Select Pitches from Trevor Bauer’s Debut
It’s probably true that basically any idiot can capture and render into GIF form video footage of a few pitches from Trevor Bauer’s much-anticipated major-league debut on Thursday. Only one such idiot, however, both (a) writes for FanGraphs and (b) has 15 free minutes on Friday evening.
This guy, is who.
So, without anything further in the way of preface, here are three select pitches from Bauer’s debut. (Note: for each pitch, both velocity and movement — horizontal and then vertical — are listed. League-average velocity/movement indicated in parentheses).
Curveball
Velocity, Movement: 79.3 mph (77.4), 0.8 in. gloveside (6.0), 4.3 in. drop (6.2)
Notes: This is one of two whiffs Bauer induced on his curve.
Changeup
Velocity, Movement: 82.3 mph (83.7), 6.1 in. armside (6.7), 7.0 in. rise (3.8)
Notes: This is the one swinging-strike Bauer induced on his changeup. (Note: for more on what “rise” means in terms of PITCHf/x, click here.)
Reverse Slider
Velocity, Movement: 84.9 mph (N/A), 4.1 in. armside (N/A), 3.8 in rise (N/A)
Notes: A “reverse slider” isn’t an actual thing the author had really heard of before today. Fortunately, it is something with which Harry Pavlidis is familiar and about which he corresponded briefly with Bauer himself on Twitter earlier today. If I understand it correctly, it has movement similar to a changeup, but is typically thrown with a higher velocity — although not as fast as a two-seam fastball, for example.
Here’s that reverse slider, thrown to Michael Bourn in the first inning for a called strike three:
And here’s sweet slow-motion footage of that same pitch:
Brooks Baseball was entirely useful in the composition of this post.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
So are you worried that he only managed to induce three swings and misses while giving up 4 hits off his offspeed stuff alone. Seems like the Braves weren’t fooled at all by his whole “pitch tunneling” philosophy. At times they seemed to just be sitting back and waiting for the offspeed stuff.
As for the “reverse slider,” I think how good it looks is more a function of the plane he started it on than anything special about the pitch. It’s more of just a fast changeup (similar velo differential to a guy like Jair Jurrjens), but he did an excellent job of starting than one on the corner and running it just off the plate. In a sense, the guy with the repertoire of pitches most comparable to Bauer was Maddux (except he didn’t name his different fastballs and changes different things). That looks like the quintessential Maddux change from the mid 90s though. Obviously Bauer doesn’t have anywhere near the command of Maddux (honestly who did?), but he does have a couple extra ticks of velo (though Maddux would hit the low 90s early in his career).
Actually looking more into it, I don’t think that is the pitch that Bauer calls his reverse slider. That pitch is supposed to be 88-91 according to Bauer. It looks more like a slightly harder version of the changeup he talks about running in on RHH.
http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120208&content_id=26613236&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb
His minor league whiff rate was over ten. I think he will show fine abiltiy to strike hitters out, but walks will almost certainly be a problem.
Minor leaguers would chase his curve in the dirt a ton or his fastball up out of the zone because they struggle to distinguish between the two pitches quickly enough. MLB hitters won’t have that problem. We saw just that against the Braves as they had no problem sitting back on the curve and driving it. He gave up more hits off the curve than he got whiffs. You can’t just look at stats when trying to figure out how prospects will transition to the majors.
That’s not to say he can’t still be a very good strikeout pitcher, but I think it’s more likely to be off of whiffs off the change or sequencing that catches guys looking than it will be off swings and misses at the curve (his main stikeout weapon in the minors).