reliever the likes of which we saw with the Colorado lefty in the early parts of the decade. If not, we’re still likely going to see a guy who can be trusted to face lefties with the understanding that there could be an occasional blow up. Either way, despite his early struggles, Tim Mayza looks every bit the part of a major league reliever.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports<br />
Statistics updated through games of Tuesday, August 29th</em></p>
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