Seattle Sports Insider

Jason Vargas: Slow, Slower, Slowest

Posted by

8/5/11

In Vargas' first few pitches tonight, Dave Sims caught something. Vargas' step to home plate was short. By a lot.

Obviously they've been working on something, right, Dave told Mike Blowers. Yeah, so let's see if he can be consistent with it during the game, shot back Blowers.

From an aiki standpoint, there are two basic bad things about Vargas' higher CG and one good one:

BAD - Weight does not accelerate well toward the plate
BAD - Finish will tend to be weak, leaving pitch up in the zone
GOOD - Higher stance indicates more relaxation and focus

It looked to me like Vargas was throwing about 5 mph slower :- ) although Brooks said that all his pitches were down about 1 mph.

=== Results ===

Obviously Vargas had suffered through 4 poor outings in a row, this following a long string of great performances, including three 9-IP shutouts inside one month.

I'd have assumed it was simply fatigue, and that his 4-IP, 5-IP knockouts would restore him beginning about now.

But the M's decided to make a big adjustment, so that's interesting... the idea in the shorter stride would probably be to obtain better command by simply arm-flinging the ball with less power.

***

Using the July 25 beating by the Yankees as the baseline, and the August 5 "shutout" of the Angels as the delta, the differences were:

All pitches down by about -1 mph
Changeup dropped much less, ran armside much less (??)
Fastball moved the same
Slider/cutter moved the same
Vargas used his changeup MUCH more (54 times!!)
Vargas' changeup was far more effective (??)

Huh! Over the last two years, Vargas has had a -7x11 changeup ... it drops about 7 inches (vs. a fastball), sails armside 11 inches, and it has had terrific run values.

The last four games, Vargas has gotten beaten up, and that changeup has been tattoo'ed .... in the Yankee game, he threw it 32 times and he gave up 2.15 more runs than average, per 100 changes.

***

Then, this game, Vargas stands up in "playing catch with your sister" mode ... the change stops dropping and stops sailing ... and he immolates the Angels with it. he throws it 54 times and they can't touch it.

Now, there's an interesting puzzle for you. Vargas scraps his patented deadfish change, goes to a weird "rising changeup," and gets a Byung-Hyun Kim result with it. Probably his shortened motion added to his deception on the change-speed.

I'd of thought it was simply his arm bouncing back after the K.O's, but he did break out a new changeup tonight.

Cheerio,

Dr D

Comments

I thought he had a terrible game.

6 IP 7 H (many of them scorched), 1 BB, 1HBP, 111 pitches in those 6 innings (gone was the efficiency), 3 K (most of them late in the game).
In the third, he gave up a 2 run homer to Torii Hunter that Trayvon Robinson pulled back. In the fifth (I think it was the fifth), with the bases loaded, he gave up a SCREAMING line drive right to Robinson to end the inning. In the sixth, he put two people in scoring position before being fortunate enough to face Jeff Mathis, who would fit in well in Seattle with his .180 batting average.
I thought Vargas was lucky as anything to not get tattoo'ed again. So no...I don't think his change-up worked well.

He was scuffling, no doubts there

Although he often scuffles :- )
***
Problemo with Brooks' linear weights by pitch - you can't tell which outs were scorched. I notice from the vid that the stolen HR was off an 80 changeup, though.