Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Eovaldi and his cutter move to Miami
Posted by Lucas ApostolerisOne of the big pieces the Marlins acquired in the trade that sent Hanley Ramirez to the Dodgers was 22-year-old starter Nathan Eovaldi, who had been up and down with the Dodgers this year and last. Throughout his minor league career, which spanned parts of five seasons, Eovaldi established himself as a solid—not elite&mdashy;prospect, reaching No. 96 on Baseball America's post-2011 top prospects list. Probably his biggest weapon is his velocity; his fastball (four- and two-seamers) sits in the mid-90s, which is impressive for a starting pitcher.
In his 10th start of the 2012 season (and his final one for the Dodgers), he did something that a lot of pitchers have been doing recently: He started throwing a cutter. Dodgers beat reporter Dylan Hernandez reported it on his Twitter account, and you can see it in the PITCHf/x data when you compare it to his previous start.
I estimate that Eovaldi threw 19 cutters on July 22. Of them, eight were thrown for balls, one was hit for a groundball single, one was a flyout, five were fouled off, one was taken for a strike, and three were swung on and missed.
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