Jeremy Bonderman PITCHf/x

Jeremy Bonderman's had a couple of relief appearances in September and I've been meaning to put the PITCHf/x nerd in me to good use with his couple outings. Billfer's covered the raw numbers, so I'm here to bring the visuals. Last time we saw Bondo, he was bad in a June start against the White Sox. I took a look at Bonderman through the PITCHf/x lens in July when he was reported to be a potential relief candidate in the future. Here's his pitch flight path from that start:


Now, here's his pitch flight path from his two relief outings thus far:

In eyeballing the graphs, his fastball seems to have some more arm-side run and his slider's been getting more sink. Billfer's raw numbers he posted back this up, as well.

And now for enough graphy goodness to last you through the night, first, his average release points in relief:

Pretty close cluster together. Consistent release points are a good thing.

Here's how his release points look on all 36 pitches in September from Bondo:

Re-confirming the tight cluster of release points.

Here's the strikezone plot:

This is from the catcher's point of view (as all the release points are, as well), so he's really working inside to the left side of the plate a.k.a. to right-handed batters. Speaking of that, here's how he's worked right and left-handed hitters:

The number inside of each slice of the pie graphs is the actual number. I forgot to include the percentage for the total pitch selection, but thus far he's gone with 72% fastballs, 28% sliders. Also, I did not correct for varying park factors that could be coming into play. PITCHf/x in different parks is not created equal, unfortunately. So, things can be skewed due to multiple parks we're pulling this data from. All other caveats apply.

Like Bill said, small sample alarms are sounding pretty loud. Let's not read too much into this, but given how flat and non-sinking his pitches seemed to be in his start against the White Sox back in June, it's nice to see him making some improvements and hopefully build upon the great 19 starts he had in the beginning of 2007.

I plan to have a similar post on Nate Robertson in the next couple of days. At least, that's the tentative plan.

What To Expect From Jeremy Bonderman (Graphs Galore)

There's been talk of Jeremy Bonderman possibly getting into the Detroit Tigers bullpen when he's ready to return to Major League action. First question is: Can he be effective? Second question is: what should we expect?

Well, to answer the first question, I figure we must look at some PITCHf/x data.

First, let's look at the average pitch flight for Bondo's pitches in 2008 (click all images to enlarge):


It gets a bit fuzzy to see, but his 2-seamer (FT; orange line) had absurd amounts of arm-side run -- also called "tailing action." His 4-seamer (FF; blue line) had less and both had okay downward movement -- he's not a big time ground ball pitcher, so we wouldn't expect great downward movment.

His slider (SL; red line) comes with sweeping action, but not a lot. The amount of drop he gets on it is what made it such a good swing-and-miss pitch. The first base view shows it leaving on the same layer as his fastballs, but it finishes at home plate at the closest to the ground. Just great diving action it as it falls off the table, if you will. His change-up (CH; white line) had some okay arm-side run and decent sink. It's what fans and the Tigers alike felt was his worst pitch, and I think I'd tend to agree with that.

Now, he's made one appearance in 2009 -- a start in a double-header against the White Sox in Chicago. Firstly, here's his strikezone plot:

Here's the pitch flights from that lone outing:

I can see some differences, but to make it an easier graph to read, I'm going to compare each of his pitches to their counterparts. Up first, a comparison of his 4-seam fastball from 2008 and 2009:

Here, we see that his 2008 4-seamer has more arm-side run on it, and a bit more sink. So, his 2009 version has less movement overall -- both tailing and diving action.

The difference on the 2-seam fastball is much more pronounced. He didn't throw many in his 2009 start, however, you can clearly see his 2008 2-seam fastball had a ton of arm-side run and okay sink, while his 2009 version is much less in both.

His 2009 change-up seems to have some more tailing action, but not much. The sinking action goes to his 2008 change-piece. So, it's gotten a little more flat, but it's still his worst pitch to throw.

The slider, also, seems to have lost a tick of sweep and some downward movement.

Conclusion

So, to answer the questions from before:

1) Can he be effective?
A: I don't know. My gut feeling is that his stuff doesn't look to be markedly better than the relievers we have in the bullpen at the moment. Then again, relievers are unpredictable and maybe there is lightning in a bottle to be had. An extra arm is never a bad thing, so long as they aren't over used if they're ineffective.

2) What should we expect?
A) Honestly, not much. The usual caveats apply: his 2009 sample is pretty small, but if they give any of the slightest indication, his stuff's obviously declined (and you don't need PITCHf/x data to tell you that). Unfortunately for Bonderman, the Tigers, and myself (been a staunch supporter and driver of the Jeremy Bonderman Will Turn The Corner This Year bandwagon), I don't think his stuff will make him a top-notch reliever in short bursts. I'm not so sure it even makes him better than a Brandon Lyon at this point.