Felix Now With the MARIANO RIVERA CUTTER ?!

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Of course Mariano Rivera is the greatest relief pitcher who ever lived.  If you cut him in half, you might have the two greatest relievers ever.  ;- )  Now the arguments have begun whether he is the greatest pitcher ever.  He has the best ERA+ of all time, and his postseason record is beyond belief:  an 0.70 ERA in about a hundred playoff games, 141 innings.

What is even weirder is that he is untouchable, despite the fact that he throws one pitch 90% of the time (this season, 93.8% of the time).  The famed Rivera cutter.  

Did you ever wonder what makes Rivera's cutter so different?  Two things:  it sails higher than anybody else's cutter, and he can throw it harder - in fact he throws his cutter at the speed of a regular fastball.  The combination is devastating.  

You've probably seen the recent splash of articles, as Mo nears retirement ... this star wants Rivera to teach it to him, that Cy Young guy wanted him to, and Rivera says meekly "Nobody can learn it and nobody taught it to me.  God taught me my cutter."  You've seen the interviews, probably.

Here is a graphic representation:

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This is actually from the catcher's POV.

Roy Halladay throws a real hard cutter, 90-91 MPH, but that leaves the pitch on the left side of the center axis there (from the catcher's POV).  Halladay's (awesome) cutter breaks 5 inches up compared to vacuum, and breaks 2 inches IN to a right hand hitter.  But Rivera's breaks 8 inches up, and 2 inches AWAY from a right hand hitter.  Rivera's cutter movement is the only thing Yankee that has ever been understated.  :- )

Dan Haren's (money!) cutter does break away from a RH by 2 inches, like Rivera's.  But Haren's cutter sails only 4-5 inches, not 8 ... and Haren throws it 85 MPH.

Cliff Lee's cutter is thrown at 86 MPH, and breaks 3" away from LH batters, as well as 6" up.

There.  Those are the three most famous cutters in the game.  We are talking about the BEST cut fastballs in the game, the ones that make Cy Young pitchers, so can you see why Rivera's 91 MPH x 8 rise x 2 cut-away from RH is such a miracle pitch?   

Note well that a rising pitch is inherently a swing-and-miss pitch.  We'll get back to that under the Felix section...

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The average "cutter" doesn't cut much.  A cut fastball is half slider, half fastball.  It's thrown like a fastball, loses about 2 MPH, and doesn't break in to RH hitters as much, compared to a two-seam fastball.  The great cutters break away from a RH batter more, but lose some velocity in doing so.

  MPH Break cf. vacuum Rise
Avg. 2-seam FB 91 -5 (in to RH) 8
Avg. cutter 89 -2  5
Halladay cut 91 -2 5
Haren cut 85 +2 (away from RH) 4
Lee cut 86 +3 +6
Rivera cut 91 +2 +8

Rivera "hops" that extra baseball width over the hitter's bat, it comes in at 100% fastball velocity, and Rivera commands it in the zone.  It is a slider thrown at fastball speed, plus hop.  That one thing he does has made him untouchable for 20 years.

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=== Felix Monday ===

Felix Hernandez, on April 30th, apparently decided to start throwing Mariano Rivera's cutter.   Monday, and only just this Monday, Felix added a #5 pitch, and let's see where it fits in on the previous table:

  MPH Break cf. vacuum Rise
Avg. 2-seam FB 91 -5 (in to RH) 8
Avg. cutter 89 -2  5
Halladay cut 91 -2 5
Haren cut 85 +2 (away from RH) 4
Lee cut 86 +3 +6
Rivera cut 91 +2

+8

Felix cut 92 +1 +9

He threw 13 of them.  Here is the Brooks page and here is a graphic representation:

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Actually Felix didn't quite just add it Monday.  He's dinked around with it a few pitches here, a few pitches there, this April.   He threw it 4 times the previous start, although with "only" a 7-inch hop.  The start before that, April 13, he threw 11 really hard cutters, 92.5 MPH, but they didn't hop at all.   On April 7th he did throw 2 cutters, and both hopped 8 inches.

Of course F/X shows no cutters for Felix in previous years, and my TV screen has shown no cutters, either.  This is apparently a pitch that Felix has noodled around with in April a little bit, and on April 30th he dished out 14 full-blown Mariano Rivera cutters.

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Felix' changeup is the best single pitch in baseball that I know of, a pitch that is +6 MPH harder than other changeups, and with much more drop.  Its run value is +4.55 (!!) this year, saving 4.5 runs per 100 changeups, and it withstands any amount of exposure.  

His curve ball in 2012 is breaking harder than ever, 6" away from a RH and rolling off the table more than 9".  His slider is an 86 MPH, 0x0 wipeout pitch that has a +3.00 run value this year.

Here is the way Brooks represents the movement Monday, from the point of view of the catcher.  The red group, the cutter, that group is brand new.  Blue = FB.  Green = Changeup.  Purple = Slider.  Gold = Curve.

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Felix has had the best 4-pitch arsenal I've seen since I started watching baseball.  David Cone, best 4-5 pitch guy I've seen, didn't come close to wielding the sick joke that has been the 4-pitch arsenal of Felix Hernandez.  There's one name in baseball history:  Satchel Paige.  Who knows.

So Monday, did Felix Hernandez add pitch #5, a Mariano Rivera cut fastball?  Fill in your own punch line.  I'm out.

Comments

1
M-Pops's picture

This arsenal wouldn't be fair. An 89 splitter AND a 92 riseball?! Hard to imagine. Hopefully we see this pitch more often, not less.
I was really excited after Felix's near no-no in Boston for the 95 mph swerveball, too. I love that Felix is still experimenting, though.

2

I think that's what impresses me most about Felix: he keeps tinkering - and dominating - no matter who the opposition is, even when he knows it's gonna be a tight game against a good starter. He's not messing around with a 5 run lead or against a BOR arm. He does it whenever. His burning need to improve trumps the game situation, which is why he always dominates the game situation.
He looks like Cy Felix so far this year - obviously missing a couple of wins to show for it, again - but seems like he's competing against the game more than his opponents.
He reminds me of Tiger Woods reworking his approach entirely, AFTER lapping the field in majors. When asked "Why are you doing that?" he basically responded that what he'd been doing to be amazing he wasn't going to be able to continue to do. So better to change it now and get a lot of good years out of the results. And he was as successful after it as before - the changes absolutely worked.
Felix doesn't throw 97 any more. He likely never will again. But just like Pedro destroyed people with lesser heat and better stuff, Felix is walking the same path. The path to true greatness isn't to focus on who you're beating now, but to be the best you can possibly be. Jordan came up with the greatest fadeaway shot the world had ever seen when his knees started to go, changed his game from inside and above the rim to outside and below it and blew the doors down on the room to Greatest Player Ever.
Act Two for Felix looks like the compilation of everything he learned in Act One, plus a new pitch or two.
If it is, he's gonna be ridiculously scary. Forever.
And chance we can just offer him rolling 3-year extensions with 2 years to go on his current contract until he retires?
~G

3

What a wizard. But what else is going to keep his attention on this team other than experimentation? Probably has to do it keep sane.
Is there rpm info on pitches? That must be key to his wicked movement.

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