February 9, 2010
Order Now Get "The world champ of baseball annuals." The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 features articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright and contains much, much more. Please support THT and use this link to purchase the Annual.  Get the fantasy book that everyone's raving about! Edited by THT Fantasy's Rob McQuown and Michael Street, and featuring our own Matt Hagen on prospects. Shipping now from ACTA! 
Pat Andriola
Rich Barbieri John Barten Brian Borawski Craig Brown Evan Brunell Chuck Brownson Kevin Dame Joshua Fisher David Gassko Jeremy Greenhouse Brandon Isleib Chris Jaffe Max Marchi Bruce Markusen Dan Novick Harry Pavlidis Alex Pedicini Jeff Sackmann Nick Steiner Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! Geoff Young John Brattain And here's the full roster.
Or you can search by:
Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets. Find premium Chicago Cubs tickets and other Chicago tickets at JustGreatTickets.com. Chicago Cubs Tickets Chicago Tickets  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Inside the change-upby Jonathan HaleMay 28, 2009 One of the things that PITCHf/x taught me off the bat was that while change-ups may be all about disrupting timing, they are not just about changing speeds. For an offspeed pitch, the change-up is merely average velocity, with the average slider a couple mph faster, and curveballs about five miles an hour slower. But far from being just a "slowball," most change-ups sink significantly compared to a fastball (due to less backspin, not just velocity), making them hard to do much with even if the batter knows one is coming. So how important is the difference in speeds, or are other factors like drop and control just as important for the effectiveness of a change-up? To begin, here's a look at the pitchers who are at the extreme ends in changing speeds. I decided to compare the change-ups only to four-seam fastballs, because although some pitchers throw more two-seamers or sinkers than straight fastballs, it's the maximum velocity pitch that a hitter has to be prepared for that is really getting him out ahead of the change-up. And so, a guy like Chad Bradford, who PITCHf/x thinks has never thrown a fastball in his life, get overlooked here despite his 69 mph changeup. Fortunately, we can look at more than 400 other pitchers with more than 100 change-ups thrown since PITCHf/x started in 2007. Greatest difference between change-up and fastball: Name Fastball velocity Change-up difference Change-up LW Brian Fuentes 91.5 -18.7 0.035 Danny Herrera 88.4 -16.3 -0.040 Brian Stokes 95.0 -15.3 0.023 Clay Buchholz 92.6 -14.9 -0.011 Dallas Braden 87.5 -13.0 -0.028 Least difference between change-up and fastball: Name Fastball velocity Change-up difference Changeup LW Chris Sampson 88.1 2.8 -0.008 David Weathers 87.9 4.19 0.023 Nelson Figueroa 87.3 4.34 -0.029 Mark DiFelice 85.8 4.54 -0.014 Brian Bannister 89.0 4.59 -0.010 The last column is the average linear weight value for each pitcher's change-up, using the average value for each ball and strike as well as balls in play. The average linear weight value for a change-up is -.006. Nobody at the extremes stands out as being a master of the craft (Johan Santana has a 10.1 mph difference with a 93.0 mph fastball and a 83.1 mph change-up), so let's take a broader look at the entire league:  In general, the more change of speed the better, although the benefit is marginal at the lower levels and starts to take off only once you get above the average, which is 8 miles per hour. Note that the five pitchers with the least difference between the two pitches also have below 90 mph fastballs. That's not a coincidence—as you might expect, pitchers with a higher mph ceiling can have more of a gap between their fastballs and change-ups. And that is true at all speeds, meaning it's not simply that pitchers with very little can't go any lower without getting into trouble, it is just easier for a fireballer to take something off his fastball. Here's a graph for the entire league showing the correlation between fastball velocity and how much slower a pitcher throws his change-up.  Now to look at movement. Using the same method as above, here's the effect of drop, in inches, on the change-up (compared to the drop on each pitcher's normal four-seam fastball):  Of course it's no surprise that more downward movement is going to work in the pitcher's favor, but the effect is much less than the change in speeds, and has diminishing returns once they really start hitting the dirt. And now for horizontal movement, with positive numbers being away from the batter and negative being toward him:  I suspect that the very pitcher-friendly results for the pitches moving more than two inches toward the batter are actually cut fastballs, but otherwise it seems that unlike drop or a change of speeds, horizontal movement isn't very important except for more than five inches, at which point the pitch is moving almost as much (in the opposite direction) as a normal slider. Much of the above is either confirming traditional wisdom or common sense; despite impressive movement on some change-ups, the most important thing is disrupting a hitter's timing. But we've also learned that: —In addition to hitters having to start earlier against a power pitcher to get around on his fastball, they are also going to have to make more of an adjustment to his change-up, which is the most important part of the pitch. —The average change of speeds on a change is just 8 mph. Almost no pitchers have more than a 15 mph difference between their change-up and four-seam fastball, and the ones that do don't get any particular advantage from it. —Movement helps, but only if you can get above-average action on the ball, and not as much as the change in speeds. The average pitcher would benefit more from throwing his change-up slower (with the same arm speed) than improving either the tail or drop on it. Jonathan Hale be found mixing cold hard statistics with reactionary conjecture at The Mockingbird . He welcomes questions and criticism via e-mail. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and consistency of style. Please include your whole name and location to be considered. If you have a comment about this specific article, please email the writer. Next Article: Putting the scissor to defense (Part 1)>> <<Previous Article: TUCK! sez: Postively forgotten | ||||
