Q. What do you think of his tempo?
A. Pitchers will tell you that there are two big benefits to the machine-gun tempo: (1) the hitter doesn't have time to think, and (2) he can repeat his mechanics very easily.
All pitching coaches want a quick tempo. Everybody hates to see a pitcher stand there holding the ball, worrying about where the hitter's going to smash the ball.
Pitchers who can make a quick tempo work, can butcher lineups in two hours. Pineda's tempo is a major plus, a big increase in his chances to compete for a Cy Young.
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Q. Hitters can't punish Pineda?
A. No, not if he executes, which is why he grabs the ball and throws it -- without even thinking about what a hitter might do.
Tuesday vs. the Jays, Pineda had four pitches with which he taunted the Jays:
- The fastball on the black, of course, usually high
- The ladder fastball above the zone, often on 0-2 counts
- The jam pitch
- The slider
Interestingly, he rarely went for the knees at all, which is why the fly ball count was high. He knew he could miss bats and that's how he was pitching.
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Q. If the fly ball count stays high, will he develop gopheritis?
A. Certainly you don't think he'll give up 0 homers on the year. Homers are part of baseball, like resin bags and bloggers who call themselves ostentatious names.
But Pineda's fly balls were arm-swings at high-away fastballs. I wish Fangraphs split out fly balls hit the other way...
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Q. You say that Pineda's had a Tim Lincecum beginning to his career. Lincecum fanned a lot of guys early on, though.
A. You know what -- the Curt Schilling, Justin Verlander game isn't fundamentally a strikeout game.
Guys who throws TONS AND TONS of located, 96 mph fastballs aren't going to strike out 10 a game. Schilling and Verlander, early on, would fan like 7 men a game.
Despite super high swing/miss ratios, I expect Pineda to fan 7-8 men a game, walk 2+, with a 0+ homer rate.
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Q. Does that relate the fact that instead of 98, 93, 98, 94, 98, 93, he throws 96 every pitch?
A. Pineda's "standard deviation" on fastball velocity is strangely low. He's very consistently at 95+.
There are plusses and minuses to that, but we're running out of keystrokes.....
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Q. And how about his makeup?
A. Pineda's out there simply messing with the greatest lineups in baseball, right in his very first games.
He means harm out there; he's a born killer. Few guys are.
We wouldn't compare him to Randy Johnson, who had a nasty disposition ... not to Clemens, who had a malicious one.
We wouldn't compare Pineda's on-field personality to Dave Stewart, who was angry and hostile with a chip on his shoulder ... not to Felix, who's kind of happy-go-lucky by Cy Young standards ... not to Maddux or Mussina, who were surgical. Not to the young Freddy Garcia, who was sneering and contemputous.
Honestly compare Pineda's disposition to that of Pedro Martinez. (Not in the arsenal or pitcher family; just in the personality itself.) Pedro was playing a video game out there, toying with hitters, selecting a weapon and killing the zombies with it.
What would you call that? Presumptuous, maybe. Smart-alecky, brazen. I dunno.
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Q. How about Pineda's liking for the strikeout pitch on 0-2 instead of on 1-2?
A. Randy Johnson used to do that.
The hitters knew that they couldn't punish the Unit for audacity, and he knew they knew it, so on 0-2 he just came right back at them. It was just horrible. For them.
Pineda's attitude on 0-2 counts? That tells you everything you need to know about this dude.
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