Quick f/x: Max Scherzer

Max Scherzer is cool.  He throws hard, has two different-colored eyes, and uses PITCHf/x data to help improve his game.  He'll square off against Freddy Garcia tonight at Comerica with the series tied at one win apiece.  Since I've got the data right here (seriously, right here!), I'll start this off with some metrics for Scherzer's three pitches last year:

	#	%	Swing	Whiff	Zone	Chase	Watch	Ball	GB	pERA	pxERA
Fastball	2126	.649	.421	.167	.488	.255	.406	.356	.349	3.48	3.33
Changeup	655	.200	.576	.260	.333	.481	.234	.337	.510	3.84	4.77
Slider	494	.151	.447	.412	.429	.312	.373	.391	.557	-0.63	2.52
			.456	.226	.447	.320	.375	.357	.425	3.03	3.49

I used pitch ERA and expected pitch ERA in a THT post last week; I'm still fiddling around with them.  It's just run values formatted to look like an ERA, but the adjustment values are a somewhat off and I'm not sure how much it adds intuitively anyway.  Still, I'm going to be trying out some run value variants for a while.

Scherzer throws from a three-quarters motion that generates a lot of movement in on righties (about 7 and a half inches on his 93 mph fastball and about 9 and a half inches on his 83 mph changeup).  His low-to-mid 80s slider, despite being thrown the least of his three pitches, may actually be his best offering.  Batters saw over 50% fastballs in each count last year:

Another thing you may notice about Scherzer is that he'll really mix up the speed on his fastball.  He averaged just under 92 mph on 0-0 counts last year but 94.3 on 0-2.  According to my method of finding fastball velocity variability, Scherzer's fastball is one of the more inconsistent, velocity-wise, heaters in the game (average difference of 0.65 doesn't make the top ten list on the THT article, but it's solidly on the "inconsistent" side of the spectrum).  So if you see him in the low 90s early in the count, don't be surprised to see him an mph or two or three once he's ahead.

Scherzer's allowed a few extra flyballs and home runs this year (most of those homers coming in his season debut against the Yankees) and has also seen an increase in both his walk and strikeout rates.  Given the fly-balling ways of his fastball, he will give up a fair share of homers, but he's got the stuff to pick up a strikeout when he wants to.   

Quick f/x: Villarreal and Alburquerque

The Yankees will begin a series tonight in Detroit against the slumping Tigers. The brilliant Bartolo Colon is scheduled to take the mound against Justin Verlander. I did a preview of Verlander's stuff here on Opening Day, so check that out if you feel like it. So today, I'd instead like to look at two young relievers who have been impressing out of the Tiger bullpen recently: Brayan Villarreal (24 years old next week) and Al Alburquerque (24 until June). Some generic rate stats for both of them:

	#	K Rate	BBHBP Rate	Swing Rate	Whiff Rate	Zone Rate	GB Rate	RV+	xRV+
Villarreal	209	.245	.075	.455	.242	.431	.355	104	89
Alburquerque	133	.485	.121	.376	.460	.451	.538	201	204

The two "plus" stats at the end are the run values, actual and expected, that I typically use, except they're put on a 100 scale with 100 being the theoretical league average.  I say "theoretical" because these run values I'm using are out of date, so it's skewing the numbers a little bit.

Both guys could be defined as power-pitchers given that they miss bats (especially Alburquerque) and throw hard.  Villarreal slings it from a three-quarters slot, while Alburquerque comes from over the top.  They both throw a fastball, sinker, and slider and average 94-95 mph with their heaters.  Villarreal's slider is hard, averaging 87 mph.  Alburquerque's is at 84 and gets about two more inches of "drop" than Villarreal's does.  For now, it would appear that Villarreal's best pitch is his four-seamer and Alburquerque's is his slider.  Some metrics by pitch type:

		#	Swing Rate	Whiff Rate	Zone Rate	Chase Rate	Watch Rate	Ball Rate
Villarreal	FF	83	.506	.286	.446	.370	.324	.277
Villarreal	SI	48	.438	.095	.417	.357	.450	.396
Villarreal	SL	78	.410	.281	.423	.267	.394	.410
Alburquerque	FF	26	.423	.000	.462	.286	.417	.423
Alburquerque	SI	28	.286	.000	.607	.091	.588	.321
Alburquerque	SL	79	.392	.742	.392	.396	.613	.354

   

So while batters have made contact on every swing off of Alburquerque's fastball, they have missed 23 out of 31 times against his slider. Wow. Also notice that Alburquerque is throwing his slider a lot more than his fastball.  Positively Marmolian.  

Joaquin Benoit has not been good at all after signing a big contract to be the team's eighth inning pitcher (sound familiar?), and I can't help but wonder if these guys will start getting some of Benoit's innings soon.

Quick f/x: Drabek's curve

The Yankees will face Kyle Drabek this afternoon.  It will already be the third time they have faced Drabek in his young career, though this will be their first meeting at Yankee Stadium.  Drabek will pick up plenty of groundballs (55% since his major league debut) and whiffs (25% of swings), but he's struggled to get the ball over the plate (12% walk rate, 43% ball rate, 33% zone rate).  I'm going to make this pretty brief (you can read some more about Drabek here), but I would like to check in with Drabek's curveball, which looked to be his primary out-pitch when he came into the league.  He's not using it as much as he was last year.  Game by game pitch selections are below; there's a slight overall decrease since last year.  


click to enlarge

Drabek has also changed how he uses his curve.  Ponder these metrics from Drabek's 2010 starts compared to 2011:

	#	Zone Rate	Swing Rate	Chase Rate	Watch Rate
2010 Curveball	38	.237	.526	.448	.222
2011 Curveball	44	.364	.432	.393	.500

The sample size is small, but a trend is pretty clear - Drabek is throwing more curveballs over the plate than last year and is able to pick up more called strikes.  Also of note is that his curve averaged 84 mph last year and is only at 81 this year.  It looks like it's also getting some more vertical "drop," but I won't say too much on that before working out the calibration issues at Rogers Centre (they've been pretty severe, sometimes off by more than five inches).

Drabek's curve is by far his best pitch in terms of run values (both expected and actual), and since last year has garnered a swinging strike on 59% of swings (that kind of number would be up at the top of the league over a full season, but we only have a sample of 39 swings).  He seems to be pitching to contact more this year by throwing a much higher percentage of cut fastballs, but it's always good to have a power curve at your disposal when you want to use it.

Soriano's velocity is up

I think it would be fair to say that Rafael Soriano hasn't exactly made the best first impression in the Bronx.  Although his performance has been sub-par, one early concern about Soriano seems to have been alleviated:

The graph, which starts on March 31, 2011, would imply that for the most part, Soriano's velocity has been on the rise.  In yesterday's outing against the White Sox, Soriano was throwing harder than he had all season, hitting 95 on the gun with both his four-seam fastball and his sinker.  


Note that the cutters on the graph might just be four-seamers with some extra movement on them; I'll need to look at more data to make a more precise split.

Notes on Humber

The White Sox make their first visit to Yankee Stadium tonight, and on the mound will be Philip Humber.  Humber was part of the Mets' package in exchange for Johan Santana, and I think it would be fair to say that his career hasn't panned out exactly as many would have hoped.  He's had several stints in the big leagues dating back to 2006, and he hasn't had a whole lot of success.  After being taken third overall in the 2004 amateur draft, he posted good numbers in the Mets' minor league system; following the trade in January of 2008, Humber saw his strikeouts decrease and his walks increase, and after the 2009 season he was let go by the Twins.  He was picked up by the Royals and had a pretty good season for Triple A Omaha last year with much improved control (4.9% BBHBP rate, the best mark of his professional career).  Despite his improvements, the Royals released him and he was signed by the White Sox in January.  He's now in the rotation after starting the year as the team's long reliever, and he's expected to stay where he is until Jake Peavy returns from his arm injury.  

• Humber has worked mainly with four pitches this year.  He throws a four-seam fastball that's typically around 90-91, a curveball around 80, a changeup in the mid-80s, and a mid-80s cutter that he learned this winter.  The cutter looked more like a traditional slider in his most recent start.  Humber may also throw a few two-seam sinkers, but not many.
• He's about average in terms of getting ground balls (44% for his career, 43% this year).
• He gives up plenty of contact (16% whiff rate so far this year).  The four pitches I've ID'd are all below average at getting swings-and-misses.
• His control has been pretty good so far (fewer than 3 base-on-balls per 9 innings).  His career mark is 3.6.

Humber's track record isn't terribly impressive, but this chance with the White Sox might be what he needs to rejuvenate his career. 

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.

Colon and his two-seamer head to the rotation

With Phil Hughes injured/pitching poorly, the Yankees will give Bartolo Colon his first start in a Yankee uniform (and his first start overall since early 2009) this evening.  You could argue that Colon has actually been the team's best pitcher so far, as he's posted a team-leading 2.70 xFIP and 10.3 K/9 over 11 1/3 innings (4th most on the team) in long relief of Hughes.  He's shown four pitches so far, mainly relying on a combination of two and four-seam fastballs:

	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z
Two-seam fastball	89.9	-9.4	+5.0
Four-seam fastball	92.0	-4.8	+10.3
Slider	81.9	+2.0	+1.4
Changeup	82.1	-8.3	+6.7

The two-seam (45.7%) and four-seam (35.9%) have been his main weapons, though he's thrown a few sliders (12.5%) and changeups (6%).  Despite the 13 strikeouts, Colon's only garnered 13 swinging strikes - over 73 swings, that's a whiff rate of .178, which is below average.  Despite the small sample size, here are the whiff rates for Colon's pitches so far:

	Swings	Whiff Rate
Two-seam fastball	27	.074
Four-seam fastball	25	.320
Slider	12	.167
Changeup	9	.111
	73	.178

The four-seam fastball has looked very good in the whiff department, but in two-strike counts, it's been the two-seamer that's been most reliable for Colon.  A lot of his sinkers have been on the glove-side (inner to lefties, outer to righties) half of the plate, and he's been able to fool hitters with it in the strike zone with a watch rate of 50% (league average is around 37% for sinkers).  Of his 13 strikeouts, six of them have come on the spill-over, the "Greg Maddux pitch."  The graph below shows those six pitches (including some possibly generous calls), overlaid on an approximated strikezone.  Also, you can watch these videos to see some of Colon's strikeouts this season.

Colon has shown impressive command over his first three appearances, and if he pitches well, I wouldn't be surprised to see him hang around the rotation for a while given Hughes's injury and Ivan Nova's ineffectiveness.  I think the first big question is whether or not he will be able to hold up over a full start - questions about his durability were what landed him in the bullpen in the first place.  Also, will the spill-over fastball lose effectiveness as hitters see it more?  Will the free-swinging Blue Jays refuse to take it for a strike tonight?  I guess we'll find out.