Doug Fister's Movement and Angles - the 1968 Mound

Q.  What does Wakamatsu mean, Fister has "angles" on his fastball?

A.  In 1968, the mound was legally up to 15 inches high.  Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA started to give even purists a just-ate-a-whole-pecan-pie feeling.  He threw 13 shutouts that year, and the rest of them must have been 1-run complete games.  A veritable Doug Fister.....

The league itself had an ERA of 2.99.  Think about that.  A mediocre pitcher went out there and finished with a 2+ ERA.

The next year, they lowered the mound from 15 inches to 10 ... and ERA's went up fully 20%, to 3.59.  The year after it was 4.05 -- a full run higher than in 1968.

Some mounds were reputed to be 16, not 15 inches.  A few were accused of being up to 18 inches.  That's 5-8 inches higher than they are now.

................

As far as I can tell from the PitchFX, Doug Fister's release point is about 9 inches higher than Ian Snell's.  Relative to Snell, he's throwing off a 1966 mound -- and then some.

.

Q.  So what?  His velo isn't that great.  What good does the leverage do?

A.  The vector of the pitch changes, relative to the swing plane. 

With a lower release, the pitch might actually coincide exactly with the swing plane.  This means the hitter can square the ball at any part of his swing.

All of a sudden, here's a pitcher who throws the ball at a 1% deflected vector, and now a ball the hitter thought was going to be squared, is popped up.

.............

As well, Doogie has taken to coming around the corner and throwing a wonderful 85-mph slider.  He got his first strikeout on a garbage swing this way.

Wok seems to be talking about Doogie's Ichabod Crane delivery and the 1966-style angles he gets on his FB.

.

Q.  Six inches is a big deal?

A.  There isn't a lot of question that the 1960's mounds were a h-u-g-e deal.  Five-six inches of pitching height visibly changed the whole game.

.

Q.  Other pitchers are tall.  Why wouldn't you just go out and get tall pitchers?

A.  But often don't get on top of the ball.  Randy Johnson was very sidearm; he didn't pitch off a 1967 mound.

Fister probably would rank near the top of the charts, if the PitchFX data allowed us to sort by release height.

.............

But, hey.  Has baseball preferred tall pitchers to short ones?  For about, oh, a hundred years.  They also value the guy who comes over the top, who "pitches downhill."

I guess it messes up the batter's swing plane vs. pitched-ball plane (among other things).

.

Part 2

Comments

1

Thanks Doc.  Because this series gives me a REASON to open my mind about Fister.
*IF* - prior to 2009, Fister was more 3/4, and the coaches got him to CHANGE his game, that might well fit with all the minor league data.  The 10+ hits - they might have been against the 3/4 delivery.  When a player changes something, there is typically an adjustment period where stats can go wonky ... say, for example that he'd revert to 3/4 intermittently - and he's pitching BP again.
And of course, once the change 'takes' - the coaches and scouts can make a call in just a couple of games.  The total data pool is filled with much -- which the coaches can factor out.
One of my mantras about youth is - players improve because they get better at "something" -- not simply because they get older.  This 'angle' (pardon the pun), may well make Fister a different MLB pitcher than he was in AAA.  The counter-point to this is that he "might" have lost the 7-K ability, too.  There's no question that he's been surviving with 4-5K stuff and avoiding hits.
Of course, this is precisely why pitchers are tricky to project.  A new pitch or little tweak in mechanics and the ball starts dancing - and you can toss out tons of previous data.
I'm still wait and see on Fister - but at least now I have a reason for some optimism.

2

...however, I do think his ability to spot the fastball dow in the zone has dramatically improved (which increases the downward angle of the pitch) and I think he's doing a better job staying on top of the ball consistently as his core and arm strength increase with age.  Hence...I don't expect we'l see a huge plateau jump from 2008 Fister to the finished product...I think he will turn out to be a league average pitcher...not a star.  And I think eventually...he'll revert to 10 H/9 in the big leagues.

3
Anonymous's picture

Is it a coincidence that Oakland pitchers seem to flame out once the leave Oakland? The Oakland machine has been turning out middle of the rotation stars for years. Unfortunately the machine has alienated its fan base. The machine doesen't care who the fan favorites are.

4

After Vargas's start today, Wak all but confirmed that it'll be Snell headed to the pen. Per Baker, he won't announce until after Snell's next start but it's a done deal. Good move, IMHO.
 

5

but I know what you mean.  :- )  Reason to re-assess, perhaps.
.................
There's a strange comfort in the fact that Wakamatsu immediately perceived something that was opaque to all of us in the blog-o-sphere, too.

7

He has the right to use his pitchers for 6 years without regard to what happens after that.  If Boras is going to price his homegrowns out of Beane's price range, and if Selig isn't going to do anything about the revenue disparity, Beane's going to get back by getting his six years...
Interesting point about the fan base.  Oakland isn't packing them in, and dating back to the days of Charles O. Finley, they have always had an exploitative attitude towards their players...

8

thanks again for the link.
How do you see it after Bedard?  Most likely RRS and Vargas pitching for the last spot or what Grizz?

9

The Mariners are doing a fabulous job of powerflushing the weakest links...that's for darned sure.  My guess is...RRS gets the boot next...and not necessarily waiting until Bedard gets back..we might see RRS DL'ed before Bedard is healthy (ad you'd call up Pauley or Olsen or something to take garbage time starts until Bedard is ready to go).

10

At the moment, French is getting the best results in AAA:
French: 17-K; 4-BB in 25-IP; (only 1 -HR)
Pauley: 9-K; 6-BB; 2-HR in 18-IP
Olson: 14-K; 3-BB; 0-HR in 14.1-IP
 
 

11
Anonymous's picture

Interesting.  I always thought the big advantage from a higher mound was that it allowed you to drop your hips and drive your legs more.  It would be interesting to see if the average pitcher lost velocity with the switch.  

14

was always considered key, in the articles I looked at prior to the 3-parter here... so much so that one medical study found that injuries increased as the mound got higher.  (That would make sense in the reductio ad absurdum, that throwing 90 mph off a cliff would be more unnatural than throwing off flat ground.  Nolan Ryan loved throwing off flat grass.)
That is the consensus Anon, definitely, that taller mounds (and longer skeletons) get more leverage to the pitcher...

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