Hey Doc, when you speak of Lee's plateau leap I think it's directly effected by his GB% and like you say throwing strikes which in turn lowers BB/9.
Lee pre 2008: GB% 34.7 BB/9 4.6
Lee post 2008 GB% 43.3 BB/9 1.5
Lee's K/9 has remained relatively unchanged through out his career. I don't believe pitch velocity and strike outs are as instrumental as some analysits would have you believe.
Fister and Lee share a common Modus operandi. Throw strikes, get ahead in the count, don't walk batters, and induce ground balls. Further more I wouldn't be surprised if fister could touch 94-95 on the gun occaisionally, however his command goes poof and he is no longer an effective pitcher. I've seen Fister climb the ladder and touch 92-93 on a few hitters.
=== You Can Apologize After the Game, Dept. ===
Mike Blowers pointed out that the first two times through the lineup Friday, Cliff Lee went 0-and-2 on half of them. Nine of the first 18 hitters faced 0-and-2 counts.
Blowers then observed that Cliff Lee, on 0-2, buries the hitter with the very next pitch. Blowers once asked Greg Maddux about doing the same thing. "I don't have any pitches to waste," Mad Dog sez. "You've made two good pitches. Why not make a third one?"
Lee therefore completed 8 innings -- handing the ball to a 1-inning closer -- despite 10 strikeouts.
..............
Jack Nicklaus had something great one time. He said, when your opponent loses his will to win, run the score up as much as you can. And then, sympathize AFTER the game.
Lee's killer instinct is always up to 11.
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=== First-Pitch Strikes ===
We suppose you know that Doug Fister throws strikes. He is at 62% first-pitch strikes, which is 14th in the American Blinkin' League, ahead of James Shields, Jered Weaver and Ben "10k, 1bb" Sheets.
62 is verrrrry strong -- the league average is 58%, and it's only that high because of the stars. There are only seven guys in the league over 63.
Carl Pavano is leading the league at 68.9% -- he led the league in 2009, full season, with 67.7%.
Cliff Lee? He was at 71.5% (!!) going into Friday's strikefest. To appreciate that number, you have to appreciate what hitters are ready to do with their bats, the moment they get a pitch to their liking. There is a reason that ML pitchers are careful with the strike zone.
.............
What intrigues me is not that Cliff Lee is hitting them early and hitting them often, but that his attack ratio is by far the highest of his career.
- 60-63% -- Lee before he got great
- 65-66% -- Lee after he got great, 2008-09
- 72% -- Lee in 2010
I suspect that Lee leaped a plateau in 2008, and that very possibly he is leaping another one in 2010. The Tasmanian Devil tempo he has out there, even running into and out of his work area ... the relentless strikes ... the super-confident broken rhythm at which he deploys dozens of different pitch sequences ...
These all suggest that Lee has now, in 2010, gotten his arms around the fact that ML hitters can't deal with his game.
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=== Missing Bats ===
Despite the fact that Lee is getting so much more of the plate in 2010 ... his swinging strike %, and in fact his strikeouts, are way up.
He was missing 8.8% of 2010 swings even before Friday, and of course that will go over 9.0% now. From 2005-2009 he was consistently 7.1 - 8.1%. Now it's 9% ?
The intersection of those two things -- [much higher strike %] and [much higher miss %], occurring together? If he weren't already a Cy Young pitcher, you would say that he just leaped up to a higher plateau.
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Be Afraid,
Dr D
Comments
The thing that upped that GB ratio seems to have been his cut fastball ... read, "change speed game" ... which causes batters to lunge at the ball weakly these days.
Last out of Lee's night, Hunter leaning over at the waist to top a groundball to Lopez, was an example. They're swatting flies with arm swings.
Back when he sat at 90-92 all the time, they were planting the back foot and getting some tee shots.
These days, with that weird little 86 cutter crossing them up, it's like you NEVER see a real good swing. In the 7th and 8th last night, the Angels were taking fastballs down the pipe...
Good post bro.