Felix Hernandez and His Fastball, Part 2
Today, moving on from yesterday where we looked how Felix’s overall fastball percentage moved as the game wore on. This time, I drop the overall view and instead treat each pitch number separately to get a sense of when (besides early in the game) that Felix dials up the heater. Included in this graph is a red bar marking his overall average for all pitches and a rolling 5-pitch average to give you a more smoothed sense of the trend.
We see that Felix reaches his overall average at about the 20-pitch mark into a game and then hovers around that mark for the remainder of the start, with some obvious variation. It is still a clear downward trend over time.
I decided to zoom in on those first 20 pitches, where Felix throws a fastball just under 80% of the time. Take a breath and soak that in first; on average, 16 of the first 20 pitches that Hernandez offers at the beginning of a game are a fastball. That’s predictability to an extreme and if I can spot it, you better be sure that opposing advanced scouts can spot it.
Here I made a time line of Felix’s 2008 season and in blue you will see the percentage of fastballs thrown in the first 20 pitches for each start. Again the horizontal red line marks Felix’s overall fastball ratio and I have included a horizontal green line to mark Felix’s average fastball ratio amongst this sample.
Next time, I will take a look at the games where Felix does exhibit some differences in pitch selection at the onset.
Matthew Carruth is a software engineer who has been fascinated with baseball statistics since age five. When not dissecting baseball, he is watching hockey or playing soccer.
This graph basically confirms my worries—Felix is not only throwing too many fastballs, he’s throwing too many fastballs early. Scouts and hitters know this, and this could explain why he gets in so many of those maddening early-inning jams.
Hopefully the new M’s coaching staff will nip this trend at the bud.
It’d be fun to see how opponents are hitting vs pitch count. It seems to me that he ended up in a lot of early trouble, then “settled down” (aka, mixed his pitches and didn’t get shelled).
For his career, opponents tag Felix for a .381 OBP in the 1st, which is .050 higher than any other inning. He doesn’t locate his fastball particularly well anyway, so throwing it early and often can’t be defended, especially considering what he’s “saving” in his arsenal.
I would think his fastball would be easier for batters to figure out than his off-speed stuff. Other starters with sub-par secondary pitches have that problem, and I understand why so many of them hesitate to show their curves, sliders and change-ups early in the game.
That shouldn’t be an issue for a guy with his junk.
I would love to know pitch F/x data on his fastball. He induces a huge amount of groundballs. The reason I bring this up is, what pitch is Brandon Webb going to throw? What pitch is Chien-Ming Wang going to throw? Scouts, batters, managers all know, yet they go to the well each and every time – with success. Felix must have some decent sink on his fastball to get the GB rate he does each season. Maybe this is the approach he is going for?
Jeff Sullivan has been looking at this as well, recently delving into the pitch f/x side. See the following:
http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2009/1/18/727629/i-can-t-stop-talking-about
http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2009/1/14/724472/continuing-from-this-after
http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2009/1/14/720690/more-on-felix-s-fastball
Do we have any similar data on other pitchers to compare this too? I would love to compare these graphs to ones for Randy Johnson or Greg Maddux.
I do, but I am not sure it’s all that relevant. Felix has four quality pitches, which is why his over reliance on establishing a fastball is so frustrating. Johnson is 95% fastball/slider and Maddux is 90% fastball/changeup.
High percentages of fastballs from those two are not comparable. They also have fastball command, in the case of Maddux, extraordinary command, which Felix doesn’t even come close to approaching.
If Felix could locate his fastball well, than it wouldn’t be an issue and he probably would benefit from leaning heavy on the fastball the first time through the lineup. But he doesn’t and the simplest and easiest remedy for the time being is to stop being predictable about when he throws it.
It’s just so odd to see a pitcher like him (stuff wise) get pumped full of hits like he has a Joe Mays fastball! You guys might be onto something here… After his rookie season and minor league success, I thought he would be the #1 starter in baseball by now, or at the very worst, Roy Oswalt light.
Matt B, you forget that he’s only 22 years old. Some players are just getting drafted out of college, and a lot of pitchers are getting to Double and Triple A by then. Felix has had 3 complete seasons in the majors.
He’ll learn, and he’ll dominate. Simple. At least I hope =\
We think he’s 22 anyway! While he doesn’t look ‘old’ or aged (like Lebron James) you never really know… I have been waiting for a consistent breakout season…. Not just a dominant month or two…