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New Arms of the Week - August 10-16

Six rookies got the call and made their major league debuts this week. This will mostly be a run-down of their basic PITCHf/x numbers, but I have a few observations - despite the small samples.

rookie pitch # vs LHH vs RHH MPH PFX_X PFX_Z DEG RPM
Cesar Carrillo Change 11 6 5 86.2 -7 2 253 1429
Cesar Carrillo Curve 17 7 10 80.5 7 -4 58 1419
Cesar Carrillo Sinker 8 8 0 93.9 -8 5 237 1916
Cesar Carrillo Fastball 26 11 15 94.5 -6 8 215 2063
Esmailin Caridad Change 1 1 0 81.3 -7 2 252 1278
Esmailin Caridad Sinker 24 8 16 92.8 -6 5 231 1591
Esmailin Caridad Fastball 45 26 19 94.4 -4 8 207 1799
Esmailin Caridad Slider 22 3 19 77.6 7 -2 76 1287
Jeff Manship Change 5 3 2 81.5 -7 8 224 1964
Jeff Manship Sinker 12 12 0 90.0 -10 8 231 2499
Jeff Manship Fastball 12 4 8 90.0 -7 11 212 2620
Jeff Manship Cutter 2 0 2 84.6 0 5 180 876
Jeff Manship Slider 5 3 2 80.1 4 0 95 672
Justin Berg Sinker 13 8 5 92.4 -7 4 240 1781
Justin Berg Fastball 2 0 2 92.1 -4 5 219 1397
Justin Berg Slider 12 8 4 83.8 0 4 174 725
Samuel Gervacio Sinker 5 5 0 92.7 -8 -4 298 1818
Samuel Gervacio Fastball 9 2 7 95.0 -8 3 249 1801
Samuel Gervacio Slider 14 2 12 86.4 3 -2 78 804
Trevor Bell Change 9 8 1 85.8 -3 3 217 856
Trevor Bell Sinker 1 1 0 91.1 -4 5 221 1181
Trevor Bell Fastball 47 24 23 93.7 -2 9 191 1935
Trevor Bell Cutter 5 5 0 85.6 0 7 183 1326
Trevor Bell Slider 13 3 10 86.2 2 2 135 643

 

Berg has already been demoted by the Cubs, and his debut actually came during his second cup of coffee.  Continuing the Cubs them, Caridad looks like he'll stick around until the next regular comes of the DL and Carrillo will make his first major league start Tuesday when the Padres host Chicago. Carrillo also happens to be a Chicago native who as made his way back from Tommy John surgery.

Star-divide

Since the samples are so very limited, there isn't a whole lot to say. But here are a few notes.

  1. Caridad has managed to get a .31 whiff rate on his fastball, which is impressive
  2. Gervacio has shown an early ability to get grounders, while Carrillo and Caridad have not
  3. More Carrillo - worst strike rate, whiff rate and SLGCON in the Small Sample Derby
  4. Manship threw the most strikes (24/36)
  5. Bell's slider may need to be revisited, some may have been splitters

Yea, that's all I got.

0 recs  |  Comment 8 comments |

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Harry, I think it would be great if you did some work on figuring out the relative importance

And the stabilization rate of each of the stats that you have. IMO, they would be much more interesting (not that they aren’t) if they “meant” something.

SIGN JOHN SMOLTZ

by vivaelpujols on Aug 17, 2009 7:29 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Differentiating pitches

Hey Harry,

I’m not sure if you’ve answered this somewhere else — please feel free to point me there if you have. But, why, for example, did you decide to split Carrillo’s fastball up into 2 different pitches? They seem awfully close in terms of speed and movement.

by arzdb on Aug 17, 2009 9:03 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Spin axis

That’s the main factor, for me, in splitting two- and four-seam fastballs (AKA sinkers and fastballs). In his case, the split was tough to make.; Sinkers were anything with a spin axis >230. You could move that over to 225 and convert a few from one group to the other.

by Harry Pavlidis on Aug 17, 2009 10:29 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I've been trying to classify without spin

more ideas are good to know! thanks

by arzdb on Aug 17, 2009 11:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Be sure to go game-by-game

or park-by-park at least, when splitting fastball types.

by Harry Pavlidis on Aug 18, 2009 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

how extreme are the park factors for pitchfx?

I’ve seen the dramatic differences in release point and sometimes velocity — is it fair to assume that they affect anything pitchfx picks up? does it affect some things more than others?

by arzdb on Aug 18, 2009 10:24 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

it varies

The whole things is based on a very sophisticated estimate of 8 characteristics of the ball’s flight when it is 50 ft from the back tip of home plate.
lateral and vertical position (in addition to the set 50 ft value for “y”, although I move everything back to y=55)
acceleration in three directions
velocity in three directions

From there, you/Gameday derive speed, movement and other spin characteristics. Any variance in the 8 factors that are free to vary (x0,z0,ax,ay,az,vx0,vy0,vz0) will impact the “derived” measures we’re most familiar with (mph, pfx_x,pfx_z,rpm,spin axis).

by Harry Pavlidis on Aug 18, 2009 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

makes sense

I just added a correction for park in and it helped tremendously. I didn’t realize how much tighter it made everything. Thanks for the suggestion.

One more question, going back to what I was originally asking: do you use a cluster sorting algorithm (k-means) and then classify the groups or do you just cut off individual pitches?

by arzdb on Aug 18, 2009 3:39 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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