Brian Bannister’s new approach

It’s nice to see that Bannister is benefiting from PITCHf/x. Another outcome might be that he can see what is wrong, but is powerless to fix it.

Great article.  I love how being good at math - or really, just actually CARING about the math - is going to allow this guy to pitch for probably 5 to 10 more years than he otherwise would have, and will end up earning him $50 million more than he would have made if he continued to stick to his prior philosophy and was a 5.00+ ERA pitcher.

I took a look at Banny when he faced the Sox a couple of weeks ago.
What strikes me most about what he’s doing now, is that he is throwing those 4 different pitches at any given time, and he keeps them in the zone, which he can do because the batter is probably having a hard time figuring out which is which.  He doesn’t have overpowering stuff but he’s “wild in the zone” in that the batter may know it’s going to be a strike, but it’s probably impossible to read the break.
The added benefit is that while he’s not trying to get K’s, his K rate is still above his career average.

I wonder if Poz has stopped smiling yet?

I was looking at the run values on Fangraphs the other day and noticed that his FB and CU are the only two pitches showing a positive run value.  What is being classified as a FC and SL there have a negative effect.  The possibility exists for Banny to go another step and attempt to figure out what he is doing differently on the pitches classified as FC and SL to make them come out more like his FB.

Another area that could show improvement for him is adjusting his approach for lefties and righties.  I can’t remember which but it seems to me that he should be favoring the CU to one and the CH to the other.  He does quite well against righties as it is now though.

One last thing about Banny and Pitch/FX.  We finally have a pitcher that may log where he is trying to throw the ball and P/FX is recording where it actually wound up.  That could be some pretty powerful stuff.

FG is using the raw pitch classifications from Gameday. Using my own classifications (and inverting the values since FG uses positive RV as “good for pitchers” instead of the negative/actual value)

Cutter 0.647
Fastball 0.609
Change 2.901
Curveball -0.994

He only threw four sliders, but those were worth more than 5 runs per 100 pitches, as if that means anything at all.

That power change up is quite the pitch.

The cutter/sinker combo is tough to beat. For example, in a game I’d rather forget, in the 2008 playoffs against the Dodgers, Carlos Zambrano was working both sides of the plate with both pitches. It was fantastic. The defense behind him was another story.

Or is this simply an intangible finally being tangiblized?

Don’t die Matt. Just listen to this interview/watch the slide show

http://www2.tbo.com/static/photo_gallery/james-shields-art-change/

Excellent post, Harry. I have nothing to add because you were thorough, as usual.

Kyle, any thoughts on the Shields video?

Alex, that’s a good question, or two. I can look at both, to some extent. I’m looking at the hitf/x data for Banny now, and it has 41 BIP.

In descending order of vertical launch angle
(type, result, angle, sob)
Pop, F2, 86, 76
Pop, F2, 77, 86
Pop, F6, 54, 88
Pop, F6, 51, 71
Fly, F8, 50, 79
Fly, F7, 45, 93
Fly, F7, 44, 96
Fly, F8, 43, 94
Fly, F7, 43, 94
Fly, F8, 39, 92

and so on until 24 degrees. THen it jumps to 11 degrees and line drives, and then grounders around 6 (there is a small overlap). No hits on pops or flies in this data, by any definition. I’ll see what the gameday batted ball types say about Banny, too.

Maddux was known for his pronated cutter.  Roy Halladay basically just throws Cutters, 2 Seams, and Curveballs now.  Remember when he was a 4 seam, hammer knucklecurve guy?

Seems like there’s plenty of successful cutter + 2 seam pitchers (or pseudo 2 seam with his power change in Banny’s case) so I don’t understand why scouts would discourage Bannister to throw the cutter.

John Danks also picked up a cutter last season and had a great year. Phil Hughes has a had a lot of success since he started throwing it late last season. Anecdotes, I know, but it has seemed to work. But of course, the only guys who throw it are the ones who are able to throw it well, so you rarely see a guy start throwing a “bad” cutter .

Probably not a good idea of letting the cat out of the bag. Good hitters who pay attention and good hitting coaches are going to have their guys looking for the cutter exclusively and the element of surprise will be gone. Only 1 guy with a cutter good enough to tell you it’s coming and you still can’t hit it. Let us see how he finishes the season and how the cutter responds in terms of success now.

Good one Slix. You got me there…..

I love the Bannister math stories that come up at least once a year. Keep it up.

Another person who picked up a cutter lately is Dan Haren.  I don’t think he’ll have a second half slump this year now that he’s throwing it a lot this year.

Rivera’s cutter is basically unhittable even if you know it’s coming.
Same thing for Hoffman’s changeup. 
I’d be interested to see if Bannister could find a way to add more movement to either of these two pitches of his.

The thing about the slider that seems to come up is the amount of damage it does to the pitcher’s arm, and unless you have one like Brad Lidge’s that’s complemented by a great fastball, it’s generally less effective. 
Still, I wonder what Bannister things about pitches like Lidge’s slider that get high swing and miss rates.

I also noticed Jamie Moyer dropped his slider last year, throws more changeups and pitched much better than a man his age should.

Another pitch worth noting is the splitter (Clemens picked it up later in his career).