New Arms of the Week: May 11-17

by Harry Pavlidis on May 18, 2009 11:11 PM EDT

Another week of debuts. Another position player, Josh Wilson, got to pitch. Wilson was subsequently waived by the Diamondbacks and picked-up by the Padres, but to play shortstop. On to the real pitchers. Or real-er.

Bryan Augenstein - Called up from AA to start for Arizona against the Reds. He took the loss, but managed to get into the 7th inning on 95 pitches.
Daniel Bard - An well anticipated call-up for the Red Sox. Bard started in college and was a first-round pick in 2006, but Boston has the flame throwing righty working out of the bullpen.
Lucas French - The Tigers summoned the young lefty when Nate Robertson went on the DL.
David Huff - The Indians promoted Huff and sent him out to start against the Rays. It didn't go well. The #3 hitter in the Tampa order was pitcher Andy Sonnanstine. Yea Joe Maddon.
Sergio Escalona - Came in the Phillies' revolving door when Andrew Carpenter exited. Picked up a W on Sunday.

PITCHf/x Profiles

You know I love small samples. Here's the skinny on the stuff shown off by the new guys this week. This table goes name, pitch, number thrown, vs LHH, vs RHH, inches of spin movement lateral, inches of spin movement vertical, spin axis, spin rate.

		#	LHH	RHH	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg	rpm
Augenstein	Change	27	8	19	81.9	-7.6	2.2	254.0	1,492.6
Augenstein	Sinker	41	11	30	89.1	-8.7	1.6	259.4	1,780.5
Augenstein	Slider	22	4	18	76.8	4.4	-1.8	67.7	840.2
French	Change	3	0	3	79.8	10.0	8.7	131.3	2,339.4
French	Sinker	20	16	4	90.0	9.6	7.3	127.2	2,408.0
French	Fastball	14	7	7	89.4	7.7	9.5	140.8	2,427.8
French	Slider	13	7	6	81.0	-0.9	2.9	198.7	584.9
Bard	Change	2	2	0	89.1	-9.1	7.9	228.8	2,398.4
Bard	Sinker	13	6	7	96.9	-7.9	9.2	221.0	2,607.4
Bard	Fastball	36	18	18	96.9	-5.1	11.3	204.2	2,671.1
Bard	Slider	12	3	9	81.4	7.5	-1.1	81.7	1,393.6
Huff	Change	14	0	14	81.1	9.9	7.9	128.7	2,293.2
Huff	Fastball	43	20	23	89.3	8.0	9.7	140.4	2,500.3
Huff	Slider	16	11	5	79.5	1.9	0.3	107.6	485.5
Escalona	Change	3	0	3	80.6	8.6	7.0	129.5	2,003.1
Escalona	Curve	1	0	1	77.7	-5.0	-5.3	316.8	1,259.6
Escalona	Sinker	5	0	5	88.8	11.3	6.9	121.1	2,612.6
Escalona	Fastball	9	0	9	89.3	7.1	9.7	143.6	2,386.7

Bard throws hard. Augenstein throws maybe three pitches in his sinker/change-up continuum. He doesn't throw hard, but he slings it.

Each of a pitcher's dots represents a the average release point for a specific pitch type. Huff releases his fastball from a different spot, otherwise they're all pretty consistent.

That's it for this week. I suspect Bard will be most likely to be profiled in detail.

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