1
Indeed. Give Jamie Moyer a 84 fastball and you really DID have something. Give him 90 and he's a LH Maddux. Greg, that is.
SP Jason Vargas, 9.14.11 - two
Dr. D is, by the way, a huge fan of the Erikkk hip pivot. Thusly:
1. It improves velocity by engaging your back muscles. Some pitchers just turn in order to hide the ball, but Vargas is "loading" the back muscles and using them to generate velocity.
That's good. Anything that takes load off your arm is good.
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2. It hides the ball, making offspeed stuff tough to decipher. It seems to add "noise" to the pitcher's motion. A Michael Pineda comes right down the pipe at you, and any little difference like a head bob or shoulder tilt is easy to see, and can "telegraph" an offspeed pitch.
The Bedard motion, by contrast, seems to keep the pitcher's head, face and upper body discreet, concealing "tells." The pitcher whips around with a fastball motion and when a Bedard curve pops a parachute, it's obviously confusing for the hitter.
The Yankees be confused, be very confused, all night long, "in between" as Wedge likes to put it. They froze, late, on fastballs, and swung way out in front of changeups.
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3. It helps rhythm and attack. Vargas' tempo was quick and confident. Felix also gets into a rocking chair with his little robo-tronic Bedard dance.
"Rhythm" in baseball refers to the time in between pitches, usually. But with the Bedard dance, I think there's actually a dance-type rhythm to the pitching motion.
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Anyway. I love it when a pitcher engages his back and shoulders, and Vargas' results have been visually striking, too. Although totally gassed for 2012, he has bounced back to a 9:3 CTL ratio after a gruesome 22:24 in his previous 9 starts.
I'd like to see what the Bedard Dance could do for him, when fresh, come March 2012.
...
Edit out Jason Vargas' late-season fades in 2010 and 2011, and he's been a solidly above-average finesse pitcher in the American League. Rebound or not, he went into 2012 as an established quality starter in the majors.
Give Jamie Moyer a 90 fastball and you'd really have something. If Vargas can hold onto this extra +2 mph, let's see where it takes him. +2 mph took Doug Fister a whale of a long ways.
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
2
I've pointed his out before, but Vargas was a 2nd-round pick taken 68th, immediately after Hunter Pence, Dustin Pedroia and Kurt Suzuki, but also right around a bunch of nobodies.
In that spot, you'd want to get someone who will be at least average-solid -- as Vargas has been -- but with upside. Sometimes the upside doesn't come until age 28 (J.J. Putz, anyone?).
3
Just poking around and thought I'd share.
Dustin Pedroia (5-9, 180), jr. yr. AZ St (juiced bats era):
.393/.502/.611, 48 BB, 15 K, 9 SB
Kyle Seager (6-0, 195, but looks smaller), jr. yr. UNC (juiced bats era):
.393/.487/.592, 45 BB, 38 K, 13 SB
Brad Miller (6-1, 185), jr. yr. Clemson (dead bats era):
.395/.498/.559, 40 BB, 34 K, 21 SB
OK, Seager was a 3rd-round pick, but still...
4
Don't know where to stick this, but in with a discussion of Vargas seems appropriate. I sold a proposal last year to do a book on off-speed pitches, then had to set it aside to do another project which is just now wrapping up. So I'm about to start researching the pitching book. And I suddenly realize I have no idea where to start, or end. I had some vague thought of looking at Jamie Moyer's career, but other than that, nada. Hmm, why did I write that proposal again? I'd somehow like to meld Pitch fx data with real life talk and descriptions from real life pitchers.
In any event, I'd love to hear thoughts from the hyper-articulate SSI community on what ought to be in a book about pitchers who fool people for a living. They don't have to be well-thought out. Half-formed ideas will find a great deal of company in my brain.
Any ideas much appreciated.
Oh, the book is to be called:
OFFSPEED: Dead Fish, Yellow Hammers and the Search for the Perfect Baseball Pitch
5
There's your title. :)
Trevor Hoffman and his changeup deserves a chapter.
I might go with Glavine (more well known than Moyer).
Chapter on the Knuckleball might be warranted.
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You can't leave out the ever present spitball or "creatively worn" ball either.
Perry's grease under the cap, Niekro's tack (was that it?) in the glove, Honeycutt's sandpaper....
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The gyroball is a mystery pitch. No one is sure whether it has ever really been thrown, but if it is a real pitch, DiceK throws it. We think.
The Ephus Pitch is another important mention, although it is unknown whether one has actually ever been thrown in the major leagues.
Don't forget the submariner deliveries. I'm not sure what those pitches are called, but I think that all sidearm and underarm pitches are labeled as "sliders" or just "offspeed" as a matter of course.
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Satchel Paige
Hooten's knuckle-curve (Do you remember that one Doc? When he got it right, no other pitch had the same appearance of completely rolling off the table)
Mike Marshall, of the bionic arm, and the scroogie
Rip Sewell and his Eephus pitch, of course
Good subject!
9
James and Neyer, cataloguing pitches throughout history, used this format:
Part A - a chapter for each pitch, focusing around an interesting personality who threw it (and some effort to trace their evolution chronologically)
Part B - Alphabetic catalog of pitcher bios, emphasis on research documenting the pitch repertoire, and on "flavor text"
....
Something like that might be a starting point: Ten great offspeed pitches in baseball history, the guys who threw them, and how those "trick" pitches related to the pitcher's personality and psyche...
Moyer for example was a little chess player who enjoyed exploiting bigger guys' attempts to bully him (with big fastball swings for the fences).
As you know being from SoCal, the Valenzuela chapter is going to be a must. ;- ) And the pitch matches the story. In fact the entire "Viva Mejico" chapter in baseball history might make a whale of a start to the book... the Fernando story's been done, but has it been done from your on-field off-field "fool the establishment" angle?
....
Steve Delabar's going to need a chapter. I think his offspeed pitch is a new invention, too. :- ) Can't find anybody in the F/X database, besides him, who throws it.
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Because in the first half of his career, he was supposedly a 99-mph Curt Schilling "here it is hit it", and then when the arm went, he became perhaps baseball's greatest "fool 'em" finesse pitcher.
11
Keep 'em coming!
Doc, I actually saw Satchel pitch when I was a wee lad. He had a barnstorming team that came to my little Iowa town to play our semi-pro town team (every town had one made up of teen-ager up to 50-year-olds).
A transformer blew in about the second or third inning and everybody else wanted to call it a night and go drink beer. He insisted on fulfilling his contract, so the game went on. If you thought he was tough to hit on Sunday afternoon, you shoulda seen him on Thursday night. Whew.
I was the ball boy charged with retrieiving fouls, cleaning them up and keeping the ump supplied. I sat just next to one of the on-deck circles. When Satch came on deck he waved me over and asked what I was doing with the balls, I explained how I cleaned them with cornmeal. He said if it was all the same to me, he didn't want to see any more clean balls the rest of the night. Let's have some fun, he said, and winked.
12
I have their excellent book and am aiming for something less encyclopedic with more story-telling. Not at all sure how it will be structured, but there is definitely a chronological element to pitch selection. Every era seems to find or re-find a new pitch.
13
Might wanna consider the styles of the offspeed pitchers who deployed their stuff to great success.
I don't know of many changeup-first pitchers who weren't students of the game with their little black books and their encyclopedic knowledge of all hitters they faced.
And I don't know of many forkballers who cared about the other guy - if they were on, the other guy could do whatever he darn well pleased and no good would come of it.
But I do like the idea. And I like the "we choose this pitch" by era. I assume the circle-change was the 90s? Maddux, Moyer, Glavine and Pedro would all tell you it helped them out...
~G
14
But supposing it were true, it would obviously be the first chapter in your hypothetical book.
Absolutely unreal, Terry. :- O
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If doable it would allow people to add as things occur to them.
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Doc
Happened exactly as described. And as to the "hypothetical" nature of the book: It's only hypothetical in that it hasn't been written yet, but given that I've already spent the advance, I'm somewhat motivated to deliver on the contract.
Unlike Dr. D, I'm not independently wealthy!
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Ah'm jest kiddin' yeh.
That meet cute entitles YOU to sign baseballs....