Tuesday, February 21, 2012
A.J.‘s curve: missing bats, missing the zone
Posted by Lucas ApostolerisAfter much anticipation, the trade that sent A.J. Burnett from the Yankees to the Pirates was finally completed on Sunday. Burnett had a tumultuous three seasons in the Bronx, with a 4.79 ERA and 4.5 walks/hit batters per nine over 584 regular-season innings.
His signature pitch is an 83 mph spike-curveball with exceptional movement. (Harry Pavlidis mentioned it here a few weeks ago—it’s not quite as nasty as Craig Kimbrel’s). Because he does a consistent job of keeping it below the strike zone, hitters don’t make much contact with the pitch when they swing at it, but it’s taken for a ball if when they don’t. The two tables below are for whiffs per swing and balls per pitch, minimum 2,500 pitches thrown dating back to 2007.
Rank Pitcher Pitch # Whiff% 1 A.J. Burnett Curveball 4575 43.9% 2 Cole Hamels Changeup 4158 43.8% 3 Rich Harden Changeup 3053 43.4% 4 Francisco Liriano Slider 2632 43.4% 5 Tim Lincecum Changeup 2946 42.9%
Rank Pitcher Pitch # Ball% 1 Randy Wolf Curveball 2562 44.2% 2 Gio Gonazlez Curveball 2663 43.2% 3 A.J. Burnett Curveball 4575 43.1% 4 Justin Verlander Curveball 3244 42.3% 5 Kevin Millwood Fastball 2718 41.2%
Pitch labels are THT's.
You can read more of Lucas's work at Beyond the Boxscore and Don't Bring In The Lefty. Also, you can contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or on Twitter @DBITLefty.
He’s going to be fun to watch.