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.