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.

Lucas French Pitch Flight Graph

I just realized that I never graphed out Lucas Frenchs' two outings when he was up in mid-May for Nate Robertson's first go-round on the disabled list. We only have 50 pitches from his two outings, so to say the sample is small is being kind. As always, click the chart for a larger view.

The Fastball

It averaged 89.01 MPH in his two outings and seems to have decent tail. Remember, we're looking at a left hander, so take all that you've seen from my previous posts and reverse it since those were all right handers. A flight path that finishes closer to the bottom of the graph is closer to a left handed batter. So, his fastball's flight path is tailing from the top of the graph to the bottom. He topped out at 91.3 MPH on the heater and ranged mostly in the 88-89 range. He threw 33 heaters.

The Slider

It averaged 80.39 MPH and seems to have very little sweeping action (from bottom of the graph to the top). I am not sure if this really a slider or a curveball, but it starts on a plane that's a bit higher than the fastball (1st base view), and drops below where his average fastball cross the plate. He ranged 78.5 MPH to 82.4 with it -- essentially 79-82. He threw 13 of them.

The Change-up

It averaged 81.20 MPH, and really doesn't stay on the same plane as his heater and slider. It does stay on the same follow the same path (bird's eye view) as his fastball with some good tailing action on it. But, unlike some change-up's, it doesn't drop so much as he releases it on a more downward plane. He only threw 4 of them.

Conclusion

As always, this is an incredibly small sample and should be taken with a barrell of salt. On the whole though, he seems to have a pretty generic arsenal for a left-handed pitcher. His stuff isn't overwhelming in the least, and he doesn't have some crazy amount of movement. His 2009 line in Toledo seems to be such an outlier when compared to his career norms -- especially given his stuff. I'm only guessing, but I think that he may be the benefit of a lot of called strike three's that he wasn't getting in the past, but that is only pure speculation and there's no way to know. Either way, his numbers in Toledo have been very good thus far and he definitely deserves a look in the rotation for a couple of reasons: (1) He can't be worse then some of the other starts we've gotten out of that rotation spot and (2) his numbers indicate a look to see if he's indeed turned a corner into a Tom Glavine-type (highly unlikely).

My thoughts are that he's a Quad-A pitcher and not a big league, back-of-the-rotation starter.

Alfredo Figaro Demoted

So, Alfredo Figaro has one bad start and gets sent down. Dontrelle Willis makes 15 before he gets shelved and even then it's only to the DL. Ahh, the joys of terrible contracts that were terrible from the get-go, as well as, playing the odds as Bill points out: we face the Twins soon and they're stacked with left-handed bats, so the left-handed Luke French will be taking Figaro's spot. And, kudos to Kurt who had that before it even happened. But, I digress. My real point in this is to look at Figaro's two starts. I already took a peak at his debut last week, but wanted to see if there was anything discernably different from his debut to his start against the Houston Astros. Plus, I just enjoy toying around with the pitch flight path graphs that Harry Pavlidis graciously gave us.

Before we get to the comparisons, do know that making claims using pitchf/x data from two different ballparks while not accounting for differences in calibration and the system in general, is fools gold. So, these are not to be taken as gospel and should come with a hefty dose of salt as comparing his start in Detroit to his start in Houston is just not a good idea.

But I'm going to do it anyways. As always, click charts to enlarge.

Maybe Jim Leyland's quote wasn't too offbase:

"He didn't throw the ball. Some pitches were 89 m.p.h. I was very disappointed because I thought the one thing he would be was aggressive, and he was totally un-aggressive. ... He pitched like he was looking at the names on the hitters' backs (i.e., showing them too much respect). ... He got after them a little better after the horse was out of the barn."

You can see the near 3 MPH drop on the heater from his two starts. That, my friends, doesn't get affected much (to my knowledge) by the ballpark calibrations. His fastball in Houston seemed to have more tail and a bit less, or the same, amount of downward action. But, that just might be a difference in the camera's calibrations from Comerica Park's cameras. He was more 89-92 in his second start, rather than the 92-95 in his debut -- I'm guessing adreneline helps a lot. He threw 61 in his debut and 67 in his second start.

The curveball seemed to remain consistent. His velocity didn't stray much between the two starts, and had similar, if not equal, downward movement. He did seem to get a tick more sweeping action (left-to-right break if you're looking from the catcher's view) in his second start as opposed to his debut. He threw 28 in his debut and 23 in his start in Houston


His change-up is the hardest to really look at -- he's thrown just 15 combined in his two starts (7 in his debut, 8 in his second start). His second start had a lower release point (1st base view) and the same arm slot (bird's eye view). He seemed to get more tailing action and since he didn't have a big hump in the change-up like he did in his debut, I like the look of it better. Again, his velocity didn't stray that much -- his fastball and change-up velocity differential was about the same in both of his starts.

Let's look at his fastball-change-up from his second start:


Here, we see his heater had more tail on Friday in Houston then his change-up did. However, coming from just at tick above his fastball's release point, his change-up had a great amount of dive. Compared to the graph from my previous post on his debut (seen here), his change-up in Houston had so much diving action, that it might've been too much. It could've been an easy pick up for the batter and was very easy for them to lay off of it. 3 of the 8 he threw on Friday were balls, 3 were in play for outs, and 1 was a called strike. Conversely, in his debut, he threw 7 total change-ups. 3 were called balls, 2 were in play for outs, 1 was fouled away and 1 was a called strike.

Conclusion

Well, I'm not sure that there are many conclusions. The first thing to keep in mind is that this is very limited data, a very crude look at his stuff, and we're using pitchf/x data from two different parks and since we only have two samples, that's not a good thing. So, this is not gospel and the conclusions that are drawn from this are murky at best.

That said, Leyland was right in that Figaro's heater was lacking pop on the radar gun, but it seemed to have some more arm-side movement while having less sink. I'd prefer to give up horizontal movement in favor of more sink. Movement of any kind helps to keep the batter from squaring up the ball, but I would assume (and maybe that's a bad assumption) that sinking action's more likely than tailing action to enduce a ground ball. I like ground balls. They don't become home runs. Aside from that, his change-up's pitch flight seemed better and his curve seemed the same, more or less.

It's too early to write him off, but I don't think I was off-base in my comments calling Figaro a potential middle-of-the-rotation arm.

Harry Pavlidis Previewing Jackson and Porcello

So, I took a look at Edwin Jackson's stuff a few weeks ago using Harry Pavlidis' template. Well, the man who runs the brilliant Cubs FX which I read every day has looked at Jackson as well. The main difference? He's using a pitch f/x database and recoded pitches with his own custom classifications and he also has a ton of nifty charts and graphs that I don't. THe main difference is that Jackson's using his better pitches (FA/SL/Curve) more often then his weak one (change-up).

He's also looked at Rick Porcello as well.

Please go read his stuff before some MLB team snatches him up sooner rather than later. Harry rules and is one of my 3 favorite people writing about baseball on the internet, currently.

Jim Leyland's Extension; Alfredo Figaro Debut

Well, this blog was once started way back when on a late August night in 2007 after a meltdown against the Cleveland Indians in which I blamed Jim Leyland for the loss and, subsequently, the end of our Division Title chase. Since then, I've never posted more than 17 posts in a single calendar year; to say posting here is sporadic would be a compliment. Over the last year-and-a-half I've gotten more and more into sabermetrics and mellowed on my Jim Leyland frustrations because of reading at just how many games a manager actually wins or loses with his actions. Bottom line is that a manager is only as good as his players and as such, probably only wins (or costs) 3-5 games a year. That's enough to push you into the playoffs or just keep you barely out.

That said, Jim Leyland got a 2-year extension on Friday. I know that this is Fire Jim Leyland, but I'm in favor. His questionable decisions (to put it nicely) won't leave; that's just a packaged deal. But, all managers make bad moves consistently and at the end of the day, I am not convinced is costs us more then, you know, Armando Galarraga's terribleness. Given how little I think managers actually impact the win/loss record of a team at the end of the year, if the team loves Jim Leyland, respects him, and is willing to run through walls for him like many players sound like they would, then why not keep him?

Now, back to the non-traditional baseball goodness. Alfredo Figaro debuted today giving up 8 hits while striking out 7 in 5 innings of work. Kurt at Mack Ave Tigers, Lee at Tiger Tales, Mark at TigsTown, have all profiled him before today's start. Matt Wallace -- my go-to guy for all things Tigers Minors related has written a couple of times about him over at Take 75 North.

The skinny: middle-90's fastball, good breaking ball. Like I've done with Edwin Jackson for the season (and once against the Angels) and Justin Verlander, I've got Figaro's pitch fx data and, through Harry Pavlidis' great pitch flight template, have got Figaro's average pitch flight for each of his pitches. Click the chart to enlarge.


I put all three pitches on one graph. If there's 4 or more pitches, I will group fastballs with fastballs, or go fastball-change-up and put the breaking balls together. Pitch f/x only recorded 3 different type of pitches and I've lumped all the fastballs together, though I don't think the pitch f/x data classified any as two-seamers without looking at it again.

The Fastball: Averaged 94.13 MPH and touched 9 out of the 61 times he threw it. His slowest fastball was 89.9 MPH, but mostly was 92-95. He doesn't appear to have much tail on it (look back at the Verlander link for comparison -- JV's got similar velocity and much more tail then Figaro does).

The Curveball: Averaged 82.49 MPH while getting as fast as 85 MPH twice, and as slow as 79. So, his velocity was very consisten with the curveball. You can see very little (if any) sweep with it. He threw 28 curveball's today.

The Change-up: Averaged 81.16 MPH with it while ranging 80.1 to 81.6. He only threw 8 of them, but seemed consistent with his velocity of it. It seems to be nearly as straight of a change-up as you can get with no discernable tail on it. His curve and change come from just a tick above his release point on his fastball (look at the 1st base view) while his arm slot appears to be the same (look at the bird's eye view). Given the 13 MPH difference between his change-up and his fastball, coupled with keeping a consistent arm slot, it's easy to see why he can get consistent swings and misses with his arsenal.

Conclusion

He's been overlooked by the prospecting community as a whole but I feel that's got to do with getting to the A-ball level semi-late at age 23 in 2007. He posted a bad ERA in 2007 at High-A Lakeland, but his .358 BABIP has much to do with that as his peripherals (17.3% K rate, 9.0% BB rate) didn't stray much. What does concern me is that he's had a ground ball percentage going the wrong way. In 2007 and early 2008 he was posting GB rates of 54-62%. But, once he got out of Low-A West Michigan he's posted GB rates of 38 and 48% at High-A Lakeland for the former and Double-A Erie for the latter. Combining his totals from Lakeland and Erie I get a total GB rate of 44.96% which isn't terrible, but I'd like to see closer to 50%. I only say this because he hasn't been dominant in his K% (K/Total Batters Faced), just good. On the whole, from a numbers perspective coupled with the above pitch flights (assuming that they are representative of his typical start which is a HUGE assumption given the small sampling of pitches), I'd say he's got the chance to be a solid middle-of-the-rotation arm for the Tigers for the foreseeable future. And for a team with a few albatrosses around it's neck financially (Magglio, Guillen, Robertson, Willis) for the next couple of seasons, cheap arms are a must for this organization to move forward.

Justin Verlander: 2008 vs. 2009

Justin Verlander was the other Tigers starter I was most interested in comparing 2008 pitch flights to his 2009 pitch flights. Again, thanks to Harry Pavlidis, I can now do this.

The Stats

In 2008, Justin Verlander posted an FIP of 4.18 last year which is better than the 4.84 ERA he carried last year. So, his peripherals weren't as bad as they appeared to be, however, they weren't stellar. He faced 880 batters in 2008 striking out 18.53%, while walking 9.89%. That is nothing impressive, yet isn't completely abysmal. Edwin Jackson's getting mad love (even from me) around the Tigers blog-o-sphere and he's striking out 19.45% and walking 6.14% this year, coming into his dominating start against the Angels today (see: previous post).

Thus far, Justin Verlander has faced 317 batters and has K'd 97 (30.60%) while walking 24 (7.57%). So he's really righted the ship, as his 2.35 FIP suggests.

One knock statistically is that his ground ball percentage has never been good -- topping out at 41.7% in 2006 -- but it's declined this year even more. Only 30.3% of batters are putting the ball on the ground. Now, he's striking out roughly the same amount, but he's been trending downward in the GB% department ever since 2006, and that's not a good sign. One of the things that makes Roy Halladay so valuable is that when he's not striking people out, he's getting them to beat the ball into the turf. A ground ball doesn't become a home run and, more times than not, it becomes just an out -- something that would help Verlander even more given the Tigers improved defense.

The Charts

Here we look at his Pitch Flight charts, starting with his fastball. These are all of his fastballs (2-seam and 4-seam) coded together. I don't think he throws many 2-seamers as it is, so I feel no need to seperate them. Click charts to enlarge.


He seems to be releasing his fastball more from the right side of the rubber if you're looking from the Catcher's view, while also coming from just a touch above his release point from 2008. His 2009 fastball is also tailing to cross the plate at the same point despite starting a substantial amount towards the first base side. Maybe this is just him being on more of the first base side of the rubber, I'm not sure. If I had to guess, I'd wager that he's coming from a bit more over the top, which allows (to my knowledge) for more tail, and less sink -- something that we see from the chart. For what it's worth, his velocity in 2008 averaged 93.45 MPH and 95.39 thus far in 2009.

Here are Justin Verlander's change-ups. The velocity in 2008 was 83.57 MPH and 83.90 in 2009. So, there's minimal change in the velocity, but this chart corroborates what I thought about the fastball: Verlander's coming from a release point that's more towards the first base side, possibly standing on a different spot on the mound. Whatever he is doing is giving his fastball and change-up more movement. He's starting a few inches inside of his 2008 releast point and the ball is crossing the plate at nearly the same spot, thus, getting more tail on his pitches. He also seems to be getting more sink on his change-up, as well, as it's starting in the same spot and ending lower than his 2008 version.


His curveball doesn't seem to be that different from his 2008 version. I do notice that it seems to have more sweep, as you can see from the bird's eye view. The diving action seems to be the same, but more sweep + same diving action probably has led to more swings and misses in 2009 than what he's had in 2008. His velocities in 2008 were 80.92 MPH and 81.17 MPH in 2009.

Conclusion

There seems to be a lot more changes in Justin Verlander's arsenal then what I found in Edwin Jackson's pitch flight graphs. He's releasing the ball from more towards the first base side, according to the graphs, and getting much more tail on his fastball and change-up while getting more sweep on his curveball. In short, he's getting more movement on his pitches while his fastball has picked back up in his velocity. More movement, plus higher velocity (at least on the fastball, everything else seems consistent to their prior year's velocities) equals a tougher pitch to hit -- or so I'd like to think. I believe that Justin Verlander, despite a Home run per fly ball rate that's likely to nearly double (4.7% this year, his career is 8.1% and last year he was at 7.0%), is much more sustainable then Edwin Jackson's early success this year. At the very least, the difference between Jackson's start to the season and Verlander's is really no contest: JV has been much, much more dominant thus far.

Edwin Jackson vs. Angels

So, I took a look at Edwin Jackson's 2008 self versus his 2009 version already. He just threw a complete game, allowing 4 hits, 1 run, 1 walk, while striking out 5 LAnaheim hitters over the course of 109 pitches (67 strikes). That's a pretty light work load considering the types of outings he's had recently. So, I figured it'd be a good time to look at his Pitchf/x pitch flights for the game today compared to the rest of his 2009 season thus far. This is less informational and more me getting the chance to monkey around with the sweet pitch flight tool that Harry Pavlidis has made public for us.

First, his fastball (click all images to enlarge):

His fastball was pretty much on par with what he's done in his prior starts. His average fastball was clocking in at 94.42 MPH, and today it came in at 94.18.

His change-up:


His change-up seemed to have more downward movement then his previous starts. Today, it clocked in at 84.43 MPH while his other starts averaged 85.68 MPH.

Finally, his slider:
Pretty much on par with all of his other starts, except today had a bit more sweeping action (horizontal movement), while keeping pretty much identical downward movement. Velocities: Today was 84.86 MPH, and all other starts this year was 85.31.

A very, very good outing for Jackson and he was relatively economical about it. That's especially good considering Armando Galarraga and Dontrelle Willis', ahem, "struggles."

Examining Edwin Jackson's Success Through Pitchf/s

I made it no secret that I did not like the Edwin Jackson for Matt Joyce swap. To this point, I have been wrong as I thought Edwin Jackson was, at best, a back of the rotation starter. To say he's exceeded my expectations would be understating it. Jackson's been the Tigers second best starter behind the unreal start that Justin Verlander's gotten off to.

With the help of Harry Pavlidis, I've got the abilities to look at the average flight path of all of Edwin Jackson's pitches for 2008 and 2009.

Below, you will see Jackson's fastball (click all images to enlarge). What I've done is taken just all of the sinkers listed and re-coded them as fastballs and I'm incorporating any that may have been looked at as 2-seam fastballs in the gameday data along with the 4-seam fastballs. Here's views from both above (bird's eye) and first base.

His 2009 fastball, thus far, seems to be hitting home plate at about the same spot, but is leaving his hand a touch higher then in 2008. Also, his velocities are 94.11 mph and 94.42 in 2008 and 2009.

Now, on to his change-up. He hasn't thrown many of them this year, just 66 identified by Pitchf/x where as in 2008 he threw 234 of them.

This is the most separation on any of his pitches when compared to their previous years version. I am not certain why this is as the velocities were nearly identical (85.86 mph in 2008, 85.68 mph in 2009), so a slower velocity doesn't appear to be a factor. Like with his fastball, his change-up seems to be getting released from a touch higher than his 2008 version, and is also crossing the plate (the black line) at a touch below the 2008 version.

But, here's where I'm most interested. Examining Edwin Jackson's slider. Here's the graph:

Jackson's 2008 slider came in at an average of 86.02 mph while his 2009 slider's come in at 85.31 mph. So there's not a big difference in velocity. However, looking at the bird's eye view, you can see he's starting his slider now more towards the 3rd base side and it's finishing further towards the left-hand batting box meaning that he's getting more "sweeping" action on it. It is also diving further and, again, he's releasing his pitch higher, and it's diving down further by the time it reached the plate when compared to its 2008 version.

So, while the differences don't appear to large -- almost non-existent in velocity -- when you're trying to hit a round ball with a round bat when it's coming at no slower then 85 mph (at least, when you're facing Jackson, that is) I'm presume that any difference in the flight path would make a small bit of difference.

That said, I don't see a discernible difference in the flight paths of Edwin Jackson from 2008 versus the Tigers No. 2 starter version. So, that makes me wonder if the stats have anything to add. According to Fangraphs, his LD% against is just 16.3%. That will regress. League average is around 18-22% and his career is 19.4% -- possibly due to how straight of a fastball he's throwing. He is pounding the zone a bit more then he did in the past. In 2008 he threw 3056 pitches with 1874 going for strikes (61.32%) and in 2009 he's thrown 1131 pitches with 738 strikes (65.25%). He is getting about 2% more of his fly balls remaining on the infield than his past history, but that could be a result of (a bad trend) of giving up more fly balls this year then ever before.

Conclusion

When it's all said and done, I would expect his fly ball percentage to drop (with his infield fly ball percentage dropping a couple percent as well) while his line drive rate increases back to his career norms. On the whole, I don't find much that has changed from Jackson to suggest that his new strike out rate od 19.45% (K/Total Batters Faced) is a new trend over his career percentage of ~16%. In fact, the ZiPS projection update at Fangraphs has Jackson striking out 91 over the rest of the season with another 130 innings pitched. He's averaged 3.94 batters per inning over 74.1 IP this year. If we extrapolate that over 130 more innings that'd give us an approximate 513 more batters faced. He's projected at striking out just 91 more, and that would be a 17.7% strikeout rate and would make his 2009 total ~148 K's and 806 batters faced -- or 18.36% (and I'd bet on the under on this ... but I'm a cynic). And that's close to league average.

If this comes to fruition, that would still make him a better pitcher then I thought when we acquired him. Kudos to Dave Dombrowski (thus far).