Hot Holland

by
July 15, 2011

So Derek Holland just threw two consecutive complete games. He had two in his career (one in 2009, one earlier in June).

Best part: The start before those back-to-back games lasted than an inning. Go figure.

Naturally, this compelled me to look at some of his peripheral stats and plow through and finalize all of his pitch classifications.

Season B:CS IWZ GB%
2009 2.0 0.558 0.42
2010 2.3 0.503 0.43
2011 1.8 0.558 0.47

Holland has gone from average to above average in ground balls. He’s also become/returned to being a control pitcher.

Pitch mix when starting

Season # Four-seam FB Two-seam FB Change Curveball Slider
2009 1880 46% 23% 11% 8% 11%
2010 870 48% 13% 13% 6% 20%
2011 1895 42% 21% 14% 10% 13%

vs RHH

Season # Four-seam FB Two-seam FB Change Curveball Slider
2009 1461 43% 23% 14% 8% 12%
2010 719 47% 14% 16% 6% 18%
2011 1440 39% 22% 18% 12% 9%

vs LHH

Season # Four-seam FB Two-seam FB Change Curveball Slider
2009 419 58% 21% 2% 9% 11%
2010 151 52% 9% 3% 7% 28%
2011 455 51% 21% 3% 4% 22%

In a nutshell, the sinking two-seam fastball has returned and he’s tossing more curveballs to right-handed batters.

Zooming in on 2011 shows what may be the most striking thing of all.

image

While Holland’s sinker usage has picked-up in 2011, it’s actually his four-seam fastball that’s picked-up usage as 2011 moves forward.

image

More heaters on top of a bigger base of sinkers equals a hotter Holland?


Comments are closed.