Q. What's he throw to lefties?
A. The Sox have good lefties, Podsednik and Thome with Getz in the lineup too, and Fister threw them pretty much the same thing as he did RH's. Located FB's, and overhand slurves. Fister doesn't throw anything that drops into LH wheelhouses.
I have no idea why his splits vs LH should be a problemo, except that his FB runs away from them, which is undesirable. His slurve is a good pitch against them.
Reports of Fister's demise vs LH were probably exaggerated.
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Q. What's he throw on strike one?
A. He is consistently capable of throwing a strike that is not centered. ML hitters aren't going to swing at an 0-0 pitch that is not in the zone they are looking for.
So Fister was ahead of 9 of the first 12 hitters, or something like that.
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Q. What's he throw on 3-1?
A. Located FB, or change speed, also good location. If he walks them, he walks them.
He *is* going to be dealing with an adjustment, because this is a guy who undoubtedly got lots of swings at balls off the plate, in the minors. But he's got room for adjustment, because his minors K/BB was 79/11. If that drops to, let's say, 59/25 because of ML plate discipline, he's still in great shape.
That's pretty much what I'd predict.
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Q. What's his strikeout pitch?
A. None of them, and all of them.
He has no plus weapon. But he can set up strike three in lots of ways:
1. Called 70-mph change curve that freezes the hitter (as Quentin in the 2nd).
2. Perfectly-located 89 swerveball just outside the zone (as Konerko in the 4th).
3. 89-90 fastball blown by a hitter, after said hitter has been set up with several offspeed pitches (as Thome in the 6th). The proverbial "89 fastball that looks like it's 99".
4. Low-away slider that comes in looking like another FB on the black (as Konerko in the 6th).
5. Any fastball just outside the zone that catches the batter looking.
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Q. His swinging strike % was kind of low in the PCL.
A. But his K/9 wasn't!
This is a pitcher who is going to catch lots, and lots, and lots of guys LOOKING. K/9 is much more important than SwS%.
Fister's game is to change speeds, nibble just off the plate, move the ball around, and LOCK GUYS UP. Do NOT judge him by SwS%. Judge him by K/9.
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Q. What will his K/9 have to be?
A. Shandler's magic number for this kind of pitcher is 5.6 per nine, or more. That's if he wants to STAR.
If he just wants to be a league-average SP (and make $8M per year some day), he has to fan 5 and walk 2.
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Q. Prognosis?
A. Think that the K's will be lower (in the 5's) rather than higher (in the 6's), but we'll see. He doesn't have a true plus weapon, but the stuff was interesting, and he can set guys up.
Cheers,
Dr D
I've got to admit I'm a little confused at the enthusiasm with Fister and the total write-off of French.
Personally I like French a little better as a prospect although I don't think theres a huge difference between the two.
But here we're talking about Fister possibly developing into a STAR?? The prognosis on French was that hes a fringe Olson-type from day one. I must be missing something here.
SHANDLER says that a 1+ walk pitcher can star if his K's go >5.6.
Me, I'm comparing Fister to Blanton, Suppan, Wolf, Bosio and that class pitcher.
He is NOT a write-off.
He's not even a "dime-a-dozen lefty" the way that scouts characterized French, after the Tigers ripped us off per their view.
French has a curve that most lefties can only dream about. If Adair can coax a decent FB out of him, he might contribute.
The writeoff was when the guy was throwing 85 miles an hour.
Ya, but even at 87mph average (not 85mph) I liked him as a potential back-end starter thats a good Safeco-fit (similar to how you like Fister).
It was a little unexpected to see him as a 88-89mph lefty (touches 92) with good life who tails off significantly when the pitch count gets around 80.
His upside is higher than I thought initially, but so is his downside. It really depends on whether they can build his arm up.
Blanton and Wolf have much better offspeed stuff than Fister, although I can't speak on Bosio or Suppan (never really focused on those guys when they pitched).
Ah.. ya, If he can limit BBs without the HR rate getting out of control I think he'd be a close to league-average starter. Personally I still have a hard time visualizing it though.. Hes going to have to nibble, and that'll make it difficult to maintain the miniscule BB rate.
IF he can consistently get strike 1,2 on the black than that bodes well for him developing into a #4-6 SP type. It is really a consistency thing though, so we need several starts before we can start getting an idea of what we have here.
Fister's change / slider / whatever is thrown with nice arm action and if you saw his change-curve I'm guessing it would remind you of some of the good eephus pitches in Japan. :- )
On all these guys we'll keep watchin', of course.
Maybe. I only caught the first two innings and I didn't catch any above-average breakers there. The NPBers that have had success in the bigs typically come over with awesome change/split/fork type pitches (Kuroda and Uehara). The guys that don't have those kind of pitches probably wouldn't do really well in the AL.
My eyes will be open for the next start after today. Honestly I was expecting him to get rocked just glancing over the AAA splits, and he ended up doing well vs a power heavy team.
...one you can count on for a certain performance because his stuff translates easily, he's not a max effort guy, he has pinpoint command...
...one who flames out after 75 pitches but has marginally better stuff.
I'll take guy #1, thank you very much.
Made the pointed comment that Fister is in the category of guys who may pitch better in the big leagues than in the minors.
He meant because of the consistent umping, defense, and the fact that his stuff translates to the ML game.
I firmly believe there's such a thing as a guy who does better in the ML game, such as Tim Lincecum and the young Freddy Garcia. You remember everybody's sheer amazement that we would predict Lincecum to walk fewer guys in the bigs, than in college. But it happens.
Am wondering whether Fister is one of those.
Considering the minscule BBs in AAA, I don't see it. Anything is possible of course.
We will see. Its nice to have two semi-interesting young starters to watch in French and Fister.
I've lost all interest in him...perhaps prematurely...because he's damaged good IMHO. In about three weeks he's going to end up on the DL with a torn labrum or some other explanation for his dead arm.
We'll see. It might be another RRS-case where he needs some DL time to recover.
I like his upside a LOT better than FIster, although the dead arm does bring his stock down a little.
His change-up has GREAT movement...at least it did today and he has above average command of both his change and his fastball.
He didn't get jerked around by the umpire, because it didn't seem like it during the game, but the ump did miss a bunch of calls, although they were mostly more fringey than what French didn't get last night. Still, that makes the 66 strikes he did get that much more impressive. The umpiring was even pretty even today too, with Joba getting massively shafted on a couple pitches, maybe to make up for last night...