Fu-Te Ni Debut

So, Taiwanese-born Fu-Te Ni made his major league debut. First, lets look at him by the numbers:

34.2 IP, 139 TBF, 31 H, 6 2B, 0 3B, 4 HR allowed, 32 K, 9 BB, 39% GB%.

And tonight's line for Ni was:

1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 1 HR allowed. 27 pitches, 21 strikes, 0 ground outs and 2 fly outs.

And that homer was a bomb to Ryan Sweeney into deep right-center.

Now, let's get to the southpaw's pitch flight graph. As always, made possible by Harry Pavlidis and click to enlarge the graph.


First thing that jumps out at me is the bird's eye view. I double checked all of the numbers and he apparently had multiple arm slots for each of his pitches -- which gameday classified as fastball, change-up, and slider.

The Fastball

He threw 14 of them that averaged out to 90.73 MPH. He seems to get a bit more tail on his heater than Lucas French (another lefty I took a look at last night), and a good amount of diving action. But, that's to be expected since his release point is low 3/4 if not just straight sidearm. He touched 92 and didn't throw anything under 89.4 MPH.

The Change-up

He only threw 6 of them and they averaged 80.67 MPH. He was consistent with this velocity as well with his high and low being 82.6 and 79.5 MPH. Decent tail with okay downward action.

The Slider

He only threw 7 of these and they averaged 78.81 MPH. There's a bit of sweeping action to it and it was coming from just a tick above his other two release points (look at the 1st base view). It seems to travel a bit before starting to dive downward.

Conclusion

Zero. Nothing. Zilch. These graphs interest me and I love to see the pitch flight of various pitchers that toe the rubber for Detroit. But since we're working with just 27 pitches from someone making his Major League Debut and in his first year in America, there's not much to be gained. I don't have to say it, but I will anyways: major sample size issues on this. I haven't graphed out Clay Zapada's stuff, but I would imagine they would look similar given their deliveries and both being left handed. Judging from his minor league numbers, I'd say he's adept at mixing his pitches as well as attempting to mix speeds. He's not a ground ball maching -- his pitches don't have the movement or downward plane given his 6-foot stature and release point that's probably closer to 5-foot. Probably a serviceable LOOGY out of the bullpen in his career. If he can keep his walks down, I don't see a reason why he couldn't be a tick better than Clay Zapada. I wouldn't expect Ni's strikeout percentage (K/TBF) of 23% to continue in the big leagues, though.