Scouting Eddie Bonine's Average-ness

With Eddie Bonine set to start the night cap of the double header against the Chicago White Sox in about an hour, I figured it'd be a good time to remind everyone (and give myself a chance to play around with the Pitch Flight Generator that Harry Pavlidis has provided us) about Bonine's arsenal through PITCHf/x. Click all images to enlarge.

Release Points

He seems to have a relatively consistent release point on all of his pitches. Axis' are in feet and from the catcher's view.

And now the pitch flight graphs:

The Fastball -- He threw 293 of them over the course of 2008 and his 4 appearances this year. He averaged just 88.5 MPH on it. There is some arm-side movement, but not much sink. Overall, decent, I would say.

The Change-up -- He threw 94 of them and averaged 81.9 MPH. It follows his fastball flight path pretty closely. Nearly the same arm-side run (bird's eye view) and bit more sinking action (1st base view). Not a great pitch and seems pretty bland.

The Curveball -- Bonine tossed just 35 of them and averaged 80.2 MPH. Pretty 12-6 and has the most downward movement of any pitch he throws. I think this slower breaking ball might be his best one.

The Slider -- He threw 101 of them an averaged 81.0 MPH on them. There's some sweep on it, but not much. There is some sinking action, but not much. I would say it's decent, but not great by any stretch of the imagination.

Conclusion

Eddie Bonine is a Quad-A pitcher and this is confirmed by his incredibly average looking pitch flight graph. He walks very few batters and strikes out few as well. He's a pitch-to-contact type guy that's organizational filler (not that there's anything wrong with that at all) who can toss a good game in there from time-to-time and fill in when you're in a pinch. You know, like the back-end of a double header while your team has been struggling and on the verge of dropping out of the division lead.

Hopefully Bonine follows up Justin Verlander's great start in the first half of the double-dip.