FG on Fox: Tony Cingrani, Multiple Trick Pony
If you’re going to have one great pitch, it’s probably good to have a great fastball. It’s thrown more than all the other pitches combined, at least. But in today’s baseball, the benders and breakers get the oohs and aahs — and the appreciation of your coaching staff. Tony Cingrani has heard all about it on his way up to the big leagues.
As he progressed through the Reds’ system, the former college closer always heard from the coaching staff that he needed to work on his slider. They told him he needed the pitch to “get to the next level,” Cingrani told me this spring, but he disagreed. “I’m not going to lose the game on that one pitch.” So he worked on it in bullpens and on the side. And he led the minor leagues in ERA in 2013.
He made it to the big leagues on the back of that fastball, so it’s hard to disagree with his approach. What a fastball it is: according to PITCHf/x, only one pitcher threw more than 750 four-seam fastballs and got a better whiff rate on the pitch last year — Madison Bumgarner. The Reds’ lefty even got more whiffs with his four-seamer than gasaholics Matt Harvey and Max Scherzer. And by percentages, only Bartolo Colon threw the pitch more often last year. Of course he’s throwing it a ton, it’s working.
How has Cingrani thrived when everyone knows what is coming?
Read the rest at FoxSports.com.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
So THIS is the guy who’s been posting as Tony The Pony lol?
Seriously, very interesting article.
Would really rather read the article here….
People on the internet are so whiny. It’s 1 extra click…
Tough life there, John.
1 extra click. 1,000 more ads.
John’s just pointing out that a lot of people like to support fangraphs, because of it’s approach to baseball analysis. For everything that’s right about that approach, the exact opposite can be said for sites like Fox Sports.
That being said, Get Paid Fangraphs. You deserve it.
But, but, but, where else can I learn about who’s leading the Majors in RBI? Huh? And ‘Fantasy Points’? Also, Yardbarker and lots of articles about ladies.
And Eno gets paid a teacher’s salary. Some of you people need to get a freaking clue.
Nothing against him for getting paid by Foxsports, and maybe writers like Sarris writing there will bring up the quality of their articles.
That said, there is only a stub of an article here to comment on, so I can understand why people would choose to instead comment on their distaste for foxsports rather than about the article itself, which was as usual highly informative.
Saying that the ball comes from where his glove hand was isn’t and accurate picture of ‘hiding the ball’. In the gif, the baseball disappears behind his body, then his head, and then doesn’t appear again until his hand emerges from above his upper arm. The glove hand has nothing to do with that.
Wishing I was a better GIF-maker. In real-mo, the link is more obvious, IMO. The glove and ball definitely occupy the same space at different times, so it’s hard to focus on one place and pick up the release quickly. The fact that Doolittle, McGee and Cingrani all confirmed that this glove flip was part of their deception is meaningful to me.