Cool Papa sez:
Fangraphs has a short post on his outing against the USA team (click on my name). There are some charts using the Pf/x data that illustrate how he did. My favorite is the one showing the velocity of each pitch; his fastball was consistently 95 mph (which is awesome for a sinker!) while his slider/slurve was around 80. That’s really impressive- how many pitchers have a 15 mph differential between their fastball and primary offspeed pitch? That’s an honest question.
And Fett found this: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/phillippe-aumont-dazzles-agains...
In Aumont's case, the differential on the hook does indeed matter, because as we've seen, he fires it with that great Paul Abbott arm action and then it kind of parachutes back on 'em ... with overhand spin. A lot of pitchers keep perfectly consistent torso and shoulder actions, and perfect release points on their curves, but not so many SNNNNAPPP their arm through at the finish like a fastball.
This is what we refer to as the "parachute" effect (also called "pulling the string" like a yo-yo). When the hand action is as good as Aumont's, the hitter's eyes SYNCH the ball up with the hand, and you get an optical illusion that the ball's coming out of the hand at 95 mph. Then the eyes adjust and, about 30% of the way through the pitch, the eyes register the slowdown.
Parachute change. Jorge Campillo has it. Paul Abbott had it. Trevor Hoffman has it. From what I can tell, Aumont makes this work -- on a curve ball.
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Again, Aumont also accomplishes this with a 12-6 trajectory. Jim Bouton wrote back in 1969, "NOBODY hits a good overhand curve ball." What he meant was that when Doc Gooden or Aaron Sele or Tom Gordon give up a hit on a 12-6 power curve, they didn't get ahold of the laces quite the way they wanted...
The MAIN problem isn't that the 12-6 curve changes planes so much. An 11-5 curve changes planes too, and as we now know from Fangraphs, sometimes the difference in "plane change" between (say) Phillippe Aumont and Barry Zito isn't much.
The MAIN problem with a 12-6 curve is that it doesn't give the hitter an early "diagonal shape" to read. If you were to stand in the box against a Chris Tillman curve, the first half of the pitch would look like a fastball letter-high, or even head-high. (That's why you see batters flinch; they read it early as a too-high fastball.)
Compare Randy Johnson's "Frisbee" slider. As awesome as it was, and it was awesome :- ) you could read it early, even from the CF camera. Because it swung out wide in the first 10 feet. (It was a K pitch for reasons other than deception.)
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So here you've got a guy whose curve ball (1) has the early trajectory of a fastball, and (2) has the arm action of a fastball.
As Joe Morgan put it once "You just don't have enough time" to react and respond. By the time hitters can physically read such a pitch -- Campillo's, Hoffman's, Aumont's -- often it isn't humanly possible to respond.
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Cool Papa challenges the audience: and who else has a 15-mph difference between their #1 and #2 pitches? ...Jamie Moyer always used to define the critical difference as 8 (eight) MPH. 8-10 mph difference on his change and he'd win; 6 mph and he "was going to be backing up bases." Fifteen MPH?!
That's a THIRD issue on that slider. It's backed up by a Roger Clemens fastball.
Right now, the kid is looking like Josh Beckett -- a #1 overall draft pick.
Cheers,
Dr D