SB Nation User Blog: Harry Pavlidis

The Toughest Pitches to Hit in Baseball by Darren Everson at the WSJ, featuring data from us here...

Harry Pavlidis — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:02:45 -0000

The Toughest Pitches to Hit in Baseball by Darren Everson at the WSJ, featuring data from us here at BtBS. Pitch IDs are a mix of mine and Gameday's.

[Sky: Right now the WSJ has a preview up for subscribers only, but you can find the full article in Friday's print edition and I'm pretty sure the online version will become free at some point, too. Tune in Friday here at BtB for some additional related stats. Nice job, Harry.]

Update: Expanded article is up.

Graph of the Day: Harden and Greinke Fastball Locations

Harry Pavlidis — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:40:34 -0000

I happened to notice a difference in fastball locations between Zack Greinke and Rich Harden. Does Harden go up and out of the zone more by design, since he really throws two pitches? Greinke has a wide arsenal at his disposal.

The gray box is the approximate region of the strike zone, which accentuates the difference between the two pitchers.

x-axis is height in feet, from ground (left) on up. y-axis is percentage of pitches in each height bucket; lines are smoothed

Cubs f/x: Kevin Hart Refresher

Harry Pavlidis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:36:48 -0000

Cubs f/x: Kevin Hart Refresher

Hard thrower with a good curveball. Hart's first start in the majors could be, well, interesting.

New Arms of the Week - Fu-Te Ni and Clayton Mortensen

Harry Pavlidis — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:55:40 -0000

Two newbies took the mound for major league teams last week. One of them is still in the majors. Clayton Mortensen was called-up by the Cardinals to work three poor innings. Fu-Te Ni, on the other hand, has stuck with the Tigers. Ni looks good, dealing some fairly nasty stuff and working both sides of the rubber, a la Trevor Hoffman.

Here are the basics (speed, spin movement in inches lateral and vertical, spin direction and speed). More goodies after the jump.

Clayton Mortensen	#	MPH	PFX_X	PFX_Z	DEG	RPM
Change	8	84.1	-9.7	-0.5	273.1	1,845.1
Fastball	36	91.9	-9.5	4.7	243.6	2,191.0
Splitter	6	87.2	-3.8	0.7	265.3	812.7

Fu-Te Ni	#	MPH	PFX_X	PFX_Z	DEG	RPM
Change	14	80.4	7.9	2.7	108.8	1,502.7
Fastball	51	90.7	9.6	7.0	126.3	2,393.2
Slider	22	78.5	-3.6	0.0	258.3	757.2

First up, Ni's release points. The reason some folks have noted a different release point for Ni's change, relative to the fastball/slider, is actually set-up by uneven usage of the pitch against left- and right-handed hitters, and combined with his shifting towards the first base sid of the rubber against lefties.

Click to enlarge; blue dots are change-ups, yellow fastballs, black sliders. This is measured in feet, catcher's view.

As a result of the two release points, we need two flight paths.

Against lefties:

Against righties:

Mortensen isn't as exciting. He has a weird mix of pitches, not real breaking pitch, everything works back in towards righties, in varying degrees. Red is for his splitter.

Mortensen got killed on his splitter, his fastball was below average and the change-up was OK. I'd like to see him come back if only to get another look at the "splitter". Ni has three solid pitches, and has been successful with each (although he's given up a home run off his fastball). He's picked up ground balls on 58% of balls in play, against just 8% line drives. That's a good start, we'll see how it goes from there.

Getting closer to park adjustments for PITCHf/x -- The Hardball Times

Harry Pavlidis — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:29:07 -0000

Getting closer to park adjustments for PITCHf/x -- The Hardball Times

I discuss the "why" of park adjustments and provide a data dump of all 30 parks to help researchers suss out PITCHf/x issues within and between parks.

Fire Jim Leyland: Fu-Te Ni Follow Up; Concern Over Big Three?

Harry Pavlidis — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:59:37 -0000

Fire Jim Leyland: Fu-Te Ni Follow Up; Concern Over Big Three?

Don't want to wait until Monday's New Arms post to see PITCHf/x on Fu-Te Ni? Check out Fire Jim Leyland.

Graph of the Day: Expected Run Values (beta)

Harry Pavlidis — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:56:49 -0000

If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all. But some of these guys have good luck. Using batted ball types (ground/fly/line/pop), I ignore the actual outcomes (single/double/triple/homer/out) and apply park adjusted expected outcomes. That gives me RVAA and rv100 expected, which I compare to actual to come up with "luck".

This is four graphs in one, click to enlarge. Numbers are in "runs" - positive numbers mean better than expected outcomes (or good luck).

Cubs f/x: Quick f/x on Virgil Vazquez

Harry Pavlidis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:04:28 -0000

Cubs f/x: Quick f/x on Virgil Vazquez

Tonight's opponent ... meh, what do you expect from the Pirate's 12th starter?

See You in September - Pitching Wrap-up From Cubs vs. White Sox

Harry Pavlidis — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:33:51 -0000

This has been fun, thanks for sharing the space. Wrapping up means stats, and I'm covering all five games the Cubs and White Sox have played in 2009.

We talked about run value, run value per 100 pitches (rv100) and run value above average (rvaa) earlier, but now I'm introducing Expected Run Values (rv100e and rvaaE). Using park adjusted rates for batted ball outcomes (liner, fly, grounder, pop), I applied the expected outcomes rather than real outcomes when calculating run values for batted balls. So, a line drive was part double, single, homer, triple and out, and the values are adjusted for The Cell and Wrigley Field.

To add to the mix, I'm including a whole lotta of breakdowns, by pitch type, by pitcher, plus whiff rates, in wide zone (IWZ) rates, fastball speed, heater/change gaps and I think that's it. Some of the tables have a little split in them, that's when I'm showing the leaders and trailers. Last thing - negative means good for run values (when it comes to pitchers).

rvaaE
John Danks	Change	-1.790
John Danks	Cutter	-1.244
Randy Wells	Slider	-1.157
David Patton	Sinker	-1.103
Jose Contreras	Fastball	-1.039

Ryan Dempster	Fastball	2.318
Ryan Dempster	Sinker	1.348
Ryan Dempster	Splitter	1.290
Carlos Zambrano	Sinker	1.272
John Danks	Fastball	1.226

rv100e (5+ pitches)
D.J. Carrasco	Fastball	-8.35
Aaron Heilman	Slider	-7.77
David Patton	Sinker	-7.36
Jose Ascanio	Change-up	-6.28
Aaron Heilman	Sinker	-5.45

D.J. Carrasco	Curveball	9.22
Ryan Dempster	Splitter	8.60
Aaron Heilman	Fastball	8.43
David Patton	Curveball	8.21
Gavin Floyd	Change-up	7.70

Avg Fastball	MPH
Bobby Jenks	96.4
Matt Thornton	96.2
Jose Ascanio	95.2
Kevin Hart	94.7
Scott Linebrink	94.4
Angel Guzman	93.9
Carlos Marmol	93.6
Aaron Poreda	93.4
Kevin Gregg	93.3
Jose Contreras	93.3
Octavio Dotel	93.1
Aaron Heilman	92.6
Carlos Zambrano	91.6
D.J. Carrasco	91.6
John Danks	91.3
Gavin Floyd	91.2
Randy Wells	91.0
Ryan Dempster	90.5
Mark Buehrle	86.8

Speed gap (5+)	mph
Scott Linebrink	10.5	Fastball	Change
Scott Linebrink	10.1	Sinker	Change
Jose Ascanio	10.0	Fastball	Change
Ryan Dempster	9.0	Fastball	Splitter
John Danks	8.7	Sinker	Change
John Danks	8.1	Fastball	Change
Aaron Heilman	8.0	Sinker	Change
Ryan Dempster	7.8	Sinker	Splitter
Mark Buehrle	7.5	Fastball	Change
Aaron Heilman	7.2	Fastball	Change
Carlos Zambrano	7.1	Fastball	Splitter
Mark Buehrle	7.0	Sinker	Change
Randy Wells	6.9	Fastball	Change
Carlos Zambrano	6.8	Sinker	Splitter
Gavin Floyd	6.4	Fastball	Change
Gavin Floyd	6.2	Sinker	Change
Randy Wells	6.1	Sinker	Change

Whiffs
Aaron Heilman	.375
Bobby Jenks	.308
John Danks	.304

Carlos Marmol	.000
Aaron Poreda	.000
Sean Marshall	.000

IWZ
Aaron Poreda	.714
Randy Wells	.600
Sean Marshall	.600

Jose Ascanio	.355
Ryan Dempster	.416
Mark Buehrle	.449

Starter rv100e
Jose Contreras	-1.65
Randy Wells	-1.11
John Danks (2)	-1.00
Mark Buehrle	0.42
Carlos Zambrano (2)	1.04
Gavin Floyd	1.27
Ryan Dempster (2)	2.17

Reliever rv100e
Bobby Jenks	-2.90
Scott Linebrink	-2.35
Aaron Heilman	-1.82
Kevin Gregg	-1.43
Matt Thornton	-1.33
D.J. Carrasco	-1.15
David Patton	-0.75
Octavio Dotel	-0.26
Kevin Hart	0.67
Angel Guzman	0.74
Jose Ascanio	2.16
Carlos Marmol	2.53
Sean Marshall	3.21
Aaron Pordea	3.50

Using HITf/x to measure skill -- The Hardball Times

Harry Pavlidis — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:22:23 -0000

Using HITf/x to measure skill -- The Hardball Times

Peter Jensen bins batted balls by speed and direction (spray and launch angles, horizontal and vertical angles) to derive expected outcomes. I'm working on the same thing, but using a slightly different approach. I look forward to comparing my results to Peter's.