Yankees pitch metrics, early 2011 edition

Somehow, we're already five weeks into the season.  I've re-classified all of the pitches thrown by Yankees up to this point - or, more accurately, those that were picked up by the PITCHf/x cameras (only a handful of pitches are missing).  Some pitchers have pitches that cluster pretty easily - for example, Mariano Rivera only throws two pitches, one that cuts and one that tails, so it's easy to distinguish his pitch types.  Joba Chamberlain and Lance Pendleton, who have both shown four pitches this year, also have pretty easy pitch clusters.  But other pitchers, like Freddy Garcia and Rafael Soriano, are not so easy to work with.  Garcia's extremely difficult as his four-seamer runs in with his two-seamer, his change looks like his split, and some splits might be labeled as sliders.  For Soriano, his four-seam fastball blends in with his cut fastball.  So, remember that there are always going to be some classification issues, though I do feel pretty confident in most of my IDs here.  With that in mind, I'd like to roll out some early season pitch data for the Yankees.  First off, average fastball velocities (minimum of 10 pitches to avoid small-sample calibration errors):

Rank	Pitcher	Pitch Type	mph
1	Rafael Soriano	Sinker	94.0
2	Joba Chamberlain	Fastball	93.8
3	A.J. Burnett	Sinker	92.8
4	CC Sabathia	Fastball	92.8
5	Bartolo Colon	Fastball	92.6
6	A.J. Burnett	Fastball	92.4
7	Boone Logan	Sinker	92.1
8	David Robertson	Fastball	92.0
9	Rafael Soriano	Fastball	91.8
10	CC Sabathia	Sinker	91.8
11	Luis Ayala	Fastball	91.7
12	Boone Logan	Fastball	91.7
13	Ivan Nova	Fastball	91.6
14	Luis Ayala	Sinker	91.4
15	Mariano Rivera	Sinker	90.9
16	Bartolo Colon	Sinker	90.7
17	Mariano Rivera	Cutter	90.5
18	Phil Hughes	Fastball	89.2
19	Buddy Carlyle	Fastball	89.1
20	Lance Pendleton	Fastball	88.4
21	Freddy Garcia	Sinker	87.1
22	Freddy Garcia	Fastball	86.7

Who's been throwing the ball over the plate?  The minimum for this strikezone% leaderboard is 60 pitches:

Rank	Pitcher	Pitch Type	Zone Rate
1	Bartolo Colon	Sinker	.594
2	Boone Logan	Fastball	.576
3	David Robertson	Fastball	.510
4	Joba Chamberlain	Fastball	.504
5	CC Sabathia	Fastball	.500
6	Freddy Garcia	Sinker	.487
7	A.J. Burnett	Fastball	.475
8	CC Sabathia	Slider	.472
9	Rafael Soriano	Slider	.471
10	Rafael Soriano	Fastball	.464
11	Mariano Rivera	Cutter	.462
12	Phil Hughes	Fastball	.460
13	Freddy Garcia	Slider	.444
14	Ivan Nova	Fastball	.440
15	CC Sabathia	Changeup	.427
16	Bartolo Colon	Fastball	.418
17	Freddy Garcia	Fastball	.408
18	Ivan Nova	Curveball	.357
19	Joba Chamberlain	Slider	.352
20	CC Sabathia	Sinker	.341
21	Freddy Garcia	Splitter	.299
22	A.J. Burnett	Curveball	.270

Remember, sometimes it's good to not be in the strikezone.  I like seeing Burnett's curveball at the bottom of this list because when A.J.'s right, he's keeping his curveball low and getting empty swings.  Conversely, I don't like seeing the Sabathia and Soriano sliders so high on this list.  In a similar vein, the next leaderboard shows ball% (called balls per pitch), which factors in the hitter's ability to take pitches out of the zone.  This one's sorted from lowest to highest:

Rank	Pitcher	Pitch Type	Ball Rate
1	Joba Chamberlain	Slider	.268
2	Mariano Rivera	Cutter	.277
3	Bartolo Colon	Sinker	.288
4	CC Sabathia	Slider	.299
5	CC Sabathia	Changeup	.321
6	David Robertson	Fastball	.325
7	A.J. Burnett	Fastball	.332
8	Boone Logan	Fastball	.333
9	Phil Hughes	Fastball	.336
10	CC Sabathia	Fastball	.345
11	Rafael Soriano	Fastball	.348
12	Freddy Garcia	Slider	.361
13	CC Sabathia	Sinker	.371
14	Rafael Soriano	Slider	.371
15	Freddy Garcia	Sinker	.395
16	Ivan Nova	Fastball	.402
17	Freddy Garcia	Splitter	.403
18	Bartolo Colon	Fastball	.408
19	Joba Chamberlain	Fastball	.412
20	Ivan Nova	Curveball	.429
21	A.J. Burnett	Curveball	.454
22	Freddy Garcia	Fastball	.461

Well, it looks A.J. isn't getting batters to swing on that curveball out of the zone as much as we might like.  Joba's slider has the good combination of both a low ball rate and a low zone rate (lots of chases out of the zone).   

And to wrap this up with my favorite metric, a look at the whiff rates (swinging strikes per swing) on the team, with a modest minimum of 25 swings:

Rank	Pitcher	Pitch Type	Whiff Rate
1	Joba Chamberlain	Slider	.475
2	Freddy Garcia	Splitter	.447
3	A.J. Burnett	Curveball	.395
4	CC Sabathia	Changeup	.382
5	CC Sabathia	Sinker	.296
6	Bartolo Colon	Fastball	.271
7	CC Sabathia	Slider	.271
8	Freddy Garcia	Slider	.265
9	David Robertson	Curveball	.258
10	A.J. Burnett	Changeup	.207
11	Ivan Nova	Curveball	.207
12	Rafael Soriano	Slider	.188
13	Rafael Soriano	Fastball	.179
14	Boone Logan	Fastball	.143
15	Mariano Rivera	Cutter	.142
16	David Robertson	Fastball	.132
17	CC Sabathia	Fastball	.129
18	Lance Pendleton	Fastball	.120
19	Joba Chamberlain	Fastball	.118
20	A.J. Burnett	Fastball	.103
21	Ivan Nova	Fastball	.099
22	Phil Hughes	Cutter	.080
23	Bartolo Colon	Sinker	.072
24	Freddy Garcia	Sinker	.071
25	Phil Hughes	Fastball	.036

Joba's slider looks really, really good.  Also, hello Freddy Garcia!  That pitch (labeled here as a splitter, though there may be changeups or sliders included in this group as well) has done a very good job at fooling hitters so far this year.

For context, refer to this post with league averages for these metrics by pitch type.

Sabathia's velocity against the Orioles

The YES radar gun has been improved since 2009 (no more 95 mph curveballs), but it was definitely giving some funky readings during tonight's game against the Orioles.  In the 8th inning, it had CC Sabathia throwing at 98-99 mph, which is well out of his normal range.  PITCHf/x data has him throwing harder than usual, but nothing like the YES gun:

	#	Min	Average	Max
Fastball	48	90.8	93.6	95.9
Sinker	18	90.3	92.6	96.0
Slider	23	79.6	81.8	83.0
Changeup	13	85.3	86.3	87.0
Curveball	1	77.4	77.4	77.4

Note that Baltimore is running faster than most parks and, as of last week, was on average about 0.8 mph faster than Yankee Stadium.


UPDATED: For some more context, compare today's numbers from those over his first four starts:

	#	Min	Average	Max
Fastball	209	90.3	92.7	94.9
Sinker	60	90.1	91.9	93.6
Slider	73	78.5	81.1	83.2
Changeup	71	84.0	85.8	87.5
Curveball	27	76.4	78.4	79.7

Sabathia's curveball classification can be kind of weird, as his curve has virtually the same movement as his slider and doesn't have a whole lot of velocity difference.  But looking at the numbers for the fastballs and changeup, I would say that Sabathia's velocity wasn't a whole lot different today from the rest of the season.

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!