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Good stuff.
I didn't see the game, but this sounds pretty promising.
The 70-80-90 Bloke and Boomer Wells
Once a-gayn, please? :- ) Rowland-Smith's velo separation on Sunday the 9th:
Brooksbaseball.net is bonzer. They have these up SAME NIGHT for ALL pitchers in the bigs. Slap me silly.
At 70 mph, Rowland-Smith's curve not only creates the third "depth" of pitch for batters, but it also cracks at that velocity.
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=== Boomer: also a Huge, Scary Male Kangaroo ===
This is precisely the sweet spot that Boomer Wells found in his own career: His curve got slower and snapped harder, which is why his K rate was 6.5, 7.0 in the second half of his career (as opposed to 4.8, 5.5 in Toronto).
Boomer combined the gorgeous 72 mph change-curve with an 88 fastball that had Moyer-like command, and not much of a change. There are differences between him and RRS (as there are between any two pitchers).
t-size: small;">Notice in the Brooks graph, that the lows dip farther and farther, and the highs (up to pitch 75) get higher and higher. Also, look at how "skinny" the mountain spikes are. Pitches 12-18, and 58-64, RRS threw a series of fastballs. But otherwise, he's throwing curve, FB, change, FB, curve, FB all game long.
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=== Dr's RX ===
Hopefully RRS will continue to throw the hook at 70, as a change-curve, rather than at 75-77.
At that velocity he spins it harder, it breaks like a Frisbee, and he gets three different depths in the strike zone.
A 70 change curve can lead to a very, very repeatable string of performances. Wells and the young Zito did this, even without a quality change at 80.
Couldn't be more enthused about the bloke. Let's keep that curve velo right where it is.
Good on yer,
Dr D
Comments
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Sez here that RRS's change-up was put in play exactly 3 times and so was his curve. That means they only put it in play 6 times on his off-speed stuff against 11 on his fastball...and if I'm reading the event log correctly, the off-speed pitches yielded 5 outs and one hit (a single) while the fastballs yielded the rest of the offense?
That's interesting.
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And as we know, he threw half FB's, half other.
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So if his stuff was of equal caliber, he should be giving up half of his contact and half of his offense allowed to each subgroup...clearly that is not the case. His out pitches are the change-up and curve.
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"Out pitches" is just the way to look at it, 'cause even when batters make contact, they'll probably tend to put it in play less aggressively (not counting the hanging sliders bashed for homers).
Not unusual for a pitcher to just flat out get better results on a curve or change. After all, that's what the run values indicate on some guys, such as French (who threw well over 60% offspeed his last outing).
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Let Rob Johnson catch the power pitchers (Snell, Felix, Bedard, Morrow) and let Johjima catch the guys who need a creative Japanese pitch mix (RRS, French, Fister, Silva)?
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Shows an 0.9 correlation for "power pitchers" and "Entitled Vets." The vets of course are the ones who shun Johjima because he works from an unfamiliar paradigm.
I guess Capt Jack is bringing in guys with pitchability. In this, he may mirror Billy Beane.
But, absolutely. Let Joh call the pitches for RRS and Fister. And French threw like 65% offspeed to Joh last game. Reminded me of Scott McGregor.