Opening Day f/x: Verlander and Sabathia

Happy Opening Day, everybody!  The Yankees will face Detroit at home this afternoon in a match-up of two elite pitchers - Justin Verlander for the Tigers and CC Sabathia for the Yanks.

JUSTIN VERLANDER 

	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z
FF	95.6	-8.0	+9.7
CU	79.7	+6.9	-6.6
CH	85.9	-10.6	+5.3
SL	87.5	+1.5	+3.8

(Pitch movement and velocity is from road games only to strip out home park biases.  The four-seam fastball group may include a few two-seamers as well.) 

The first thing to know about Verlander is that he throws heat.  Intense heat, and lots of it.  He was second among starters in average velocity behind Ubaldo Jimenez.  Also, his four-seam fastball was thrown more than any other pitch in the majors last year save for Clayton Kershaw's four-seamer.  It also gets a ton of movement, tailing an average of 8 inches into a right handed batter with nearly 10 inches of positive vertical movement (relative to a theoretical spinless pitch).  While he uses his heater and power curveball the most, his changeup might actually be his most effective pitch.  Or his slider.  

	#	%	Swing Rate	Whiff Rate	Zone Rate	Ball Rate	Chase Rate	Watch Rate	RV/100	xRV/100
FF	2178	.587	.503	.161	.460	.315	.358	.326	-0.38	-0.43
CU	722	.195	.291	.229	.445	.438	.190	.583	-1.21	-0.79
CH	552	.149	.518	.343	.333	.366	.394	.234	-2.45	-0.47
SL	259	.070	.541	.357	.452	.309	.444	.342	-2.36	-2.21
	3717		.467	.215	.437	.346	.338	.367	-0.96	-0.61

	In Play	GB Rate	FB Rate	LD Rate	PU Rate	wOBAcon	HR/FB
FF	394	.363	.288	.236	.114	.366	.108
CU	84	.590	.217	.145	.048	.275	.000
CH	105	.461	.255	.186	.098	.221	.000
SL	40	.474	.184	.184	.158	.257	.143
	624	.416	.266	.213	.105	.323	.080

Despite all the heat, his fastball garners a league-average whiff rate, and his curve is below average.  He'll fool a lot of batters with it in the zone, though.  The changeup and slider look like good pitches.  The slider, which can get cutter-ish at times, is a relatively new addition to Justin's repertoire.

CC SABATHIA

	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z
FF	94.1	+4.4	+9.0
FT	93.0	+9.4	+7.2
CH	86.9	+8.4	+7.0
SL	81.6	-2.4	-0.9
CU	77.4	-3.2	-1.9

Sabathia works with a five-pitch mix - four and two-seam fastballs, a slurvey slider, a changeup, and a rare curveball.  The changeup is pretty hard, about seven miles per hour on average off of his 94 mph four-seamer.  The slider, on the other hand, is pretty slow, sitting in the low 80s with a significant amount of "drop."  The curve pretty much just looks like a slower slider. 

	#	%	Swing Rate	Whiff Rate	Zone Rate	Ball Rate	Chase Rate	Watch Rate	RV/100	xRV/100
FF	1585	.450	.423	.140	.470	.368	.260	.393	-1.08	-0.73
FT	565	.161	.510	.139	.515	.356	.318	.309	+0.88	-0.51
CH	604	.172	.593	.296	.450	.321	.434	.213	-1.92	-1.17
SL	543	.154	.523	.405	.390	.344	.453	.368	-3.91	-2.91
CU	222	.063	.131	.207	.550	.090	.482	.836	+0.82	+0.12
	3547		.462	.220	.467	.363	.324	.379	-1.15	-1.02

	In Play	GB Rate	FB Rate	LD Rate	PU Rate	wOBAcon	HR/FB
FF	291	.460	.260	.173	.107	.323	.107
FT	145	.593	.221	.143	.043	.395	.161
CH	159	.546	.276	.105	.072	.285	.095
SL	73	.569	.208	.111	.111	.222	.000
CU	13	.154	.538	.154	.154	.498	.000
	689	.510	.257	.145	.088	.325	.098

The slider is elite (one of the top 20 pitches in whiff rate for 2010 starters) and the changeup is still very good, though it's easier to hit than it was last year (2009 whiff rate ~40%).  The curve is pretty much only used to steal a called strike early in the count.  Both fastballs generate a good batted-ball profile, including plenty of grounders.  

Let's raise a glass (of white grape juice) to an awesome year of baseball in 2011! 

Spring stats for Colon and Nova

I love Spring Training stats because they typically say a lot about future regular season performance.  NOT!  Nonetheless, it's intriguing that Bartolo Colon and Ivan Nova have been pitching this well.  The lines:

	IP	H	R	HR	BBHBP	K	GB	FB	LD	PU
Bartolo Colon	15	10	4	1	2	17	20	8	5	1
Ivan Nova	14	8	2	1	4	7	29	9	3	0

I'm not supposed to read into Spring Training numbers ... but isn't the winner (or in this case, winners) of the rotation battle going to be based on the better spring stats?  Now you're confusing me.  Anyway, Colon has had a very good spring, with a 2.40 RA/9 and excellent strikeout and walk numbers.  The groundball rate (.588) over 34 balls in play is great, too.  Nova has a lower RA/9 (1.29), but has shown much worse strike zone dominance.  29 ground balls out of 41 balls in play (rate of .707) is superb.  I would be shocked if we don't see these two guys beginning the season in the rotation - in other words, I would be shocked if Freddy Garcia makes the rotation.      

Chamberlain's out longer than expected

The MRI results on Joba Chamberlain's left side showed an "injured oblique," and he's out indefinitely. He suffered the injury during Friday's appearance, and the Yankees initially thought he would be well enough to pitch sometime in the middle of this week - that's certainly not going to happen. Not that I can really trust YES's radar gun, but he hit 97 mph during Friday's appearance and was down to 89 by the end of the inning. His curve and slider were also significantly slower than they had been. Again, I don't know if this had anything to do with the injury; it could've just been the gun being weird.


The Yankees don't seem too concerned, but oblique injuries can be nasty.  Still, if Chamberlain had to miss a portion of the regular season, the bullpen would be just fine, considering Rafael Soriano and David Robertson are around for setup work.  

Yankees' whiff rates

I was curious to see what the hardest pitches to hit were in 2010, and I posted my findings on Beyond the Box Score a few days ago.  The only Yankee to make the list was CC Sabathia, whose slider had the 16th highest whiff rate in the 250+ swing department.  The tables below show how the Yankees fare in both the 100-249 and 250+ swing categories.  The column furthest to the left is league-wide rank.  The column furthest to the right is whiff rate compared to league average for pitch type, in which average = 100.  406 pitch types qualified for the 250+ bucket; 586 qualified for the 100-249 bucket.  


250+ SWINGS

Rank	Pitcher	Pitch Type	Whiff Rate	Whiff+
16	CC Sabathia	Slider	.405	129
30	A.J. Burnett	Curveball	.366	130
73	CC Sabathia	Changeup	.296	103
139	David Robertson	Four-seam fastball	.207	128
164	Phil Hughes	Four-seam fastball	.193	119
170	Phil Hughes	Cutter	.188	90
194	Mariano Rivera	Cutter	.173	83
197	Javier Vazquez	Four-seam fastball	.172	106
251	A.J. Burnett	Two-seam fastball	.146	120
262	CC Sabathia	Four-seam fastball	.140	87
266	CC Sabathia	Two-seam fastball	.139	114
281	A.J. Burnett	Four-seam fastball	.134	83
287	Joba Chamberlain	Four-seam fastball	.131	81
368	Javier Vazquez	Two-seam fastball	.094	77
397	Andy Pettitte	Four-seam fastball	.072	45

     
100-249 SWINGS

Rank	Pitcher	Pitch Type	Whiff Rate	Whiff+
36	Andy Pettitte	Slider	.399	127
40	Joba Chamberlain	Slider	.394	126
62	Javier Vazquez	Changeup	.368	128
107	David Robertson	Curveball	.324	115
199	Javier Vazquez	Curveball	.262	93
284	Javier Vazquez	Slider	.216	69
291	Phil Hughes	Curveball	.213	76
326	Andy Pettitte	Curveball	.196	70
385	Boone Logan	Four-seam fastball	.168	104
500	Sergio Mitre	Two-seam fastball	.117	96
569	Ivan Nova	Four-seam fastball	.077	47
573	Dustin Moseley	Two-seam fastball	.073	60
584	Andy Pettitte	Two-seam fastball	.045	37

A few things that caught my eye ...

• Hitters didn't have too much trouble making contact with Pettitte's fastball, but his breaking pitch was excellent.  Most people call it a cutter, but it had enough movement and velocity difference from his fastball to be a fairly typical slider, so at least for this analysis, that's what I'll call it.    
• Chamberlain's slider might not be as insane as it used to be, but it's still awesome.  
• Mariano is definitely declining in the swing-and-miss department, but that's not really his thing anyway.  Consider me unconcerned.
• Hughes' curveball wasn't the out-pitch we were looking for.  His fastball was only a bit easier to hit, and relative to pitch-type averages, the fastball was a *lot* more impressive.
• I have to show some respect for Boone Logan and his slider.  Boone's slide-piece doesn't make the cut since it was only swung against 83 times, but on those swings, it garnered a whiff rate of .542.  Very impressive.

Banuelos, with my own eyes

Earlier tonight, many Yankee fans got their first live look at Manuel Banuelos.  I'm included in that group.  He looked great, striking out three over two scoreless innings while walking one and giving up a double.  I saw three pitches from him - a fastball (pretty sure they're all four-seamers, but not positive), a changeup, and a curveball.  I don't really want to put a ton of trust in the radar gun (especially since it gave some readings in the 60s), but it had Banuelos ranging 93-95 in his first inning and 89-93 in his second.  The changeup was in the low 80s, usually 82 or 83, and the curveball was at 78.  Here are some results from his 29 pitch outing:

	#	Ball	Called Strike	Whiff	Foul	In Play
FF	20	9	4	5	1	1
CH	6	1	1	2	0	2
CU	3	0	1	0	1	1
	29	10	5	7	2	4

Banuelos got three groundouts and gave up a line drive double with the fastball.  It was a pretty soft line drive off a pitch in on the hands of a righty batter.

Basically, he was pretty awesome.  All of the typical Spring Training disclaimers apply.  And the typical pitch-tracking-from-television disclaimers, too.