Daily Notes: Darvish to Make Televised Start Today
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Select Televised Games
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Pitchers
3. Video: Yu Darvish’s First Start, Lightly Annotated
Select Televised Games
St. Louis at New York Nationals | 13:10 ET
Both Adam Wainwright and Maikel Cleto are expected to pitch in this game for the Cardinals, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch reports. The former (i.e. Wainwright) is interesting for obvious reasons; the latter (i.e. Cleto), because his fastball averaged 97.9 mph during the 4.1 major-league innings he threw last season.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: New York Television.
Texas at Cleveland | 16:05 ET
Yu Darvish is expected to make his second start of the spring, according to MLB.com’s Greg Johns. Here’s the line from his first start: 2.0 IP, 8 TBF, 3 K, 0 BB, O HR, 2 GO, 0 AO.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Cleveland Television.
SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Pitchers
Pitching Leaderboard
Here is the SCOUT pitching leaderboard for spring training (ST) thus far. SCOUT represents an attempt to derive something meaningful from small samples and is the average of a player’s standard deviations from the ST mean in (regressed) strikeout and walk rate. (Click here for more on SCOUT.)
| Name | Org | G | GS | IP | BF | xK% | xBB% | Kz | BBz | SCOUT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madison Bumgarner | SF | 2 | 2 | 5.2 | 20 | 21.5% | 5.2% | 0.42 | 0.00 | 0.21 |
| Wade LeBlanc | MIA | 2 | 1 | 6.1 | 19 | 20.9% | 5.0% | 0.35 | 0.04 | 0.19 |
| Vance Worley | PHI | 2 | 2 | 6.0 | 24 | 20.3% | 5.2% | 0.28 | 0.01 | 0.15 |
| Roy Halladay | PHI | 2 | 2 | 5.0 | 21 | 20.0% | 5.0% | 0.25 | 0.04 | 0.14 |
| Francisco Liriano | MIN | 2 | 2 | 5.0 | 18 | 20.3% | 5.2% | 0.29 | 0.00 | 0.14 |
| Felix Hernandez | SEA | 2 | 2 | 7.0 | 25 | 19.5% | 5.0% | 0.19 | 0.05 | 0.12 |
| Craig Stammen | WSH | 2 | 5.0 | 19 | 19.6% | 5.0% | 0.20 | 0.04 | 0.12 | |
| Luis Perez | TOR | 3 | 5.0 | 17 | 19.8% | 5.2% | 0.23 | 0.00 | 0.11 | |
| Brian Matusz | BAL | 2 | 2 | 6.0 | 27 | 19.3% | 5.0% | 0.17 | 0.05 | 0.11 |
| Cristhian Martinez | ATL | 4 | 6.0 | 24 | 19.6% | 5.2% | 0.21 | 0.01 | 0.11 |
Notes
• The sample for the SCOUT leaderboard includes the 127 pitchers who’d thrown at least 5.0 spring-training innings as of Monday afternoon.
• On the one hand, that’s not very many innings.
• On the other hand, the fact that Madison Bumgarner, Roy Halladay, and Felix Hernandez — i.e. all pitchers that are known to be very good — the fact that they appear in the top 10 suggests that, perhaps, this isn’t an entirely meaningless exercise.
Pitching Laggardboard
By way of curiosity, here are the 10 worst pitchers so far, per SCOUT:
| Name | Org | G | GS | IP | BF | xK% | xBB% | Kz | BBz | SCOUT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Danks | CWS | 2 | 2 | 5.0 | 29 | 15.7% | 6.2% | -0.24 | -0.20 | -0.22 |
| Zach Duke | HOU | 2 | 1 | 7.0 | 33 | 15.2% | 5.5% | -0.29 | -0.05 | -0.17 |
| Josh Beckett | BOS | 3 | 3 | 9.0 | 35 | 15.7% | 5.6% | -0.25 | -0.08 | -0.16 |
| Derek Lowe | CLE | 2 | 1 | 5.0 | 23 | 15.8% | 5.6% | -0.24 | -0.07 | -0.15 |
| Jeff Suppan | SD | 2 | 1 | 5.0 | 25 | 15.5% | 5.4% | -0.26 | -0.03 | -0.14 |
| Austin Hyatt | PHI | 2 | 5.0 | 21 | 16.0% | 5.6% | -0.21 | -0.07 | -0.14 | |
| Ted Lilly | LAD | 2 | 2 | 5.0 | 24 | 15.6% | 5.4% | -0.25 | -0.03 | -0.14 |
| Kevin Correia | PIT | 2 | 2 | 5.0 | 20 | 16.1% | 5.6% | -0.19 | -0.07 | -0.13 |
| Matt Yourkin | SF | 2 | 5.0 | 23 | 15.8% | 5.4% | -0.24 | -0.03 | -0.13 | |
| Zeke Spruill | ATL | 4 | 5.0 | 25 | 15.5% | 5.2% | -0.26 | 0.01 | -0.13 |
Video: Yu Darvish’s First Start, Lightly Annotated
Here’s video from Yu Darvish’s first spring-training start. Per Brooks Baseball, Darvish threw five different pitches over the course of his appearance. In order of frequency, they were as follows: four-seam fastball (13), slider (10), cutter (6), curveball (4), and two-seam fastball (3). The three strikeouts appear to come on the slider (0:07), the curve (0:52), and then the slider* again (2:17).
*See comments below regarding this last pitch.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Eh, the last strikeout is definitely not a slider- it’s a changeup/split/forkball. So I think he probably threw 6 different pitches in the game.
He also supposedly threw 2 different CBs. One slow cruve and another harder tighter curve.
Klaw (who was in attendance I believe) had him throwing 7 distinct pitches.
I’m willing to believe that. I was parroting the PITCHf/x classifications.
And yes, notably, PITCHf/x has that last pitch at 88 mph with 5 inches of arm-side run and basically 0 inches of rise/drop. That does sound more like a splitter-thing than slider.
“I’m willing to believe that. I was parroting the PITCHf/x classifications.”
I missed the period the first time I read that, so that it was “I’m will to believe that I was parroting the PITCHf/x classifications.” It means a slightly different thing and amused me.
Such an erotic pitch
Carson, just curious about PITCHf/x … How does it classify Padilla’s Eephus/CB?
PITCHf/x is great but it’s biggest weakness is classification error IMO.
Is that the one they call the shuuto?