Q.  Why is it that the Mariners (and the mainframe) understand Michael Pineda, while everybody else frets about whether he'll be okay?

A.  Basically:  non-players do not fully grasp the effect on the game, that is carried by a 96 mph fastball on the edge of the plate.

A LOCATED 94-98 FASTBALL TRANSCENDS PLATOON SPLITS.

Capiche?  You will never talk to an ML player who tells you anything different.  Period.  

And you will never find a pitcher who located hot fastballs -- Schilling, Clemens, Verlander, Drysdale, whoever -- who couldn't get left hand batters out.

It's not an incrimination that sabes don't get the idea of 96 located; HBT and BP and Fangraphs don't really have any way (AFAIK) to measure that concept.  It's simply the key part of Pineda's game that is opaque to computer analysis.  Sometimes, what the players see in 10 pitches, Deep Blue wouldn't calculate in 1,000,000 pitches.

.......

Or go look at Teddy's strike zone, the one he designed for Sports Illustrated to capture the essence of striking a flying object with a wooden stick.  See if that's platooned. 

tyle="font-size: small;">On a 96 fastball, there isn't any way that a hitter has time to shift his weight outside, and get the barrel of his bat onto a pitch on the black.

Don't take my word for it.  Just let me know, the next time you see a batter lean out and crush a 94-98 fastball that is not centered.

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Q.  Anything else?

A.  Also, look at this HBT graphic:

Major league umpires love to give the outside corner against LHB's.  They call strikes on the very pitch that Pineda makes his LHB money on.

Let's not debate it; we've seen plenty 'nuff at this point.  Michael Pineda is a star in the big leagues, the Mariners knew it, and we're lucky to have him.  Move on.

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BABVA,

Dr D