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Q. Who or what is an Eckersley?
A. Put down your PS Vita for two seconds and behold the greatest 5-year run ever by a major league closer. Dennis Eckersley, 1988-92. When a pitcher's Base Performance Index (BPX) goes up past 100, then past 200 and sails on past 500, BaseballHQ to this day calls 500+ "Vintage Eck Territory." That's the kind of legend you strike when you fan 70 batters, walk 4, run a WHIP of 0.60, and allow no* home runs over the course of twelve months.
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Q. What made him Eckersley?
A. He threw 90 MPH, but with real good command, and he knew how to expand the strike zone and/or change speeds on guys who were over-amped.
Terry Steinbach (leave the Vita down) once commented, The key to pitching is to pull the string (throw changeups to) over-anxious hitters, and to blast cautious hitters with fastballs. "Dennis is very, very good at knowing which are which."
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Q. I s'pose you're trying to sell Erasmo's miracle game as based on this idea.
A. Following Erasmo's first two train wrecks, the book was to let him center a fastball up. Seth Smith got a first-pitch fastball up and blasted it 500 feet off the batters' eye.
Dr. D watched in stunned amazement as Miguel Olivo, who wrote the book on The Fastball Coin of the Realm, called for 1st-pitch offspeed on the next four, no seven, no nine of the next eleven, no batters beginning with Brandon Inge. Here's the GameDay.
By the sixth inning, Erasmo's blizzard of called 80-MPH strikes had the A's off their pregame plan. I mean, if he can throw that for a strike at will, they're going to recognize the fact pretty quick. And Erasmo threw 23 of 28 changeups for strikes.
Y' feel me? It's one thing to get some changeups over the plate. It's another to stand up there and see him casually tossing changeups for gimme strikes -- like Johan Santana - any time he feels like it.
So by the 6th, 7th, the A's are in between. Under those circumstances, Erasmo can now hit them with the fastball.
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Q. Will M's catchers continue to be aware of all this?
A. You tell me.
Erasmo pitches like Santana, changeup to set up the fastball, he's a very exciting young pitcher. He pitches like Ian Snell, "fastball's the coin of the realm," he's going to give up a boatload of long home runs.
In my opinion, Ramirez' entire future depends on this factor. If he develops a Santana-type feel for getting batters in between, that will camouflage his huge Achilles' heel (fastballs up). After hitters are in between, they are not as able-and-ready to launch mistakes. Pitchability covers a multitude of sins.
The kid was having a ball out there in the late innings. Maybe he just needed two games.
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See also
1 June 25, 2012 - the Santana Game
2 June 25, 2012 - his Achilles' Heel
3 June 25, 2012 - his Key Weapon
4 June 25, 2012 - the Eckersley Clause
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