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Around SBN: Did The Giants Run Buddy Ryan's 'Polish Goalline'?

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

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

Star-divide

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.

Ni01_medium

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

Against lefties:

Ni02_medium

Against righties:

Ni03_medium

 

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.

Mort01_medium

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.

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Interesting

Mortensen has always been sinker, slider, change as far as I know. He went back to AAA with a vengeance and struck out 8 in 7 IP, and I think just allowed 3 hits.

godfather of futureredbirds.net

by erik on Jul 7, 2009 5:34 PM EDT reply actions  

I wonder about that one, though

I need to do some more snooping on the data from that game.

by Harry Pavlidis on Jul 7, 2009 5:39 PM EDT up reply actions  

Oh, and the fastball is a sinker

There may be a few four-seamers, same deal for Ni.

by Harry Pavlidis on Jul 7, 2009 5:40 PM EDT up reply actions  

it was just

first ML outing jitters

that and the fact that he wasn’t ready

Of course, hope means being cut down on some street corner, as you run like mad, by a random bullet.

by prophetjohn on Jul 8, 2009 1:36 AM EDT up reply actions  

fu ti ni

isn’t that what the jawas are always yelling in Episode 4?

I am a nerd.

godfather of futureredbirds.net

by erik on Jul 7, 2009 6:18 PM EDT reply actions   1 recs

ha

I am like your Dan Aykroyd and biglow would be Jane, the ignorant slut. -Chad

Good ol' KO

by thecoolest on Jul 7, 2009 11:22 PM EDT up reply actions  

“Need” = Ni
“Food” = Fu-Te

and his name “Fu-Te” is the name of the Earth God in Taiwan _

by PTT.bbs on Jul 9, 2009 8:40 AM EDT reply actions  

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