Kris Medlen’s Repertoire, Animated

Anyone who’s made his way to these electronic pages is likely well-aware that Kris Medlen has been excellent of late — is, in fact, the majors’ best pitcher over the last month by most relevant measures. Nor, really, has Medlen been more excellent of late than he was on Monday afternoon against the Colorado Rockies (box), during which game he recorded 12 strikeouts and zero walks en route to conceding just a lone, unearned run in nine innings.

While our Ben Duronio provided entirely able analysis in re Medlen just last week, it occurs to the present author that the People could tolerate more in the way of Medlen-related analysis.

Below is a more or less competent examination — accompanied by more than less animated GIFs — of Medlen’s repertoire.

Changeup

While it might be customary to begin a discussion of a pitcher’s repertoire with his fastball, Medlen’s changeup is his best offering — has, in fact, been among the best in the league this year. Among all pitchers who’ve thrown at least 50 of them (i.e. changeups) this season, Medlen’s has prevented the most runs on a rate basis.

To wit, the league’s top-10 pitchers, by runs above average per 100 changeups thrown:

Name	Team	IP	% Thrown	Total	Runs/Avg	Runs/100
Kris Medlen	Braves	104.0	20.5%	295	14.1	4.8
Yovani Gallardo	Brewers	173.1	1.9%	56	2.6	4.7
Fernando Rodney	Rays	62.1	35.1%	329	15.3	4.7
Huston Street	Padres	36.0	17.3%	89	3.4	3.8
Danny Duffy	Royals	27.2	10.9%	57	2.0	3.6
A.J. Griffin	Athletics	51.2	14.9%	125	4.4	3.5
Freddy Garcia	Yankees	93.2	9.6%	148	4.9	3.3
Andrew Cashner	Padres	36.2	16.6%	107	3.5	3.3
Chris Tillman	Orioles	61.0	14.7%	155	4.7	3.1
Juan Cruz	Pirates	35.2	12.2%	82	2.4	3.0

Medlen has thrown the pitch about 20% of the time this year, nor did Monday’s start represent any sort of departure from that usage pattern: 25 of Medlen’s 111 pitches (22.5%) against Colorado were changeups. As Ben Duronio recently noted, it’s a pitch he’s willing to throw to both opposite- and same-handed batters: of the 41 total pitches Medlen threw to left-handed batters, 11 were changeups (26.8%); of the 70 total pitches he threw to righties, 14 of them were changes (20.0%). This likely represents a departure from the way many other pitchers utilize the change.

Here’s something pretty close to an “average” changeup for Medlen — to strike out Carlos Gonzalez in the ninth — both in terms of velocity (80 mph) and movement (8.3 inches of armside run, 6.2 inches of rise relative to a ball unaltered by air current/spin).

While the standard deviation of the velocity on Medlen’s change is quite small (he threw all 25 of them between 78 and 81 mph on Monday), Medlen will occasionally alter the amount of armside run it features. Here’s an example — to Dexter Fowler in the sixth inning — of a change with a little more run (ca. 10 inches) and a little more drop (about 2-3 more inches than usual):

And here’s another, with less run (just five inches) for a called strike three to Chris Nelson in the seventh:

Two-Seam Fastball

In some cases, pitchers who are reported as having a two-seam fastball by PITCHf/x are actually throwing just a single fastball that effs with the system’s pitch-classification algorithm. In the case of Medlen, however, there really do appear to be separate pitches, as noted by this by chart from Medlen’s Monday start:

And, more importantly, by Medlen himself:

@j2mclaughlin1 2 seam. More room for error. Plus my change up moves the same so it looks similar to the hitter.

— Kris Medlen (@KrisMedlen54) February 14, 2012

Medlen’s usage of the two-seamer, more than with any other pitch, is dependent on the handedness of the batter — or, at least this was the case on Monday. Of the 41 pitches he threw to left-handed Rockies batters, only 11 were classified as two-seamers (26.8%); meanwhile, about 44% (or, 31) of 70 total pitches to right-handers were two-seamers.

None of the two-seam fastballs thrown by Medlen on Monday induced a swinging-strike — and he’s posted just a 3.2% swinging-strike rate on the pitch all season relative to the league-average of about 5%, according to Harry Pavlidis). Still, as Medlen notes, it’s possible that part of his changeup’s effectiveness is its resemblance to this pitch.

Here’s a the most “average” two-seamer (in terms of movement) thrown by Medlen on Monday — to Wilin Rosario in the first:

Four-Seam Fastball

According to Brooks Baseball, Medlen has thrown his four-seamer almost three times as often against right- than left-handed batters (13% vs. 5%). Against those right-handed batters, he’s thrown it almost twice as often while ahead in the count (17%) than while behind (10%). In short, the four-seamer is a pitch that Medlen will throw rarely — but when he does throw it, he’s normally throwing it against a right-hander and looking for a strikeout.

Here he is doing all those things at once, on an 0-2 count against Andrew Brown in the eighth:

Curveball

Like most of his other pitches, the curve is one that Medlen will throw to both right- and left-handed batters. Of the 23 he threw on Monday, eight of them were to left-handers (or, 19.5% of all the pitches he threw to left-handers); to right-handed batters, he threw 15 curves, or 21.4% of all the pitches he threw to righties. Generally speaking, Medlen’s curve is pretty hittable in the zone: opposing batters have a 98.2% contact rate on curves at which they offer within the zone against him. Related to that is this: while the average major-league curve has a called-strike rate of ca. 45%, Medlen’s is about half that this season, at ca. 21%.

To combat the hit-ability of the pitch, Medlen goes outside the zone with it more often than other pitchers. Here is he doing that to Dexter Fowler in the third inning, with an 0-2 count:

Data from Brooks Baseball was helpful in the compsition of this piece.