Daily Notes for March 19th

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Select Televised Games
2. Largely Inconsequential Table: Pitchers with Three Fastballs
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: San Diego Radio

Select Televised Games
Milwaukee at Texas | 16:05 ET
Very famous Japaniranian Yu Darvish makes his third start of the spring today, according to MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan. Here’s his (i.e. Darvish’s, not T.R Sullivan’s) line so far: 2/2 G/GS, 5.0 IP, 6 K, 4 BB, 0 HR.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Texas Television.

Los Angeles AL at Colorado | 16:10 ET
Right-hander Juan Nicasio will start this game for Colorado, reports MLB.com’s Greg Johns. Making his MLB debut in 2011, Nicasio averaged 94.0 mph on his fastball and posted an 89 xFIP- and 1.4 WAR in 71.2 innings. His spring-training line is equally encouraging: 7.0 IP, 5 K, 1 BB, 0 HR.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Los Angeles Television.

Largely Inconsequential Table: Pitchers with Three Fastballs
The following table, which is of little consequence, is a record of every pitcher from 2011 who (a) faced at least 50 batters and (b) threw three different fastballs more than 5% of the time each, according to PITCHf/x.

The impetus for the creation of this table comes from watching Braves right-hander Cory Gearrin on Sunday. Gearrin, in case you’re unaware, throws either a two-seamer or slider on basically every pitch. The two offerings look somewhat similar (on television, at least) until the moment when the relevant break occurs — inside to a right-handed batter for the two-seamer, and away from a right-handed batter for the slider. The combination was effective for Gearrin on Sunday, leading to two strikeouts in the only inning he threw.

It occurred to me that this is not unlike what the very excellent Roy Halladay does, except that Halladay has three different fastballs: a two-seamer, a cutter, and a four-seamer. (Note: Brooks Baseball doesn’t have Halladay as throwing a four-seamer, instead classifying more of both two-seamers and cutters. The point still remains, however: he has fastballs that break in different directions). Because all three pitches are generally thrown at a similar velocity, but also all move in different ways (especially the cutter and two-seamer), it would seem that possessing three different fastballs would represent an advantage for a pitcher, one that would show up either in his peripherals or in an ability to suppress BABIP.

In fact, this doesn’t appear to be the case — or, at least not in the sample at which I looked. According to the relevant custom leaderboard, there appear to be 63 pitchers who both (a) faced at least 50 batters and (b) threw a four-seamer, cutter, and either two-seamer or sinker at least 5% of the time each. The average xFIP- for this group is 101. The average BABIP is .287 — rather close to the 2011 league-average BABIP of .291. Indeed, the existence of a three-fastball arsenal doesn’t appear to create any sort of specific advantage for pitchers in and of itself.

In any case, here’s the aforementioned table. Note that Spread represents the degree to which a pitcher throws his three fastballs with equivalent frequency (where a lower Spread represents greater similarity). So, for example, the average frequency with which Carlos Zambrano throws each of his three fastballs is 24.3%. His four-seamer is 2.7% lower than that average; his cutter is 1.8% lower than that average; and his sinker is 4.6% above that average. The average of the absolute values of those three figures (-2.7%, -1.8%, and 4.6%) is 3.0%.

Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: San Diego Radio
Recently, we released the results of our television broadcaster rankings — itself the product of reader crowdsourcing that started in late November. Now, FanGraphs is asking readers to rate the radio broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs (Click here for more on this project.)

Rate other teams: Washington / Toronto / Texas / Tampa Bay / Seattle / San Francisco.