Pitch f/x Data of Justin Masterson’s Insane Sinker

6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 K

Here is the Pitch f/x data from Justin Masterson’s great major league debut this afternoon. He basically threw 4 pitches, a slider, a few change-ups, a regular sinker, and then some variation that resulted in an insane sinker.

The “regular” sinker is in the green circle (circle change movement), while the super sinker is the cluster with even more run in on right handed batters with negative vertical break.

Masterson mixed speeds well and generally worked in the lower half of the strike zone. Mike Napoli hit a home run to RCF on a slider that was aided by a gusting wind (still a bomb). Masterson will return to the minors, but there is a good chance that he is a key member of the bullpen at some point this summer. The Red Sox will give him every opportunity to continue to start in the future.

New Pitch F/X tool debuted

Here: http://38.99.108.6/pfx/

Dan Brooks, or “Jnai” on SoSH, has created this tool that spiders the Pitch F/X data live from MLB.com and creates graphs instantaneously.  All you have do is pick the date, the game, and the pitcher you want to look at.  This is an invaluable tool for those interested in the blossoming area of information.  The site is only in it’s infancy and there are improvements being made on it daily.

I’m sure I will be talking more about this in the future.

Good First Outing for Clay Buchholz (pitch f/x)

5 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, 7 K, 0 HR

Mixing up his fastball, curve, change-up and slider, Clay Buchholz got off to a good start in 2008 even though the defense (Sean Casey at 1b, Manny Ramirez in LF) failed him.

Clay’s fastball was sitting 93-95, curve 75-77, change-up 76-80, and slider 82-85. All with good control as he threw 64% strikes.

Also encouraging was the way he was mixing up his pitches, something that we need to watch with Jason Varitek. Buchholz, like Daisuke Matsuzaka, should really be “pitching backwards” by setting up their fastballs with off-speed stuff.

One fun thing to look at with Buchholz is the movement of his devastating change-up. It falls into the aqua circle, which usually indicates a cutter, because it doesn’t have the classic tailing movement, it just drops straight off the table.

Please excuse my photoshop-shrunken graphs; I need to resize them in Excel to eventually fit in the blog posts.

Quick Thoughts on Aardsma’s Good Times

While David Aardsma was dominating during his first 20.2 IP last year to the tune of a .183/.272/.239/.511 against, he threw 346 pitches, with 172 (49.7%) tracked by MLB Pitch F/X data.

I decided just to look at those pitches and see what he was doing before it all came crumbling to pieces.

The graphs above show the first interesting thing I noticed, he was mostly pitching away from batters. While it was successful during this period, most White Sox fans got fed up with his nibbling as his performance worsened. It will be interesting to see if the Red Sox try to get him to work both sides of the plate, and if he struggles, if he can ward off confidence issues he has had in the past.

I have read about him throwing, at one time or another, a fastball, changeup, slider, splitter and knuckle curve.

While doing some googling, I learned that last spring the White Sox told Aardsma to scrap his k-curve and focus on the slider. I also came across a quote of him saying that he throws his split against lefties as his 3rd pitch, while against righties he mixes in a changeup. And, through my own research, I learned his fastballs do not sink, as some have suggested (and his gopheritis refutes).

According to the data, versus righties, I have him at: 6% changeup, 22% slider, 29% fastball, 43% 95+ mph gas

According to the data, versus lefties, I have him at: 8% split, 13% slider, 36% fastball, 43% 95+ mph gas

Needless to say, Aardsma is going to be an interesting cases to follow in spring training. We shall see just how much polish John Farrell can put on this out-of-whack million dollar arm.