Read the rest of this entry »

“It’s the second-best pitch in baseball after the fastball” said Braves catcher Gerald Laird, when talking about the change-up. The arm action is the same as a fastball, the seams come out looking the same, there’s not many release point clues that it’s coming, and then “the ball is just not there.”?

For the first extended period of time, Ervin Santana and Gavin Floyd both feel comfortable with their change-ups. Both starters — acquired by the Braves over the winter — had unconventional offseasons in which they made mechanical adjustments on their own, and both have similar mechanics that may have made it harder for them to develop the pitch before now. But both are trying something new this year.

First, let’s take a look at their new change-ups. Jeff Sullivan wrote about Santana’s in-game strategy with the pitch, so we’ll build from there.

Read the rest on FoxSports.com

Read the rest of this entry »

During a conversation with Alex Rios about the changes he’s made over his career, the Texas Rangers outfielder made a comment about an accepted truth in baseball. His comment was seemingly simple but hid one of the more complicated aspects of the game.

We were talking about his bad year in Chicago in 2011, when he hit .227 with 13 homers and 11 stolen bases, and his wRC+ was 40 percent below the league average. When pushed to come up with a reason for his renaissance since that low, Rios could only think of one thing he’d really changed.

“I was trying to get deeper into the count and see more pitches and be a little more patient at the plate, to make myself hit a better pitch,” he said of 2012, when his career got back on track.

Rios did take more pitches per plate appearance in 2012 than he did in 2011 — .05 pitch more per plate appearance, or about 30 more pitches over the course of a full season. Not a ton more pitches, but more. And it’s a trend he’s continued since, to the point that he’s now back above league average in the stat (3.85).

Read the rest on FoxSports.com

This Thursday, at the Stock in Trade bar in the Marina district in San Francisco, we’re going to have a Dodgers/Giants meetup. We’ll be talking beer and baseball with some of your favorite writers, with a bonus of a former scout and coach to talk mechanics if you like. FanGraphs, BeerGraphs and the First Base Foundation — a foundation that helps make travel sports more affordable for disadvantaged young people while also helping them get into college — are happy to invite you to this gathering of baseball nerds featuring happy hour pricing, some free appetizers, and lots of baseball talk.

Eno Sarris, FanGraphs
Wendy Thurm, FanGraphs
Noah Jackson, First Base Foundation
Jolieba Jackson, First Base Foundation
Blake Smith, BeerGraphs
Howard Bender, Fantasy Alarm
Steve Berman, Bay Area Sports Guy
Taylor Fogelquist, FanMouth
Patrick Newman, NPBTracker
Curse of Benitez, BooleanSabean
Daniel Shaeffer, FanMouth
Daniel Zarchy, GiantsPod

Read the rest of this entry »

When the Padres traded for Andrew Cashner before the 2012 season, he was a reliever with a nasty knuckle slider and a 100 mph fastball — and injury issues. The Padres believed that he could become the front-line pitcher that he is to day, so they were willing to trade a good young position player for him. The weird thing is that those injuries helped Andrew Cashner find the right pitching mix.

Take the fastball. In 2012, he averaged 97.7 on the pitch, and then, well this happened to the velocity:

You could say he was just adjusting to starting, but there were two starts in there before he strained his shoulder that year. And you could say the new lower velocity was just injury-caused, but then there are the words of the pitcher: “When I tried to throw too hard was when I blew my arm out on a 96 mph pitch,” Cashner said before a game against the Giants in late April. The result? “I don’t try to throw 100 any more.”

Read the rest at FoxSports.com.

There might not be two pitches as divisive as the splitter and the cutter. At least, there aren’t two pitches that are banned from development in multiple organizations across baseball like the splitter and the cutter. Dan Haren throws the splitter and the cutter.

That isn’t to say that he hasn’t had to be careful about throwing the two controversial pitches. Many of his adjustments over the course of his career have had to do with how he’s treated them. In fact, their story tells his story, in a way.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes hitters are terse about their craft. They aren’t all Joey Votto, after all. But if you can pry a few thoughts from them, you’ll still find multitudes underneath seemingly simple statements. At least, that’s what happened after a conversation I had with Prince Fielder last week.

Before a game against the Athletics on April 22nd, I pointed out to the Rangers’ slugger that he makes more contact than most power hitters. “I’m making more contact on pitches that I want to swing at,” Fielder said of maturing as a hitter. The average top-30 home run hitter since 2011 has swung and missed at nearly 11% of the pitches he’s seen. Fielder’s swinging strike rate over the same time frame is 8.7%.

But things have changed in this regard over his career. Over his first four seasons, he struck out 19% of the time and swung and missed more than 11% of the time. Over his last four seasons, he’s struck out 14.5% of the time, thanks to that reduced swinging strike rate.

Ask the slugger, and the answer why seems so simple: “Trying to be ready to hit,” he offered with a shrug before asking: “Being more selective?” His reach rates haven’t improved much, though. In the first four years of his career, he swung at 27.4% of pitches outside the zone and 69.1% of pitches inside the zone. The last four years, he’s swung at 30.4% of pitches outside the zone and 67.7% of pitches inside the zone. Strange way to become more selective.

What Fielder has done is swung less as he’s aged — down from 47-48% to around 44-45%. There’s some evidence that swinging less is good for you, even without slicing it into swinging more at pitches inside the zone and less at pitches outside the zone. The Twins are trying this approach out currently.

But let’s look at this brute force stat — swing% — on an individual level. Since 2011, there have been 233 qualified batters. Take a look at how the top 50 and bottom 50 in swing percentage have done against each over that time frame.

Read the rest on FoxSports.com.